Mini Tower Turbo Upgrade

Did you get your Mini Tower from another vendor?  Are you having a bit of trouble with random glitches in the tracking at higher powers or is it not quite able to handle the load?  The Mini Tower is an excellent mount right from the factory. However, the bearings that are used are not very high-end; they're adequate, but not great. They can often have flat spots or out-of-round rollers, and can create very small vibrations that can show up when higher powers are used. It can also have an effect on the tracking and accuracy of the mount.

With the Timken Bearing Upgrade we replace the factory bearings and races with Timken Precision Tapered Roller Bearings and races. This involves completely dismantling the mount, removing the old bearings and races, and installing the new bearings and cups. The altitude and azimuth gear sets are then lapped to help the gears mate with the utmost of precision and to help further reduce periodic errors. We then adjust the slack out of the bearing blocks, which then means that the anti-backlash settings are set to zero. We adjust the pre-load tension on the bearings to eliminate any end play or wobble that may have been present.  (In most cases, this reduces the dampening time to less than one and a half seconds, depending upon what OTA is used.) We also make certain that every threaded hole is clean and that all fasteners are properly seated, reducing further any small amount of flexing that may have been present.

Everything is then completely cleaned to remove any traces of the lapping compounds. We lubricate the new bearings and the freshly lapped gear sets with a very high-end synthetic lubricant (temperature rated from -105F up to +650F). The mount is then field-tested with several different OTAs to make certain that all functions are working. A detailed observing run-test sheet is provided that includes the OTAs used and the objects located.

Shipping and insurance are extra.