Project:
HEQ5 as portable mount

Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Power terminal of HEQ5 changed
3. Installing the 300 mm lens on HEQ5
4. Rewiring the electric cables
5. Connecting the Raspberry
6. Power consumption
7. Battery power cables
8. Tweaking auto guiding parameters
9. Rowan Belt Modification Kit
10. Making the tripod to a low rider
11. Redesign of mount head details
12. Raspberry Pi4 bracket
13. Brackets: temperature sensor, spirit level and stepper motor
14. Transport box
15. Brackets reinforced and adapt it to EQ6
16. HEQ5 and TS130 refractor ?
17. To be continued

Related projects:

1. HEQ5 as portable mount
2. Pentax 645 300 mm ED IF f/4 lens
3. KStars / EKOS and Raspberry Pi4

Note:
I take no responsibility or liability for what are written here, you use the information on your own risk!

1: Introduction

Recently I bought an used HEQ5 mount. My idea is to use this mount when travel by my car to dark places. Much less weight compare to my EQ6 pro mount. When I'm using my 300 mm lens I don't need the stability of the EQ6, and the HEQ5 mount has about the same precision.

I bought this mount used and the earlier owner has already installed a belt drive, that save me a lot of time. The weight of the HEQ5 mount with one 5 kilos balance weight is about 19 kg. The EQ6 mount is at least 5 kilo more heavier. The tripod can be replaced with something lower because I don't use it for visual observations.

There are some problem to solve:
1: The serial cable, the EQDIRECT has not the same connector. I have one spare cable and I can change the cable from 9-pol D-sub to RJ45 standard.
2: The power connector isn't very good, it can fall out and then the mount loses its power.
3: More and even more things to do

I also plan to control this mount with a Raspberry Pi4 one chip computer. That saves a lot of power and then the need for a heavy battery is reduced.

There are more to do but I start with this so I can start use the mount.