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DFM Engineering was contacted by the University of
Oregon to repair the Right Ascension and Declination
secondary drive assemblies for their Boller and Chivens
Telescope, originally built in 1967, located on Pine
Mountain east of Bend, Oregon.
The telescope was tracking beautifully, however, there
was excessive gear and other noises when the telescope
was slewed between stars.
We disassembled the drives, checked the bearings and
gears, and measured the wear on the R.A. worm.
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We found less than 0.0005 inches of wear on
the RA worm. We found one small bearing to be nearing its
useful life and replaced it. One of the RA secondary helical
gears was also replaced with a used but unworn gear removed
from another B & C 24-inch telescope which we had replaced
all of the secondary gearing on when we retrofitted out control
system to that telescope.
The Boller and Chivens telescopes are very well
made and require very little maintenance. However, the electric
clutches that are used to switch between the track and the
slewing gearing are no longer made.
The service life of these clutches may be extended by performing
a machining operation on them. Sometimes the flexible member
of the clutch fatigues and breaks. We can fabricate new flex
members and service the clutches. We also have several used
clutches in stock along with other secondary drive parts.
Of course, we recommend having us update the Boller and
Chivens telescopes with our control system retrofit. With
our control
system installed, the already excellent tracking is complemented
by the excellent
pointing provided by our computer corrected pointing model
and optimized control system.
We shipped the cleaned and refurbished drives back to the
observatory within one week of receiving them. Mr. Mark Dunaway,
the Observatory Manager, said he was pleased he could find
someone qualified to work on their telescope.
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