Abnormal behaviour lead to some mechanical failure.

Harmonic Geared Mount
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Tumbleweeds5
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun May 07, 2023 7:03 pm

Abnormal behaviour lead to some mechanical failure.

Post by Tumbleweeds5 »

I am pretty sure something broke and I will need a warranty repair. But I wanted to document it here in case others go through the same issues.

I was using the mobile Unity the whole time and this is what happened after the initial power on:

- Mount was physically home, but when I pressed the Home button, it got a few degrees out of center, so I corrected it and pressed Set Home.
- Power off, mount the telescope and power on, the mount immediately slewed full speed to W and stopped when the telescope hit the tripod, I powered it off as quickly as I could.
- Removed the telescope and powered on again. No sudden moves, so I pressed Home and nothing happened, so I manually slewed back to its home position and pressed Set Home.
- But when I presses Home to verify it was set correctly, it slewed 180 and stopped upside down.
- After that, not matter what I did, it would slew W just fine, but it will only slew E up to the 180 point (upside down center), never pass that.
- So I kept trying moving back and forth, resetting Home and power cycling, but at one point I think it went W too far, something like 270 degrees from what would be the home position, and there was a cracking noise.
- After that there are some weird grinding noise every time I slew, some times the it moves a little bit and then stops.
- I hocked it up to a Windows PC and Unity shows status Motor Drive failed.

Aside from the obvious fact that I need to get it repaired, I have a couple of questions:

Why would the mount all of a sudden decide the Home positions was upside down?
And why would it refuse to go E past that point after that?

All this happened while using firmware version 1.17.

Oh and one more thing, the Unity app on Android gets closed every time I click on Park. Is that a known issue?
dasi56
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue May 09, 2023 4:22 pm

Re: Abnormal behaviour lead to some mechanical failure.

Post by dasi56 »

Tumbleweeds5 wrote: Sun May 07, 2023 7:46 pm I am pretty sure something broke and I will need a warranty repair. But I wanted to document it here in case others go through the same issues.

I was using the mobile Unity the whole time and this is what happened after the initial power on:

- Mount was physically home, but when I pressed the Home button, it got a few degrees out of center, so I corrected it and pressed Set Home.
- Power off, mount the telescope and power on, the mount immediately slewed full speed to W and stopped when the telescope hit the tripod, I powered it off as quickly as I could.
- Removed the telescope and powered on again. No sudden moves, so I pressed Home and nothing happened, so I manually slewed back to its home position and pressed Set Home.
- But when I presses Home to verify it was set correctly, it slewed 180 and stopped upside down.
- After that, not matter what I did, it would slew W just fine, but it will only slew E up to the 180 point (upside down center), never pass that.
- So I kept trying moving back and forth, resetting Home and power cycling, but at one point I think it went W too far, something like 270 degrees from what would be the home position, and there was a cracking noise.
- After that there are some weird grinding noise every time I slew, some times the it moves a little bit and then stops.
- I hocked it up to a Windows PC and Unity shows status Motor Drive failed.

Aside from the obvious fact that I need to get it repaired, I have a couple of questions:

Why would the mount all of a sudden decide the Home positions was upside down?
And why would it refuse to go E past that point after that?

All this happened while using firmware version 1.17.

Oh and one more thing, the Unity app on Android gets closed every time I click on Park. Is that a known issue?
Firmware 1.20 has been released, install it and it should fix the problems
TessaKimura
Posts: 18
Joined: Mon May 01, 2023 8:57 am

Re: Abnormal behaviour lead to some mechanical failure.

Post by TessaKimura »

Hello there! Based on the symptoms you've described, it sounds like there might be some issues with your mount and it's recommended that you take advantage of the warranty to get it repaired. Diagnosing the root cause of the problem can be tricky, as there are many potential factors that could be contributing to the issue. One possibility is that the mount is misinterpreting the Home position or is unable to move beyond a certain point.
Tumbleweeds5
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun May 07, 2023 7:03 pm

Re: Abnormal behaviour lead to some mechanical failure.

Post by Tumbleweeds5 »

Thanks for the replies. I did install 1.20, after the ordeal, so unfortunately too late to rack any benefits or fixes :cry:

As for warranty, I did send an email to Pegasus Astro support 5 days ago asking for the procedure, but I have yet to hear back from them...
TessaKimura
Posts: 18
Joined: Mon May 01, 2023 8:57 am

Re: Abnormal behaviour lead to some mechanical failure.

Post by TessaKimura »

Wait for the warranty reply. if you can't get a reply back got to the store owner were you purchased the product. I thing they can help you
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