Monday, January 06, 2014

Regreasing the Ranger focuser again

The focuser was getting bad over the years, I've re-greased once it after 8 years of ownership.  Now, it's the 16th year!  Despite the original focuser was retired itself for one or two years when a NGF-CM was used instead for motorizing focusing, it still serves me long enough.

Last time I just bought a Boron grease from a model shop and the grease was not sticky enough.  Focusing was smooth but you could easily go beyond the point since it's not sticky enough.  Recently, a local buddy gave me some sticky high quality lithium grease so I take the plunge to do it again.

This time, I was doing a complete regreasing.  Last time when I was regreasing my LXD55, I gained enough experience so I could do it more completely.  Last time, new grease was added but the old one was not removed.  Frankly, there's an emotional reason behind that since the Ranger gave a Tele Vue smell which is probably from the grease so I dare not to clean them up completely.  But now the smell was mostly gone, so I did actually remove all the old grease.  And during the removal process, I could notice some residue Tele Vue smell and it's now the last time!

The old Tele Vue grease mixed with Boron grease after around 8 years.


Some of the grease was dried up and this is probably why the focusing action was no longer smooth.


After cleaning.


And after re-greasing:


It works better than the first re-grease, nearly as great as the moment when it arrives.

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