CGE Pro OnStep Upgrade

After the last repair of the Pittman servo motor on my CGE Pro, I continued to have instabilities with the RA axis, so I decided it was time to do a complete rebuild of my CGE Pro to switch to an OnStep drive implementation using stepper motors. I decided I didn't want to take the time to develop the entire conversion myself, so I went with a publicly available kit solution. Chad Gray has created a complete retrofit kit including a machined metal mounting bracket, 3D printed cases/covers, complete wiring harness, and all the motors, pulleys, belts, and circuitry required. The drive and controller are already configured for the specifications of the CGE Pro, so no Arduino/ESP32 programming is required. The downside is that his documentation is limited and his videos are outdated, but I've rebuilt this scope so many times, that wasn't much of an issue for me. This video goes through the entire teardown and rebuild using the kit, as well as having segments on my reconfiguration of all my cameras and controls. The various comments on the kit throughout are intended as constructive criticism to point out potential improvements to Chad's product or design decisions that I might have done differently, had I done it myself. My apologies for the shakiness of the video. Apparently, the dark conditions disabled the vibration reduction and I didn't notice until I was editing it. I also decided not to edit out all of my "filler words" as that just added more jumps to the video. Add to that, it's challenging to hold a phone camera and build things one-handed! Hopefully you'll be able to get something useful out of this. It's long, so I'll add an index below so that viewers can jump to the desired section(s) quickly. Timeline 00:00 Introduction 01:57 Background 04:35 Gray Digital Arts 04:49 What's in the box 14:08 RA axis balance 15:17 Broken piggyback OTA mount! 18:43 Disconnecting mount cables; locking power supply cord 21:15 Control box mounting discussion; ADM knobs in the way! 22:22 Motor box lid removal 22:49 Not enough tool clearance on the declination axis! 23:41 Cable bundle discussion 25:11 Cables removed; power considerations 26:26 C11 OTA removed; Losmandy rails make lousy handles! 26:54 Bare mount 27:22 Dec motor lid open; axis drive comparisons 27:50 US Digital replacement encoder on RA axis 28:56 Removing bottom motor housings 30:00 Motor and limit switch wiring 31:07 Reason for the dimples in the bottom of the motor housing 31:38 Getting to the screws on the back side of the RA axis housing 32:29 RA sensor connections 33:53 Both housings removed and start of gear removal 34:51 Both small spur gears removed 35:33 Dec gearmotor removed, working on RA motor 36:17 Worm gear tensioner and large spur gear access discussion 37:44 Bad RA worm gear mesh example 39:47 Loose tensioner bracket to get RA motor out 40:52 Large spur gears removed from both worm gears 42:11 Pulling first parts for installation 43:32 Demonstrating lack of clearance for large pulley 44:56 First pulley installed, worm gear still loose 46:24 Worm gear bracket tightened, testing mesh 47:45 After adjusting mesh of RA worm gear, describing process 50:26 Second pulley installed on DEC axis. Play in mounting bracket 52:09 Motor mount brackets installed (Take One!) 54:32 Brackets reinstalled w/ captured screw, lost screw, motor mounting 56:11 Improved motor mount concept 57:36 Installing small pulleys on stepper motors 58:22 Part costs 59:02 Stepper current and power supply discussion 1:00:04 Installing belts - Live! (And one handed.) 1:01:41 Belts installed and tensioned 1:02:14 Figuring out electrical connections for RA axis 1:04:39 RA connections made. Tight fit for the RA PEC sensor! 1:05:34 Floating worm gear nuts in orange inserts 1:06:36 Mounting the controller box to the pedestal 1:10:34 Power connector suggestion 1:11:59 All cables connected 1:13:29 Alexa! Turn on the Telescopes! 1:14:02 Trying to figure out the hand controller 1:17:38 What was rattling around inside the control box? 1:20:42 The culprit, a loose nut from the DB-9! 1:21:10 A closer look at the control board 1:22:21 NOW it moves! 1:25:55 Wi-Fi troubles discussion 1:27:46 The missing screw!!! 1:28:32 Control board reinstalled 1:29:24 Buttoning up and cable routing 1:31:28 Hand controller usage at startup 1:32:52 Slew speed 1:34:06 Dec axis control weirdness near pole 1:36:01 Dec lid installation; warping; screw alignment 1:41:24 The lids are different! 1:42:32 Load testing of the RA axis. 1:43:24 What are these?!! 1:44:47 Last look before buttoning up the RA axis 1:45:59 Warped RA lid installed 1:46:36 Leftover parts 1:48:16 THAT'S what they are! 1:50:35 OTA reinstalled 1:53:54 Piggyback clamp fix 1:56:20 AT60ED install and balance 1:58:06 Wi-Fi problems 1:59:19 Cabling up 2:01:23 Cabled 2:04:52 Bad Ethernet, USB to OnStep 2:09:43 USB power gotcha 2:11:00 Renaming USB devices 2:15:48 CP2102 drivers 2:16:47 Failed USB finale!