Olly and Tom's EQ8.

[libraryman]

Is it unfair or unrealistic to expect a dealer comment on these issues, because some feedback must be reaching them, i recognise that the dealers are very good and reviews show that to be the case but the silence is  deafening to me!

Ray 

[ollypenrice]

It would be interesting to know more about the relationship between 'Skywatcher' in Canada (whoever they really are) and the factories in China who produce for them. I'm pretty sure that this is where the problem lies. I doubt that Skywatcher are delighted to have rubbish served up under their name but they don't seem to be very good at doing anything about it. The most cursory glance at the mount I received would have said, No. That is not right.

They cannot possibly be producing so many mounts that it would be impossible to check them properly. Let's say that the factories who churn out the stuff just want to see it gone and get paid. That is probably a safe bet. (I do know someone importing from Chinese factories in a different field.) The key thing is, Why are they not checked? Skywatcher stuff is drop shipped. In general the dealers don't see it. So who the hell does see it? Do Skywatcher have people on the ground in China checking it or have they just signed a specification contract with a factory and counted on them to meet it? If this is the case they need a major change in management policy. If it isn't the case, why is QC so absurdly unsatisfactory?

Speak to us Skywatcher. I'll document my unreplied emails after the Christmas period because, fair enough, it is Christmas.

I'm very upset for FLO because for some time I have sincerely wanted to give them a good sized order and it has backfired. Not their fault. Most upsetting. From my own point of view I have enough good mounts to satisfy my immediate guests so it isn't a crisis and I don't intend to pretend that it is. It's just a disappointment.

Olly

Edited December 23, 2013 by ollypenrice

[stephen_usher]

Olly, from what I understand, Sky-Watcher is a brand name of Synta, which is a Chinese company. The agents in the separate countries are merely importers and distributors, nothing more.

[libraryman]

Olly, from what I understand, Sky-Watcher is a brand name of Synta, which is a Chinese company. The agents in the separate countries are merely importers and distributors, nothing more.

This may indeed be the case, however when one distributes a product, it is an inferred confidence in the quality of said product, because the distributors name and goodwill is attached

No?

Ray 

[stephen_usher]

This may indeed be the case, however when one distributes a product, it is an inferred confidence in the quality of said product, because the distributors name and goodwill is attached

No?

Ray

Well, given that you hardly ever get to know the name of the distributor, there's less pressure. The UK one is anonymous.

In Australia and New Zealand the distributor's trading name is Tasco, which is a name known in Britain as a perveyor of cheap (and not very good) telescopes via mail order catalogues in the 1970s.

[Tom OD]

I was at an imaging conference in Tucson recently and skywatcher had a stand there. I asked where was the EQ8? They said that it was Skywatcher Canada who sell it, and the US Skywatcher could not distribute them. So seems like there are lots of different sub companies to all this..

[ollypenrice]

Well, at some point one loses interest. Whatever 'Skywatcher' or 'Synta' is, they don't understand QC. I'll stop there for now. If you buy an Astrophysics product the buck stops at Roland Christen. If you buy a TEC it stops at Yuri Petrunin. If you buy a Takahashi it doesn't stop if you don't speak japanese. You just have to rely on their QC. Buy their optics but not their mounts.

Interestingly, EQ8 discussion on the French forum is very much along the lines of, 'Hey, it's cheap, what do you expect?' That is why I don't buy things in France. There seems to be no culture of, 'You are selling it so it has to work. If it doesn't, take it back.' The EQ8 I just bought cost 3/5 of the price of the new car I bought seven years ago and which has delivered seven years of solid service with no signs of not delivering seven more. For goodness' sake, this is not a tripod with a head motorized in two directions, it is a car with a turbocharged, fuel injected engine, ABS brakes, airbags, electric windows, sound system, catalytic converter...

Olly

[Naemeth]

Well, at some point one loses interest. Whatever 'Skywatcher' or 'Synta' is, they don't understand QC. I'll stop there for now. If you buy an Astrophysics product the buck stops at Roland Christen. If you buy a TEC it stops at Yuri Petrunin. If you buy a Takahashi it doesn't stop if you don't speak japanese. You just have to rely on their QC. Buy their optics but not their mounts.

Interestingly, EQ8 discussion on the French forum is very much along the lines of, 'Hey, it's cheap, what do you expect?' That is why I don't buy things in France. There seems to be no culture of, 'You are selling it so it has to work. If it doesn't, take it back.' The EQ8 I just bought cost 3/5 of the price of the new car I bought seven years ago and which has delivered seven years of solid service with no signs of not delivering seven more. For goodness' sake, this is not a tripod with a head motorized in two directions, it is a car with a turbocharged, fuel injected engine, ABS brakes, airbags, electric windows, sound system, catalytic converter...

Olly

A product should always work for the purpose it was intended for, one would expect it to last a long time too .

Hope you get everything sorted Olly .

[libraryman]

Well, at some point one loses interest. Whatever 'Skywatcher' or 'Synta' is, they don't understand QC. I'll stop there for now. If you buy an Astrophysics product the buck stops at Roland Christen. If you buy a TEC it stops at Yuri Petrunin. If you buy a Takahashi it doesn't stop if you don't speak japanese. You just have to rely on their QC. Buy their optics but not their mounts.

Interestingly, EQ8 discussion on the French forum is very much along the lines of, 'Hey, it's cheap, what do you expect?' That is why I don't buy things in France. There seems to be no culture of, 'You are selling it so it has to work. If it doesn't, take it back.' The EQ8 I just bought cost 3/5 of the price of the new car I bought seven years ago and which has delivered seven years of solid service with no signs of not delivering seven more. For goodness' sake, this is not a tripod with a head motorized in two directions, it is a car with a turbocharged, fuel injected engine, ABS brakes, airbags, electric windows, sound system, catalytic converter...

Olly

Well said

Ray

[lardy]

I think the wording is "Fit for purpose" and a mount that does not deliver what it is designed to do is "unfit for purpose".

Feel for the dealers, and Astronomers who have saved hard, this mount is by no way a cheap mount. Going to be some very unhappy folks with Synta

and word of mouth soon gets around.

[Zakalwe]

The UK distro is pretty well known. ...its Optical Vision Ltd

[FLO]

Is it unfair or unrealistic to expect a dealer comment on these issues, because some feedback must be reaching them, i recognise that the dealers are very good and reviews show that to be the case but the silence is  deafening to me!

Olly received his mount only three days ago and I figured if there were a problem he would tell me so I haven't been checking SGL's boards. 

We must have sold more EQ8 mounts than any other UK dealer and the feedback (until now) has been excellent so I wasn't expecting problems until someone pointed me to this thread.

Olly and Tom know we are here for them so if they do contact us all options will be available including free collection and full refund. 

HTH, 

Steve

[Astroscot2]

Im unsure where to go with all this concidering that Ive not had first light with this mount, My plan for a while is to load this mount up and have all my eggs in one basket, I checked the full rotation of the dec and there is loosness at one part and none in the opposite which indicates the same issue other have with their mounts.  There is also some play in the RA.  I had a quick look through the manual last night and there seems to be a backlash compensation option on the hand controler, also Im sure my guiding software AA5 has a backlash compensation option too?  Should I bite the bullet and contact the deal and send it back or carry on till first light .  Problem is I send this back I have no mount.

[ollypenrice]

Steve, I was trying to give you a break over Christmas! No rush.

I also wanted (and still want) to do more homework. A SW reply to Dark Matter is remarkably open. It's at the bottom of this thread. http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=6269957&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=all&fpart=1&vc=&PHPSESSID=

My interpretation with only a little reading between the lines;

1) They have either failed to make, or cannot make, the centering of the Dec worm wheel accurately enough. The answer is to set mesh at the highest point and let the backlash do its worst at the lowest. If the offset is 'tiny' as they say in the thread then OK. Ours cannot be described as tiny, and it may be even worse than it seems, viz...

At the high point ours feels tight and the motor gets warm. If this is so then the worm will have to backed away from the wheel, making the Dec backlash even worse. I've asked how to measure amp draw on a different thread but if anyone sees this and can tell me, then great. This is to find out if, indeed, the mesh is too tight and likely to seize the drive as in Dark Matter's case.

2) They realize that they should have spring loaded the drives to allow for this. Expect a redesign at some point, maybe?

Olly

[ollypenrice]

Im unsure where to go with all this concidering that Ive not had first light with this mount, My plan for a while is to load this mount up and have all my eggs in one basket, I checked the full rotation of the dec and there is loosness at one part and none in the opposite which indicates the same issue other have with their mounts.  There is also some play in the RA.  I had a quick look through the manual last night and there seems to be a backlash compensation option on the hand controler, also Im sure my guiding software AA5 has a backlash compensation option too?  Should I bite the bullet and contact the deal and send it back or carry on till first light .  Problem is I send this back I have no mount.

Firstly I'd read the SW answer on Dark Matter's CN thread and see if you agree with my interpretation in the post above.. http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=6269957&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=all&fpart=1&vc=&PHPSESSID=  Although they haven't replied to my emails yet, this is a farily open answer and is informative.

Can you use Dec backlash compensation to resolve the issue? Yes and No;

Yes, you can inform AA5 of the delay in response and it will try to allow for this.

Yes, if you have a deliberate polar misalignment you can disable guiding in one direction. This will stop the guider tossing the scope back and forth across the backlash in a perpetual oscillation. I'm using this method on one mount here at the moment. It's a temporary fix till I adjust the worm. 

No, this fix won't work in the wind.

No, on the EQ8 the Dec backlash varies during the rotation so one backlash compensation value cannot be right throughout the rotation. It will need recalibrating during the run.

Olly

[x6gas]

Well, at some point one loses interest. Whatever 'Skywatcher' or 'Synta' is, they don't understand QC. I'll stop there for now. If you buy an Astrophysics product the buck stops at Roland Christen. If you buy a TEC it stops at Yuri Petrunin. If you buy a Takahashi it doesn't stop if you don't speak japanese. You just have to rely on their QC. Buy their optics but not their mounts.

Interestingly, EQ8 discussion on the French forum is very much along the lines of, 'Hey, it's cheap, what do you expect?' That is why I don't buy things in France. There seems to be no culture of, 'You are selling it so it has to work. If it doesn't, take it back.' The EQ8 I just bought cost 3/5 of the price of the new car I bought seven years ago and which has delivered seven years of solid service with no signs of not delivering seven more. For goodness' sake, this is not a tripod with a head motorized in two directions, it is a car with a turbocharged, fuel injected engine, ABS brakes, airbags, electric windows, sound system, catalytic converter...

Olly

I guess it is cheaper than mounts with similar features (i.e. the encoders) but what you are really pointing out Olly is that mounts are very expensive for - as you say - what is basically something with two driven axis.  The fancy electronics are probably moderately expensive to R&D but will be cheap as chips in production so one wonders where the cost comes in.  If - as in AP's case - everything is hand assembled and checked then you can understand it but the way Synta mounts are seemingly thrown together...  my CGEM DX was very poorly set up when I received it...  Perhaps the price differential seen in different markets is a clue that there is some serious price gouging going on...

Edited December 24, 2013 by x6gas

[Zakalwe]

I'm not known for being the voice of reason, but here goes. The EQ8 is a mass produced unit, not a hand built Mega expensive unit. In any mass production run there is a failure rate, which will be balanced against the cost of decreasing the failure rate. Now whilst, from a PR point of view, sending a poor mount to a guy that is well known in the community and that will use the mount in a commercial environment, was a bad move, it probably reflects the nature of the selling model (stack 'em high....).

Unless these mounts start failing all over the place, then, probably, these should be dealt with in the normal way that any failure of a mass produced item would be dealt with-replace the unit.

Its regrettable (especially from a PR point of view) and it is extremely annoying to be on the receiving end of it. I'm sure that FLO will sort the job out.

[ollypenrice]

I'm not known for being the voice of reason, but here goes. The EQ8 is a mass produced unit, not a hand built Mega expensive unit. In any mass production run there is a failure rate, which will be balanced against the cost of decreasing the failure rate. Now whilst, from a PR point of view, sending a poor mount to a guy that is well known in the community and that will use the mount in a commercial environment, was a bad move, it probably reflects the nature of the selling model (stack 'em high....).

Unless these mounts start failing all over the place, then, probably, these should be dealt with in the normal way that any failure of a mass produced item would be dealt with-replace the unit.

Its regrettable (especially from a PR point of view) and it is extremely annoying to be on the receiving end of it. I'm sure that FLO will sort the job out.

This is fair, Id say. However, the consumer has a role in determining the cost of the failure rate. Make it too easy for the manufacturers and the failure rate cost goes down and the failure rate goes up... 

Olly

[Zakalwe]

Very true. Every manufacturer will calculate the Cost of Quality. Some, like Takahashi, LZOS and other high end manufacturers will think nothing of scrapping an entire run if it fails their high standards. This is how they build their reputation for super high quality. The downside of this is cost, and limited supply. Cheap, high availability, low failure rate, high precision- these are all competing factors and in some cases mutually exclusive.

[Velvet]

Im unsure where to go with all this concidering that Ive not had first light with this mount, My plan for a while is to load this mount up and have all my eggs in one basket, I checked the full rotation of the dec and there is loosness at one part and none in the opposite which indicates the same issue other have with their mounts.  There is also some play in the RA.  I had a quick look through the manual last night and there seems to be a backlash compensation option on the hand controler, also Im sure my guiding software AA5 has a backlash compensation option too?  Should I bite the bullet and contact the deal and send it back or carry on till first light .  Problem is I send this back I have no mount.

i would certainly try the mount with first light, surely nothing can be assumed without trying it first and seeing how it performs?  This will not affect your ability to return if faulty.  But if all works to a required standard for you then everyone is happy I think it is just unfortunate that there are a few failures in what generally appears to be a decent for the price product.  You always hear loads about the failures and never very much when everything goes to plan

Even the higher end ones have problems  My GM1000 came with the wrong size bolts to put it all together!!

Velvet

Edited December 24, 2013 by Velvet

[vdb]

Even if it works, I would return it (if no HW fix is offered), today you image with a FSQ 106, tomorrow maybe a Tec, that is a complete different scale ...

And these issues become only worse not better, so in 6 month's from know the play could be so bad that even FSQ territory is a no go.

So either they have a HW fix/retrofit or they accept returns.

/Yves

[Xlracer]

Coming from a pre retirement background of employment as a senior QA engineer in the high tech electro optical  industry, the cost of quality argument seems a bit nebulous to me, either the product meets its specifications, or it does not. If it does not, in the UK at least, it is in breach of the Sale of Goods Act, which is the responsibility of the seller not the manufacturer. They can of course take the matter up with their supplier separately.

If it does not meet the criteria for which it was sold, in this case clearly as an accurate high precision imaging equatorial mount with specified accuracy criteria, it is not of merchantable quality, and must be replaced, repaired, or refunded by the supplier, its that simple. I was involved in a case in the past with a Cape Newise telescope where the supplier to her credit, did exactly that without demurr when the problems were quantified for her. The mantra  in industry in my experience is that if you think putting problems right is expensive,  try failures. There is clearly a concentricity issue between the effective pitch circle of the worm teeth and the mounting, which is a precision machining issue, and accounts for Meade telescopes having spring loaded worms as their accuracy is poor but dealt with rather cleverly by design, and accurate worm gears being expensive. However on modern CNC machines with effective sampling and inspection regimes, bad product like this should not get ot of the door, and represents a failure of the quality management system at Synta, irrespective of whether the gears are machined and assembled by themselves or sub contractors.

[ollypenrice]

I'm not an engineer but I can only concur. 

Olly

Edited December 24, 2013 by ollypenrice

[Xlracer]

BTW

I previously had a problem with an astrotrac which I thought had a bit too much free play in the pivot bearing when I mounted a telescope on it, and returned it to astrotrac, who stated they found it to be within their normal parameters and OK. As the telescope was reasonably heavy, although claimed by astrotrac to be within the capabilities of the mount, and I intended mainly to stick a camera on it, for a shortly forthcoming trip to New Zealand I did not pursue the matter further with them, but I came to the conclusion that their engineering knowledge was a bit lacking since they clearly failed to understand how internal bearing clearance was the root cause of the problem, and made a straightforward modification that put an extra bearing in and that pre loaded both bearings which removed all play without increasing the driving torque required, and documented this on SGL for everyones information.  As I say if you think sorting problems out is expensive, try failure and all the publicity that goes with that.

[x6gas]

Well this was on a list of "maybes" for a new mount in 2014 (not that I'll buying until the second half of next year).  Unless the QA is totally sorted by then I'm tending toward an Avalon Instruments Linear in the same price bracket.  At this point I think the next step up (AP Mach 1 or 10 Micron GM1000) is beyond me.