Friday, March 30, 2007

My EQ6 mount improvement - Part 2

Last time we were at the stage where the gears came out of the ultrasonic cleaner all nice an shiny. The next step is to take very precise measurements of the gears. One type of measurement performed is to measure the "run out" of the gear. This is done on a machine scale as shown below:

My gears averaged out less than 0.001" overall deviation. Pretty darn good! Next, the gears are checked on an optical comparator:

This device allows a very exact measurement so that the right amount of WS2 can be applied. Here's a view of the worm gear before treatment showing the roughness and machining marks:

After treatment you can see that everything looks much nicer:

After coating, a close-up inspection of the gear shows the WS2 coating as a light-colored edge on the teeth of the gears:

And here's a picture of the gears after coating. The WS2 is the darker area on the surfaces of the gears:

That's it for now. My mount is almost ready and should be back next week. Just in time for more cloudy weather!

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