Translate this page to Spanish, French, Portugeuse, German, Japanese, Italian or Russian courtesy of the Babel Fish.

Home | Quickcams in Space | The On-going Dome House Project | Custom Optical Encoders on CG-5 | Modifying the CG-5 Worm Gear

Correcting some of the CG-5 Minor Irritations

Some aspects of the CG-5 are well thought out and some, it appears, were thoughtless. The good news, the fixes are of the commonsense variety and easy. R.A. Locking Lever| D.E.C Motor Plug| Hand Paddle Power Connection| Slo-Mo Knobs
R.A. Locking Lever This can be really irritating the first night you hook up your dual drive motors. When it's loosened, the R.A. locking level is about 1/8-inch too high to clear the base of the D.E.C. motor. The solution is simple. Just file or grind about 1/8-inch off the top of the lever. You don't have to do the entire lever just about 1/2 inch from the end. Click on the image to see a larger version.
D.E.C Motor Plug Another one of those things where you wonder what the designers were thinking. The stock D.E.C. motor has it's phone plug connection mounted on a little circuit board about 3/8-inch wide. The little board sticks out like a sore thumb so it's only a matter of time until you break it off as you move or pack the scope up to take it home. Again, the solution is simple. I cut a small piece of 1/16-inch thick brass plate to about the same dimensions as the circuit board. I connected a male phone connector to the four wires coming from the motor. Drill two holes in the brass plate to match those in the motor housing and used the same screws that held the circuit board in place. I used a Radio Shack mini phone cord union in place of circuit board mounted receptical. A heavy duty wire tie holds it in place. Take Note. The four colors of the wires coming out of the motor are the same as the standard colors on a four-wire phone cord. However, the colors do not match. That is, red does not necessary connect to red, green to green, so note the order of the colors before you take it apart. If you already have broken the board, the color sequence of the R.A. motor wires is the same. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Hand Paddle Power Connection It's pitch dark, you're in the middle of trying to take a sequence of CCD images and suddenly the mount stops tracking. What happened? You've snagged the power cord from the battery pack to the hand paddle and it came un-plugged. It doesn't take much; the thing slips out very easily. Solution: Velcro is a wonderful thing. A tie on the power cable and a patch of the "hooks" part of Velcro on the side of paddle. This lets you easily lock the power cable in place. If you really snag it, the Velcro will release before you tear something up. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Slo-Mo Knobs This isn't so much of a design oversight as an upgrade. It's irritating trying to find the slo-mo knob in the dark. An eight- or ten-inch cable is about right. I liked the big knob so much I tried to put a shorty cable on on the R.A., but there are some places, toward zenith, for example, where the big knob wouldn't allow the scope to move. So, I drilled out the cable and epoxied a brass slip-fit bushing in its place. Now I can used the big knob on the R.A. most of the time and when it gets in the way, slip it off and put it on the gear end of the worm gear. Click on either image to see a larger version.
Replacing those damn aluminum legs The aluminum legs that come with the CG-5 look slick. Many people offer options. (See www.AstronomyBoy.com/cg5/tripod.html) I wanted some other, more cosmetic and less expensive options. Inexpensive wooden legs for the CG-5