Thought my mount was junk for 6 months, turns out I was torquing the clutch knob like a lug nut
I got a used tracking mount in March and my stars kept trailing on anything past 30 seconds, so I figured the thing was worn out and started pricing replacements. Last week I was packing up at a dark site outside Tucson and a guy next to me watched me crank the clutch down and just said "you know you can barely snug that, right?" I looked it up in the manual that night and it says hand tight only, and I had been treating it like a car tire for half a year. Re-tested at 90 seconds on the Pleiades and got round stars on the first try, no money spent. Now I'm wondering what else I've been over-tightening without knowing it. Anyone got a piece of gear they were ready to replace before finding out it was user error?