Customer Reviews

Orion AstroTrack Drive for EQ-1 Equatorial Telescope Mount

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When I first hooked up the motor and turned it on, I was surprised to see Saturn reverse course and head east. I had to tweak the speed control to try and match the sidereal rate. This wouldn't be bad if you only had to do it once, but it slows down as the battery wears out (which will happen MUCH faster than the 35 hours advertised). So you'll find yourself tweaking the speed control often.

The worst part about this motor is that it makes fine manual R.A. control impossible. There's no "clutch"--you can't rotate the R.A. worm gear shaft without disconnecting the motor first. But you can't reconnect the motor without first rotating the worm gear shaft so that its groove lines up with the thumbscrew on the drive shaft. So the only way to adjust right ascension with the motor attached is to loosen the R.A. lock nut and slew the telescope manually, which can be difficult at high magnifications.

I too had problems with this motor reversing the tracking of celestial objects. I originally thought it was just a problem with my motor until I read the other review of this product.

To begin with, the on/off swith was overly sensitive. Once on, the slightest touch would turn the motor off (although the switch still showed it was on). Later, for some unknown reason, it would be on, but the slightest touch to the N/S switch would turn it off. Could have been a wiring defect...although I couldn't find anything wrong with the wiring (no obvious shorts or anything). When I switched the motor from north hemisphere to south, the tracking only got worse (which I knew it would). In order to get decent tracking, I had to end up turning the motor upside down and put the switch on S (for south hemisphere). This configuration was accidentally discovered through many, many trials and errors. Just when I got everything good enough to manage, the battery started dying out. A fresh battery was installed, but it did not last the advertised length of time. In three nights (about 6 hours per night), I went through 2 batteries! About 98 percent of that time was spent on getting the tracking right. On top of that, I still had to constantly adjust the speed of the motor and all I was able to get out of it was about 4 solid minutes of accurate tracking at a time. Three nights for a total of about 18 hours of work for a total of 4 minutes of tracking from an upside down installed, reversed motor. You tell me if this motor is worth the $30.

So, in all, this is a big headache of a motor and I plan on trashing this one so I can buy another one. At least I didn't lose a lot of money.