Hi All,

Thanks for your kind comments about my page.

For those of you who read it you will realise I was trying to address the concerns of several people, sparked not only by this thread, but also my own research over the last few months from various other sites I had found. It made sense to try and consolidate this Lazy Susan "knowledge" when I wrote up my page.

Bob you said:

Well, I've had NO trouble, no damage, and I'm still on the original encoder boards, despite dismantling and re-assembling for maintenance many times, cleaning, Teflon lubrication improvements, and finally the Lazy Susan mods! Sorry!

While I agree that not only you, but several others have complained about the apparent ease with which the sensor chips can be "wiped out", I don't understand how this is possible given that the brass bush is designed to keep the magnetic disc AWAY from the chips .

In the interests of science

and helping others can you recall how you might have done the damage?

I gave my thoughts on my page as to why I think folk could cause the damage, but since I've not actually killed them myself I don't "get" what actually does it.

Bent encoder disc? Tightening too much? Adding washers where you shouldn't have? Did you remove the original Teflon pads? Was your Lazy Susan a very slimline style? Did the magnetic disc slip off the brass bush and get skewed when you were re-assembling the base? Did you remove the brass bush altogether!!?

I totally agree with you that Orion should try and protect the chips - your idea of a raised barrier seems a good one. It would be interesting to know exactly what improvements they have made to the Az bearing for the new XX12.

Has anybody else screwed their sensor chips when trying to make mods to the azimuth bearing? If so what went wrong?

Anyway, I hope my page provides sufficient warning and information to help people understand how they might accidentally damage the sensors, so as to prevent them doing so.

Jim