Emanuele Disco
SW engineer, film maker
Full time front and back end developer, I play mostly with Java, Javascript, HTML, Python and C#, I love programming, playing pc game, doing astronomy, studying and many other stuff and I do video as well…
She is my first love, we met twelve years ago, thanks to my family, I was able to afford it, I have beautiful memory with her, to keep for the rest of my life, but she still have lots to give and so today is time to clean her!
I decided to strip down my mount a second time, during a period of inactivity, and since I don’t have time to use it, better to get it in shape for when will be used.
I put here some of the photos I took during the strip and I will comments them if I feel to share some thoughts about it.
It should be said though, stripping this mount is not easy nor hard, but require knowledge and lot of patience. Before starting anything, you should know well, what steps you need to do and also you need to take your time, don’t try to go harsh or too fast or you might have a bad day.
I highly recommend to read the well made guide by Astrobaby about the stripping of the HEQ5. I read the guide many times before attempting the disassembling.
The Declination Axis
The power panel should be unscrewed but not totally removed since it is connected with many cables to the motors.
In order to remove the counterweight bar, I remove the dovetail carrier, and from there is possible to take out the bar.
Here I remove the counterweight collar, make sure you keep an eye on the bearing inside, since it can come off really easily and drop on the floor.
Loosen the worm adjustment set screws, remove the three cap head bolts at the top of the worm carrier and with care movement the declination shaft should slide out.
Before removing the DEC unit, is better to remove the silver Phillips screw in the declination
lock lever and its bolt. Than the brass declination gear should slide out from the shaft with small effort, but make sure you have a hand below to prevent the gear from falling down.
The Right Ascension Axis
Remove the lock lever and the bolt, loosen the adjustment screws (one under the power panel and the other in the opposite location) and remove the top three bolts from the worm carrier.
At this point you can remove the RA unit from the base with small effort.
During the disassembling you will find some small clear washers, is it really important to replace them back where they was during the re-assembly.
Using some sandpaper I removed extra paint from the surface that has direct contact with the warm gears.
I bought two new bearings, since I damaged one during the attempt of removing it, the model is the 6006Z Deep Groove Ball Bearing NSK Single Shielded.
List of bearings for HEQ5 Pro