iOptron CEM60 - Declination Gears

[@plumberman19]

I appreciate this a ton...even 4 years later, and I'm sure many years to come it'll help others and probably preserve a few CEM60 worms, haha. I really needed to understand the inner working of the clutch mechanism to keep my mind at ease. When I know how it works, I know that I am using it correctly and not damaging it.

[@_Astrovert]

Glad it helped!!!!

[@zakry3323]

I've been wondering how these clutches work for a while now, it's been the main thing keeping me from upgrading to a CEM60. Very enlightening, thank you.

[@_Astrovert]

You're welcome!!

[@mgastronomy]

Hi Jeff. Thank you for positing this video. I always wondered how that works. I was a bit scared of playing with the gears. Now I am confident. Thanks again. Clear skies.

[@_Astrovert]

You're welcome!!

[@aozhou4535]

My mount also requires me to push the knob to the ground to disengage it. Thank you for sharing the video!

[@cmas-astronomy4715]

Excellent video. I don't have a CEM 60 (I purchased a CEM40) but I now know how the magnetic clutches work!

[@astrophotonics9470]

Gonna give that washer thing a try. Good Video.

[@RaysAstrophotography]

CEM60 seems like a brand new design!

[@1911zach]

I believe it came out late 2013/early 2014 time, great design, love mine!

[@RaysAstrophotography]

@@1911zach I debated in my head between this and CGX for a while. I went ahead with CGX-L.

[@_Astrovert]

@@RaysAstrophotography Sweet mount!!! How do you like it?

[@RaysAstrophotography]

@@_Astrovert love it. It can hold my Celestron RASA 11.

[@harrisonaustin3071]

Great video and very useful, be very careful when turning the gear switch knob to engage and disengage the magnetic clutches, mine sheared off possibly due to defective brass material being used. Apparently a few owners have had the same problem.

[@naavie]

This was really helpful, thanks!

[@vladimirmachek2524]

Thank you for very instructive video. I would like ask you for your judgement... I just bought new CEM 60 CE and I am testing it. Unfortunately, the tracking (SDRL) noise is not so good. I just placed video on my KZbin channel. Could you look at and hear this noise ? Is it normal ? Produce your CEM60 same noise ? I carefully red Instruction manual and tried to adjust it with Gear switch knob, but this adjustment has no influence on this noise. Please be so kind and give your feedback. Many thanks in advance.

[@_Astrovert]

Hi Vladimir, I listened to the noise and there is definitely something rubbing or not set correctly in your RA gears. If adjusting the tension on the engage/disengage knob doesn't help, you'll need to open up the mount and check for a belt that has slipped off a little bit or is rubbing on the cover plate. There may be a rub mark to indicate this. Take pictures/video to help with reassembly. Hope this helps, please post your results.

[@vladimirmachek2524]

@@_Astrovert Thank you very much Jeff for your view and advise. I have contacted Ioptron too, but no answer yet... I will post result.

[@vladimirmachek2524]

@@_Astrovert Hello Jeff, Thank you very much for you feedback. I very appreciate it.

[@1Andypro]

Great video - thank you! My CEM60 was measured at 4 arcsec RA peak to peak at the factory, but after dropping it once (my own fault, doh) and unintentionally hitting it, PHD2 now gives me a semi-consistent RA peak-to-peak value of about 20 arcsec. And naturally my RA guiding is garbage as it's all over the place and the error isn't periodic. Is it worth me trying to take apart my RA gear to see what's going on, or should I find a specialist who can "re-tune" the gears for me?

[@_Astrovert]

That's a tough question. I would look into it as much as you feel comfortable doing. See if there's anything obviously loose or shifted. I didn't remove any gears since I didn't have a need to and I'm not familiar with the process. If you don't feed comfortable with something then have someone else look at it. I've made plenty of things worse by not knowing what I was doing.

[@1Andypro]

@@_Astrovert Good advice. Thanks.

[@V12DB7C4D]

Did you solve your problem?

[@espritastrophotography9925]

Jeff. How thick of a washer did u use? Good hint

[@_Astrovert]

It's only about 1mm thick. The shaft that it goes on is 8mm. The one in the video slips around a bit so I bought a new one that is 5/16" ID and a smaller outer diameter. It fits perfectly!

[@john2y92]

I can't wait to get mine in a couple of months. I was just wondering, how much can it go past the meridian? On regular EQ mounts you can go quite far but looking at the CEM build it looks like you have to do the meridian flip almost immediately.

[@_Astrovert]

Per the manual, you can "tell the mount when to stop tracking or to do a meridian flip. The limit can be set at from 0° to 15° (1 hour) pass meridian for Northern Hemisphere and 0° to 10° for Southern Hemisphere. " Personally, I set SGP to flip at 5° past and the mount to "stop" at 10° past. Then if there's ever an issue with SGP the mount should stop on its own. There is also a hard stop on the mount.

[@john2y92]

Thank you for answer, that's really good to hear :-)

[@palermofirenze]

Interesting--tinkering worthy of a Losmandy!

[@adityams1659]

Wouldn't it be a problem while meshing

[@_Astrovert]

The spacer helps to get the worm gear a little farther away from the ring gear (at that "end" of the range). It doesn't change where or how they mesh. Hope this helps.

[@mirceaar]

That's some bad design concept there, given the field work conditions such a mount might go through.

[@lachezarkrastev7123]

This system is absolutely stupid design, because you can strip your gear very easy.