Upgrade Motor on CPC800?

I'm wondering whether the motor in a Celestron CPC800 may be beefed up to handle additional drag due to added equipment? I have mounted a SV90 Raptor atop my CPC, but notice that the drive groans a bit when lifting the OTA with this added weight. The 90 adds about 15lbs of weight considering the rings, rail, focuser, diagonal and eyepiece. See attached pic.

Any thoughts? Thanks,

Attached Image:

Fork mounts are not designed to handle unbalanced load. You will need to add counterweights on the bottom of the Celestron tube assembly to balance out the weight of the refractor.

Rolando

Yes indeed to Rolando's consul. With the fork set up alt/az they can generally take plenty of weight. Put as much as needed on the other side and fore-aft so it balances at all elevations. The CG is then directly over the center of everything. Then both axes are happy and it theoretically takes almost no torque to drive them. Tom

I concur with both Rolando and Tom: You need to balance the load directly over the center of both axis or you will be working the motors and gears of your mount very hard to overcome the unbalanced load. First impression: you are overloading the top ADM dovetail and your motors & gears in your mount. Looks cool, but . . .

You should also consider the concentrated stresses in (what I assume are) only two, small screws that are holding the ADM dovetail onto your SCT frame. If these work loose over time, you could risk your nice refractor to a fall (and the sudden stop at the ground, ouch !!!). Just the right strength of thread lock just might be in order ?

You might get a "lot of bang for the buck" by putting the weights on the bottom (near the SCT's rear) on a matching ADM dovetail (again with the due diligence for the two screws). The Idea is that the second ADM dovetail holds an adjustable counterweight (or three) out away from the tube as far away from the SCT's center axis as possible without hitting the base of the fork (ie. fat weights that stand away from the SCT's tube near the rear of the scope, but just clear the base of the fork give the most torque than weights that are nearly flush with the SCT's lower surface.

Can someone please sketch what I'm trying to express and post the torques of that he's got now and show the counter-torques necessary to balance this for all the elevation angles ? I can viaualize this, but don't have the CAD tools or skill to make a sketch of what's in my head. Sorry.

I have employed the Losmandy's counter weight solutions shown below with great success on both fork mounted C8 and C11 telescopes. There are a variety of dovetail options, the "D" series plate being the most robust and versatile. If necessary a second DA (or the newer DVA) can be employed with an offset weight to help counteract offset weight on the top side.

http://www.losmandy.com/secondary.html
http://www.buytelescopes.com/losmandy-dovetail-weight-set