Interesting challenges with my new iOptron CEM60 mount. All setup in observatory but last job was to polar align it. Polar alignment is an essential task that aligns the mount with the Earth’s axis of rotation so that a motor drive can easily track objects across the sky. Powered it all up to start polar alignment routine but not a hint of the motor tracking!
After a lot of fiddling and some superb help from the iOptron support team we managed to fix the problem. One of the clues was that the hand controller reported the mount was the EC variety which meant it had encoders. I knew the mount did not have encoders so something was clearly awry and perhaps causing the tracking issue.
It seems that there was a ‘jumper’ on the RA circuit board which tells the system it has the encoders. Given that it actually didn’t have encoders, the whole system was totally confused.. Pop the jumper off and all sorted. Now for some clear skies please so that I may polar align.