Motors

Last semester one of the rotator motors had a problem with the brushes which were replaced. Buying a new spare is very expensive, so the old brushes were repaired. It was also found that replacing the brushes was very difficult, and some modifications were designed to make this simpler. It was decided to take the opportunity to make the modifications, test the repaired brushes, and check the brushes in the second rotator motors. This was very fortunate, as the brushes in that motor were also close to been worn out, and they were replaced. The repaired brushes work fine, and are currently installed.

As part of the investigation in to the problems with the image quality, it was suspected there might be problems with the brushes of the azimuth motors, and both units where opened and cleaned of carbon dust and any other residue. For the motor with the encoder mounted on it, this was a new procedure for all who participated, but was successfully done eventually. Some dust was removed and the brushes inspected and all found to be in good working order.

As part of being prepared for possible problems, some spare analogue PI boards for the altitude and azimuth drive systems were tested and configured.