Derbyshire Dave

1 hour ago, Icesheet said:

I started with a belt modded HEQ5 then moved to an EQ6-R, sold that and now have a CEM40 sitting at home! I haven’t had the CEM40 out yet so can’t comment on performance but in terms of build quality and form factor the CEM40 looks and feels a higher quality mount than the SkyWatcher ones. However, the biggest benefit for me is the weight. I initially tried to save money by moving to the EQ6-R thinking the weight wouldn’t be an issue but it was! It’s even noticeably lighter than the HEQ5.
 

Fingers crossed it doesn’t just look good and performs too! One thing I picked up on when researching the CEM40, and iOptron mounts in general, is that the stock tripods are generally not thought to be up to it. Most people recommend going straight to their tri pier. I already had a Berlebach Uni tripod so I’m going to put it on that.  
 

Given weight is clearly a big factor for you I don’t think there is anything else in its price class that can match the iOptron payload to weight ratio. 

Appreciate your comments, I've no experience of tri-piers, I've seen them though and realise that a lot of people use them..

1 hour ago, pete_l said:

Personally, if I had had a problem with one example of a mount that is very popular and has a good reputation I'd just go for anther mount of the same type.

There are no generic communications problems with HEQ5s so this would seem to be a single bad example. Not a reason to abandon the entire range. In my experience (sample size: 1 * HEQ5 Pro) my communications problem was caused by an inappropriate power supply. One that was intended as a charger for laptops rather than to power sensitive equipment. Once I swapped that for a better supply, all my problems disappeared.

Thanks Pete, appreciate your comments. It was a long and arduous fight over several months, comms would always work with APT and Sellarium, but intermittently with SGPro, so I'm ready for a change really. Plus you can't get an HEQ5 pro until at least December. Interesting to see all the commenst coming in, and then I can make a decision.

Interesting, FLO replied..

I do not normally recommend the EC versions. The encoder reduces the PE to virtually zero but does not model the mount and imaging train the way other encoder mounts such as the 10 Micron range do.

Thus you still need to autoguide and the guiding approach needs to be quite different to that normally employed, and some customers struggle to adapt to that. The standard CEM40 has low and smooth PE that easily guides out and is more than good enough.

I'd still be ineterested there are any other mounts I should be considering..

Been fighting communicatiions problems with my HEQ5 Pro, and finally today returned it for a refund. SO.... a new mount then...

My main issue is that I have a very bad back, I could handle the HEQ5 Pro, no way that I could manage an EQ6, so moving away from Sky watcher, I have found the iOptron CEM-40, which weighs only 15.8 lbs with a payload of 40 ibs, which seems really good, and it looks like a much newer generation of gear than the Skywatcher products. Priced at £1779 with case and tripod.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/ioptron-mounts/ioptron-cem40-center-balanced-equatorial-goto-mount.html

For another £1000 they have a version with RA encoders...

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/ioptron-mounts/ioptron-cem40-ec-center-balanced-equatorial-goto-mount-with-ra-encoder.html

They're saying that you can effectively turn off RA guiding, presumably PHD2 would still track declination drift.

That's a big chunk of dosh extra, I have no experience of this, could you let me know thoughts on the mounts and RA encoding please.

ALSO

 Are there any other mounts that I should maybe consider, which might be light enough for me to manage but still be sturdy and have a reasonable payload.

Thanks guys..