cotak

Guiding encoder mount has it's own challenges so if you want to be safe stick with the regular one and it should work almost a well. You only need the encoders if you are going for unguided (difficult) or long focal lengths and you want better stability.

I am pretty chuffed about it. I was waiting for the next big one to image and i got it without actually trying

Turns out I caught a nova.. Making it easy to see:

Huh Mr. Bishop was out in heart surgery and I guess updated after he left the hospital. Well I was looking for stuff to image and I had no idea I actually had a nova..

Well sounds like you need to video the behavior, and maybe provide guide logs to back things up. Have you tried contacting Skywatcher directly yourself. I have read they are quite responsive.

Voltage leaks seems bit of a fuzzy term but I suppose its technically possible, if we are taking servo motors. We are talking stepper motors here I think? So in that case you need a operating motor controller being given the wrong signal. Are they controlled in the input end by a voltage? Find that hard to believe as that's an unreliable way to drive a motor controller..

Sort of hard to understand what happens. Do you have a video of what the star does?

If it's the last one why not go out with a bang? I think in this contest the cem120 is the better choice just for the cable management alone. And the lack of backlash would be good too.

http://www.astrobin.com/405229/ Getting clear nights but not so great seeing this season. So while you can get pictures details is hard to come by.

Well they are sort of done their beta now if you look at their product lines it is now evolution rather than revolution, so at this point likely to be fewer issues. However, just as with Cars it might be prudent to wait 1-2 year on any new model of mounts. It might be that the mechanics is fine but there's value to letting braver souls figure out all the particulars of any model if one's not adventurous. In the end I am very aware that they are a mass market business and all the potential issues that comes with it. And also how a beginner could attribute their issues to equipment rather than seeing the big picture. My ieq45 pro was admittedly a problem child when I first received it. It didn't have the latest RA board to allow for the electronic balancing routine to be used, which iOptron quickly rectified by sending me an updated board. There was a lot of mechanical mis-adjustment. This part took better part of 1 year to sort out through just learning about the mount. Luckily the ieq45 pro design is very work friendly so overall I think I gained a good understanding how it is supposed to work and in the end was worth the effort. The original worm was badly machined and this and the old RA board makes me wonder if I got a copy that was on the shelf for a while. iOptron eventually agreed to help replace it at 50% cost. This for many would have been a deal breaker, but I'd remind those that the ieq45 pro has no PE spec, plus actually the mount guided just fine with a massive 60" of PE. In fact the replacement worm only did better by about 0.1-0.2 rms. I also fell down into my basement with the mount and tripod in one unit. No damage except to the rubber feet of the tripod, and sprained my ankle. So it's tougher than it looks. And this one was all my fault but in the end made me realize that I don't want to setup each night and resulted in my ROR which looks amateurish but works well. So a lot of people would look at what i wrote and wonder why I kept the mount and still have a positive view of ioptron. Well they provided good support and were fair and reasonable to deal with. And the ieq45 pro ended up in a state that guides everynight around 0.5 RMS total. This is performance that requires no adjustments from me once dialed in be it -25C out or +40. So I was pretty happy to keep using them.

I view concerns about steppers as nothing more than wive's tales. Sorry, but that's how I feel about that line of thought. I think that because DC servo motors are still going to be limited by the resolution of the control electronics, which will likely be PWM based for most non-luxury mounts and with motion control using low resolution encoders. And in many cases used spur reduction gears with fair bit of slop. So in the end does that gain you any real advantages over a stepper system with belts? I personally think that the result is a wash between the two approaches.

You do realize that all mount makes have a reject/failure rate? Even the venerated Mesu has examples where they needed some care. You are just not going to find anything out there that guarantees free from failure in the mechanics. The iOptron fragility is in my opinion only 50% true. The design for CEM is somewhat questionable but in reality it's only a risk for a narrow windows in setup and tear down. And for someone who's not prone to mistakes the risks is quite low. And they sold many copies if the risk is that high you'd see lots of stories of problem but you only see a few and mostly with the ZEQ25 due to the unfortunate way the spring tension was design there. The spring tension issue doesn't exist in any subsequent CEM mounts. I know you say you are not mechanically inclined but mounts are mechanical devices and as I mentioned above even the best can have issues, so you might want you make your peace with the idea of doing work on your mount. In that case if you can accept it iOptron tends to be very open to sending parts for owners to do their own work, saving you big bucks in shipping. It's one of the major reason I stuck with them as in Canada any warranty service for other brands would often require quite expensive shipping to the USA.

What exactly did you think were the issue? It's very vague to say better manufacturing quality. You state USD so I am going to assume you are American and frequent CloudyNights. With that I would expect you read a lot about quality issue with so called lower end mount. It's so called because the metric used most often seems more about appearance than anything quantifiable as quality. So tell us what your issues is, what you are trying to do and we can start talking from there.

I do rather like it myself a well that one on the left. I am guessing most people prefer spirals over elliptical?

https://www.astrobin.com/404916/ Galaxies are fun!

Was about time to have another go a this with the new kit. Look a heck of a lot better than the previous attempts. http://www.astrobin.com/404551/ Edgehd8 CEM60EC QHY163C @ -10C 49 x 300s IDAS-D1 filter APP + Photoshop

The design is still better for fixed installation than ones that you'd setup everynight. Sorry for my views but it just looks sloppy. Yes it's simplified but not in a way that helps the user. If anything this looks like it would end up being quite a cost saver for mesu to manufacture. Much is made about the quality of mesu but it does makes me wonder why we don't have more friction mounts. Would like to get one in North America at a more reasonable shipping cost. Really makes me wonder if I can just home built one of these and get similar performance.

Well it works well and if it isn't broken what's to fix right? Still I suspect they'll end up doing it and give the finish the stainless and CNC treatment as well when they update. That would be to gain more market share in NA where there seems to be an irrational preference for CNC and bling being mistaken as signs of quality.

The worm dis/engagement mechanism is the most rudimentary. It uses a screw knob that lets you lifts, locks, or float the worm. Since it's not a on or off setting for the knob some people gets confused. The goal is to float the worm so the screw is not pushing on it or lifting it, and let the magnets do their jobs keeping the worm on the wheel. The newest models refined the cem25 model and have a toggle switch that lifts or drops the worm. On the cem120 there is even an additional axis locking switch. While the cem25 has the spring tension adjustment exposed for user to adjust, the new models have adjustments that is not supposed to be touched other than for tuning.

Well they have marked it as sale for a while, which is what they did for ieq45 pro as well before being discontinued. The CEM60 now is the odd man out in the CEM line with the old screw worm mechanism and magnets. Doesn't seem a great leap for them to update it to be the same as the rest of the family and finally add in USB3.

Likely, the ieq45 pro went on sale for like 2 years before the CEM40 launch and it was discontinued. The CEM60 is now on sale so maybe it'll get upgraded. However, given where it is right now don't expect too much of a change with CEM60 in terms of performance. So for me I was happy to buy the current CEM60EC at a discount. Maybe next generation the EC gets better but right now it does everything I need of it. If anything I'll wait for generation 3 before upgrading again :).

Their user's manual says you can remove the polar scope and run your own cables up to the panel and solder new connectors. It seems a bit vague what that means but just running cables up to the dovetail and the out through the gap when using losmandy plates has been done by a number of people.

My Canadian dealer told me the CEM60 production delays were over. My CEM60EC came within 2 weeks and that's due to shipping from iOptron USA to Canada plus me asking my dealer to delay his shipping to me for a few days so I can be in your capital on a business trip. It seem their service their home market area (as in Boston Applied Technologies) first?

The iOptron version of the Celestron polar routine is in honestly crap. I used it for a bit and it gave different value each time you try it in the final polar alignment error. And in the end I just stopped using it and got myself a polemaster and moved myself further into the yard where I can see polaris. The new ipolar appears to support alignment without sign of polaris. So you can look into that if you want to align but can't see polaris. That or the drift solution works too.

Some say RA doesn't matter but it does. You'll need to balance east heavy to ensure that the OTA stays on one side of the worm on RA. Otherwise you could get a bit of movement at some orientation where the spacing all it to freely move. Make sure it's east heavy or you'll be running the mount where the worm is letting the wheel move with gravity rather than driving it. If you never turned a worm by hand with loads applied against and with the direction of movement, you'll quickly find that with the load with you it causes a rough feeling in the worm wheel interface. You don't want that roughness.