I bought an EQ2-mounted telescope and (foolishly) decided to strip and clean it. The slo-mos' worm drives were packed with black gunge which I scrupulously cleaned out. This was a mistake; the gunge served an anti-backlash function.
Does anybody know where I can find a replacement?
Another Dave
Sounds like a smart-alec answer, but I genuinely would find some specialist telescope/ATM forums, and ask there. Or even check with the manufacturer?
I recently picked up a cheap russian microsope for a very good price. That is also packed full with grease, and from reading around those with a lot more experience in the area that, it sounds like you need to be careful what you replace it with.
I seem to remember greasing a (non-equatorial) telescope mount with vaseline, when I was a callow youth. I don't think that worked well...
J^n
I am pretty sure that is a grease like that is used in garden tool gearboxes. I think it is a lithium grease
But to be honest, almost any thick grease is going to be OK in that application. Are they metal worms and plastic pinions?
Anyway, its not a steering box or other high torque application so almost certainly a lithium grease will do, and its cheap enough.
Google grease for camera lenses
Kilopoise Grease is one I've used in the distant pass but I'm not sure which grade so you may have to do some research before selecting the grade.
What you need is a "damping grease".
Families of greases, come in all different viscosities. The stiffest grease will stand up and you can carve a statue out of it (used in very large cranes).
The folks here, put more emphasize on adjustment of the bearings, rather than relying on "heavy grease" to damp out mis-adjustment. If a grease were to be too heavy, the worm gear could not drive the movement.
Whereas the hardware store would sell you a petroleum based grease (the "brown stuff"). And bacteria can grow in that.
Paul
I thought anti backlash was normally done by two gears on beside the other with a spring so the teeth of each gear is forcibly meshed without any play. The usual mistake is putting them back together without tensioning the spring. Seems a bit odd to rely on grease, since in cold weather its bound to be thicker than in the heat. I've seen thick grease in Aerial rotator gearboxes to avoid the servo hunting when a very massy antenna is turned though, It just damps the resonances. Brian
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