Accessory Tray - AZEQ6

[ve1drg]

I have a new AZEQ6 tripod.  And it is nice.  But I am wondering something here.  Perhaps someone might have some experience on the same issue.

What I have experienced is -  that if I set up the tripod and mount the head without yet having the accessory tray attached,  that I can't get the accessory tray on or properly installed.  It will slide up the mounting rod nicely and come up against two of the three legs.  It will never touch the third leg. 

So - what I end up doing is to back off the log rod from the head and then re-adjust the way the accessory try is sitting.  By nudging the tray a bit here and there and slowly re-tightening the head,  things start to come together.  But no matter what I do - one of the three legs does not touch the accessory tray very well.  If I pay no attention to whether the tray makes contact with the legs and just screw everything together,  the tray will be nearly an inch away from one of the legs.  Only careful nudging etc etc... will bring it up much closer but not perfectly.

I saw a video of a chap setting up his mount.  He put the head on the legs and attached the log rod.  Once that was secured he simply slide the accessory tray up the rod where it made contact with all three legs immediately.  No fussing at all.  I wish I could do that.

What am I doing wrong?  Or am I not doing anything wrong??

[Oddsocks]

Hi Ted,

Sounds like a similar problem I had with a Skywatcher HEQ5 tripod, the three legs of the tripod did not all splay out to the same angle so the tray did not touch all three legs.

In my case I fixed it by removing the bolts that fix the legs to the mount and sanding off the paint where the flat of the leg touches the mount on both the leg and the mount.

Then it was a re-grease of the moving parts are re-assemble but not so tightly as Skywatcher had done.

I think the cause on my mount was variations in the thickness of the paint between the three legs and over tightness of the bolts used to fix the legs to the mount.

Once done the legs on my mount now all splay to the same angle give or take a few millimetres and the tray butts up against all three legs.

Seems QA at Skywatcher is not always what it should be, If you don't fancy fixing it yourself then a return and exchange under warranty is the best option especially as trying to fix it yourself will invalidate the warranty.

William

[ve1drg]

Thanks William..

Your thoughts are appreciated and I might just have a look at that situation.  See if the bolts have too much paint etc..

I never thought of that - but it does make sense.

Thanks again for  your input..