Skywatcher Focuser Modification

THIS IS NOT THE BEST WAY TO DO THIS MOD CHECK OUT MY MARK II VERSION 

HERE

Ok so thought you might be interested in some of the modifications I have made to my telescope to make it just that much easer to use and better to use.

First mod I took out on my telescope was to fix the focuser, the standard focuser is really wobbly and focusing on a distant star with out the image jumping out of your field of view is pretty much impossible.

What I did to remedy this was to centre the focuser tube in the barrel and make it a little tighter.

I had done this previously with felt but it provided too much friction.

Anyway the stock focuser had 2 pieces of plastic with parallel grooves running down it, these were useless I took those out and  removed the sticky stuff with a small wad of brasso (great sticky stuff remover)

I then took 3 tooth picks and cut them in half length ways and stuck them into the focuser barrel equally using some double sided tape

Ugly but it works! 

I then checked for fit and found it was a little tight so I sanded the tooth picks down a little at a time till I got a nice smooth fit.

All that was left to do was remove the horrible sticky grease from the rack and pinion system and replace it with  some higher quality grease. (I found that the factory stuff was quite sticky and made it difficult to focus without too much force which increases wobble) Anyway with a good glob of grease replace the focuser  and retention spring and tighten the screws till it stops wobbling but not too tight that it becomes difficult to focus.

Done

hope you found this of some use :)

HK