Hi Keith,
Hmm, this is a difficult question to answer. From a mechanical POV the new Losmandy OPW design appears to be virtually identical to the old design in terms of worm bearing block alignment, it is for all intents and purposes functionally identical. The only difference is that the gearbox is attached directly to the plate under the mount's large worm wheel instead of floating with the OPW as in the original Losmandy OPW design.?
What this means is that as the new OPW worm mesh/gap is adjusted there is a slight misalignment introduced between the gearbox output shaft axis and the worm gear axis. Scott will tell you this is not important as the Oldham couplers allow for this very slight misalignment between the worm and gearbox shafts. But the Oldham is not?homokinetic, if there is misalignment between the shafts there will also be velocity changes introduced. This is where the original Losmandy OPW design was a better design, it had no misalignment so there was a smoother transmission of movement between the gearbox and worm gear. That said the velocity differences are very small and may not be detectable.?
Chip
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