Hi Maxime,

My suggestion about the worm/gear fit and grease is based on your description of having to release the fit a bit to be able to move the mount away from viewing Venus at low altitude.  You should not have to keep getting out of Blinky mode - which was probably triggered by too much load on the servo.

Note you can look at the current to the RA servo by going to the "Controller Stuff" as Dan suggested.  Also note that the RA drive does not have to be extremely tight to eliminate backlash, since the RA always drives tracking in one direction.  Any backlash from too loose a fit only affects slewing accuracy and is quickly eliminated as soon as it starts tracking.  Monitoring the position error as Dan mentioned, and the servo current will tell you if the fit is too tight.

Old lubricant that is "sticky" can act more like glue than lube, or also old lube might have acquired dust/debris/insects over time depending on how well covered your main gear and worms are protected.

Good luck next time out.

Don W