Dome HOME failure

Saturday, January 15, 2022 5:09 AM

Problem(s) Encountered:

At the very end of the night I changed the dome mode from Track  to  home , as one does; it took off the long way around, and then just after it finally got to the contacts, it passed them, paused, and then rotated all the way around a second time.  And then it just passed the contacts without stopping at all, let alone collecting $200.

Again on the 'switches' panel I turned the dome Off, which stopped the rotation.  I then switched to the tab labeled display equinox/dome shutter, which has buttons to rotate the dome left and right; I walked the dome in to the contacts well enough to close it.  The azimuth is reading 290, which is 30 degrees off what it should be on the contact,  I see that it's possible to reset it, but I wonder if a deeper fix is needed, like the Oct 29 2021 trouble report, but I don’t want to take that on at 7:15 AM!

Solution:

There is a skid plate that depresses a limit switch when the dome reaches the HOME position.  I needed to add a couple large washers (and extended bolts) to get the plate to come into contact with the limit switch.  Not sure why this moves out like this from time to time as we had seen this once before as well.  In both instances, I had to add washers because I could not get the plate and limit to come into reliable contact through simple alignment.Regardless, it now works again.