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Got to say that is seriously unusual. As you say, it looks like the result of some ancient leaking battery or electrolytic capacitor, neither of which are there to leak! I reckon I would be pretty comfortable that iOptron will send out a new board. Interesting to see the change, the main board on my CEM70G (An early one with the USB input on the base of the mount) is in the base of the mount, all that is there on the cap of the RA axis is a small connector for the power cable to the front of the saddle. |
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Just looking again at your pic, is it not possible on the current mount to feed a cable down through the center? I have a USB3 cable for the imaging camera fed down the middle as the ASI2600 proved not to play nicely when connected to a hub, and the cable passes through a hole in the middle of the plate you have removed there which now has the main board on it. I am thinking of the correct plate aren't I? That is the cap on the rear of the RA axis? |
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Yes this is the ra plate. there is a usb3 input and 12 volts for the dec plate in here. I could pass a cable through, but this is the board and the usb that controls the mount. nina sees the camera and guider but mount control stops everytime at random, ioptron commander loses connection. And then guiding stops. Still waiting for reply from ioptron but that takes usually 2-3 weeks.. |
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My 70NUC comes tomorrow. I have a tangentially related question for anyone else with the LiteRoc. I unboxed my LiteRoc last night and there was no leg spreader/accessory tray. I am confused because it's shown in the pictures and also listed in the description, but also listed as an accessory that is not included in other places. Is that part supposed to be included? At least I can use my HEQ5 plate for the time being and print my own spreader anyway. It seemed weird, though. |
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Dick Bakker: Wow! That looks like someones cat did the soldering and then left it outside for a year! I would say that Ioptron will fix this for you...unbelievable though... |
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In case this is useful for anyone considering the CEM70. I have only been able to use the mount a few times because WA and BC are flooding. In the times I have been able to use the mount, I have been impressed with the performance, even though the iOpteron software for controlling the mount is - bleh. Here's an example of my (limited) guiding last night, with dithering every 4 frames - the payload was a RASA 8, 200mm guide scope, power box, and several rails, etc. This is a heavy and weirdly shaped enough payload I need to use two counterweights about mid-beam on the CW shaft. The end of the graph signals the end of the night when the clouds came back. :\  |
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Impressive...I have the same setup with an asi 120mm guide scope and I get .35-.4 '' on average, also better than expected for my inner city skies. Ioptron sent me a replacement usb board and it fixed the usb3 disconnects. Qc is not their strength and they should improve that, but the cem70G mount is now a pleasure to image with. Cheers |
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Ivan Raichev: *Are you in Florida by any chance?? I would like to know how to do this on mine but without pictures or a video, it's hard to picture it! |
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I just bought the CEM70EC and so far have found it incredibly stable and tracks in RA perfectly with NO[b] [/b]guiding. DEC will be fine without guiding with good polar alignment. So far with a Celestron 925 at 1480 mm focal length, any RA and DEC wiggles are within 0.5 arc sec over about 200 seconds. DEC and RA are following each other in drift, so this is all my bad in polar alignment, any drift that I am seeing. I didn't see much else in terms of any excursions otherwise in tracking. I don't have much experience yet with my new mount, but I am really happy with this so far. I had decided with this upgraded mount, from my CGX, that I wanted to get a mount that knew where it was in RA, and would compensate on the fly. So far it is worth every extra penny. If you can, I would suggest EC. You may not even need to guide. Clear skies Rick |
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| I just purchased a new CEM70 and trying it out now. Not really impressed so far - ipolar is way off even after calibration and the tracking is off. i can't guide with PHD2. I will need to plug away more and get to know the mount better I guess but i never had issues like this with other mounts. |
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Hi Jérémie. I have to say that friends around me won't consider ioptron cem70. |
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Steve de Lisle: Way off? the mount points to polaris... are you using their software to do PA? |
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Finally got to take my CEM70 out and so far not disappointed. iPolar with the new 2.6 software got me to 0.1 arc mins PA, according to PHD2 guiding assistant Seeing is only average tonight and it is windy but guiding seems good to me  |
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Hi Julio. Yes. I did use the ipolar software. I went through the calibration and set up routine. The mount was over 40 arc minutes out according to Phd. I'm in the southern hemisphere so no Polaris. |
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| I must have got a good one. My CEM70G performs like a champ. IPolar gets me within a couple of arc minutes and the iGuider runs to around 0.4” RMS, better than I get from my Paramount MX! iOptron software looks like it was written for MSDOS and some of the fit and finish leaves a lot to be desired but the base mechanics are sound. |
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My Ioptron CEM 70 EC (with encoder on AR), when precisely pointed to north (I use pole master) is capable of exposure of 180 and 240 sec (with a focal length of 800mm.) without autoguide also using an acquisition sensor with pixel size of 2.9 nm. Paolo |
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I bought the CEM 70 in October 2020 and have always had serious driving problems that I did not have in the EQ30 Pro. I have done everything and instead of improving the situation is making me worse. I am very disappointed and frustrated with this mount I took to use the new 300mm telescope. parked in the house for 9 months because I can't drive a 200mm discreetly. I made adjustments to everything: belts and gear but it didn't help. The chase it does on its own without the guide correction already creates oval stars after 30 seconds, a disappointment indeed. I didn't mess around with the program, so I was expecting a good performance from the start but I never got this one. When I get 0.12 guides they are a miracle. The thing that has been driving me crazy lately is that driving resembles heartbeats, because while it goes quietly it makes crazy shots as if I have tripped, both in Dec and in AR, but they are not equidistant or repetitive at the same time, but they are allies but many. This week for the umpteenth time I will open everything, and I will clean everything, and I will put on a different grease. And here's a question of mine that I haven't heard anyone talk about: Did anyone put fat on it? if so which one did you use? However, I find that the management of the thrust of the worm towards the toothed disc is very precarious and poorly managed. I had to adjust it after the outside temperature dropped below 0. so it seems absurd to me that it is not able to manage a thermal decrease. Thanks to those who give me advice. Maurizio Camerin |
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I am loving my CEM70 too, this is a typical night for me, main difference I have experienced is how quickly the CEM70 reacts to changes in PHD2 compared to other mounts I have used. It just makes fine-tuning easier after a proper 3D balance, calibration and running the guiding assistant for min 10 mins. |
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I posted a while ago about my usb3 disconnect problems with my cem70g. Nothing changed the problem, hq usb3 cables, 13.8v stable power supply etc. After contacting support I got a replacement usb3 dec board and that resolved all issues. Tracking is very good, unguided at 500 mm for 180 s, and I don't have the ec version just the G. The mount works excellent with asiair , just make sure you connect the usb3 mount cable to a usb2 port on the asiair. One special note: IF YOU USE A BATTERY, MAKE SURE THE POLES ARE NOT WRONGLY CONNECTED happened to me ... there is no diode protection, my mount was smoking..and dead. so I ordered a new mainboard, dec and ra board. Set me back 600 euros. But it works ike a charm again. Cheers Dick |
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USB problems: I found the connector to the board had worked loose making performance intermittent. You have to take the Dec saddle apart to access it. Dec performance: got worse for me so did complete rebalance. I stripped down the Dec assembly to access the worm screw on the left side and adjusted meshing of worm gear. rms dropped from 1.2 down to 0.4 typical. RA performance was also poor. So I stripped down RA housing to access the worm gear left hand side grub screw - that was loose. Adjusted meshing and rms is also down from 1. 2 to around 0.7 to 0.4. I have not tried adjusting belt tension yet. I also now do 3D balancing. Not sure which adjustment made the most difference but now my resolving power is seeing and not mount limited. |
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USB problems: I found the connector to the board had worked loose making performance intermittent. You have to take the Dec saddle apart to access it. Can you please give a brief description of your adjustment of the worm mesh? The manual shows where the screws are but gives no real direction other than stating not to exceed 1/4 turn, which is kind of useless. On other mounts, I would tighten until the mount started to bind, then back off a bit. But I’m concerned that the process might be different based on the spring loading mechanism (which is also conveniently not described). |
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I have the basic CEM70 and it has performed very well this past year. It has an ipolar - which I have found works well enough. I did not buy the iguider version because iguider focal length is too short to adequately guide my f =1200 mm telescope. Currently the CEM70 is carrying a massive 44lb of weight (a 300mm F 4.0 Newtonian plus cameras and 80mm guidescope, focuser etc) and - provided there is not too much wind and all is balanced up carefully - it will guide right down to 0.5 arc sec RMS according to PHD2. I have never bothered with PPEC so I don't know if it clashes with PHD2. It is important to make sure everything is fully tightened up and to pay attention to balance and cables . For most deepsky uses (resolution > 0.9 arc sec/ pixel so and exposures > 30s or so) so far so good with this mount after 1.5 yr. of use. However there do seem to be some problems with the CEM70 which only become apparent when your uses become more demanding -- e.g. longer > 1000 mm focal lengths -resolution down to 0.4 arcsec and short frames (2-3s) for lucky imaging. Under these conditions I have consistently had problems with elongation of star shapes - always in the same RA direction so it is certainly the mount - even under conditions where PHD2 reports roughly equal RA and DEC RMS errors. A possible and perhaps likely explanation is some gear binding in RA - but thus far I have not been able to fix it or find a sweet spot. So overall I think the answer to ther CEM70 question is going to depend on what you are using it for - clearly good in many ways - normal deep sky use - but maybe not so good for some more demanding uses? Tim |
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Very happy with my CEM 70G - the built in guide camera is awesome, usually resulting in .4" on average. I'm now using it without the built in guider in combination with my OAG and it's performing even better! Here's last night's graph.   |
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Finally got around to having a proper look at my guide logs. Guiding has been good both with my short FL refractor and long FL SCT, however the below RA analysis leads me to think there is room for improvement in RA. I have a habit for overthinking things so please tell me in case this is nothing to worry about. Also the guidelog PHD2_GuideLog_2022-07-16_183434.txt |
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| It looks pretty clean and repeatable to me. If your guiding is good, why worry? It does look like PEC could provide an improvement. The more repeatable the PE, the better PEC can offset the errors. |
