DIYbanter - View Single Post

e writes:

The shaft for the pinion floats in the "box", and the flat piece
inside is the spring that keeps tension on it, keeping it fully
engaged. Where the spring contacts the shafts, use a heavy grease,
it's slow turning, but needs the lubrication. IF, when the pinion is
fully engaged in the rack, the shafts hit the bottom of the slots, the
rack is worn out.

That seems like a simple enough test.

I would be more concerned if there was slop in the
drawtube/focuser body fit.

As a matter of fact, there seems to be, if I understand you correctly
to mean on the same surface that the rack is mounted to. It is mostly
near the rack but "slop" is a good description of it.

This is also compensated for by the flat
spring in the "box". The spring should press the pinion into the
rack, and also to one side of the slots the shaft runs in.

When you say "to one side", I think you mean either towards or away
from the eyepiece. This is an interesting point. As I mentioned, all
three flat pieces could simply sit on the 4 pedestals in the box, which
would lead to a symmetric pressure on the pinion axis. You seem to be
saying that is undesirable. On the other hand, when I opened the box,
there was asymmetry in the placement of the flat pieces: the one furthest
into the box was placed diagonally with one short edge at the "top" of the
box and the other short edge at the "bottom", where top and bottom refer
to distance from the drawtube/focuser body. The other two were placed
as flat as possible, given the asymmetric placement of the first one.
So, you seem to be saying that the way I found it was correct. Thanks!
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.