Vixen Porta 2 damage ?

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garygoh
Posts: 51
Joined: Sun Nov 16, 2003 4:09 pm
Location: TERRA

Vixen Porta 2 damage ?

Post by garygoh »

Hi, anyone experience this problem with their vixen porta 2 mount. My mount head a bit of it is coming out, anyone experience this before and can I fixed it myself or need to send back to vixen to repair ?

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Hardwarezone
Posts: 350
Joined: Fri May 17, 2013 2:50 am
Favourite scope: maksutov

Re: Vixen Porta 2 damage ?

Post by Hardwarezone »

Can be solved by using the allen key into the hole to loose the tension first , then taking the gear box off via 3 bolts on the "right" side , may be covered by the vixen logo.
Based on my experience with versago3 or twilight 1 , which is the same gearbox system as porta2.

then you will see this nut and need to tighten it
there is the blue color threadlocker inside , so be aware it only hold it's grip if tighten in 1 direction
if you loosen it or take the nut out , the nut will not be as strong as first time , affecting the "push to" capability of P2 or the "clutch free" of VSG3 / T1
the nut is cheap on ebay anyway , I didn't compare and note down the thread size back then so I can't say whether is m4 m5 m6 or 1/4" thread size nut

for your case the gearhub loosen , you need to tighten it then reassemble
and re-tune everything (allen key hole and bottom nut) to the sweet spot of "not-too-tight" ... this is the tricky part that may not be correctly done on first try
I recommend using fine marker pen to draw a black line on the nut to show how much fraction of a turn , do slowly in increment of 1/16 to 1/8 of a turn
don't rush because it is easy to tighten all the way until you don't see the gap between the 2 mount hub pieces , but when you mount it back it cannot rotate due to over-tighten , for that you need to go in reverse and therefore irreversibly weaken the threadlocker gum

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I recommend using the slo-motion stick in "above" not "below" position as the gap in the gear hub is the weak spot. It is C not complete O.
It applies to both the alt and azimuth axis.
Face the weak spot AWAY or 45 degrees angle from weight bearing direction, because on heavy load it would sink inwards and the opposite side open mouth like crocodile in your photo.
The panhandle uses the inner 2 bigger bolts and lose the 45 degree alt setting.

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