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"Bendy bolts" no more .....


Steve Ward

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Nothing listed at MA yet - wonder if there will be any change from £ 175?

Personally I'd be sorely tempted to price it nearer £100 to £120.  If it comes in at close to what someone would have to pay for a pier adapter and replacement alt bolts then I think a lot of people would be tempted.

James

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I think I'm gonna get this, unless the price is completly outrageous. I live close to 60 degrees north, even with longer bolts it doesn't feel that good tbh ;-)

I had actually considered just fitting a pier adapter at about 30 degrees to the horizontal to move the alt bolts back nearer the middle of their range.

James

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Personally I'd be sorely tempted to price it nearer £100 to £120.  If it comes in at close to what someone would have to pay for a pier adapter and replacement alt bolts then I think a lot of people would be tempted.

James

I couldn't make something like that for that price, I'd guess around the £200 mark at least. It's a problem making something like this for budget mounts (i.e., not 10 Micron or ME or AP etc...), it doesn't cost any less to make for the cheaper mount yet it's an apparently expensive accessory when compared to the original purchase price. Whoever is making them is unlikey to be a volume producer, maybe has a modest CNC mill at his disposal so it will take time to machine and time = money. Raw materials aren't cheap either. Just my thoughts FWIW...

ChrisH

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Oh those rubbish bolts! When I had my Celestron on their EQ5 mount, the things bent pretty much instantly. Phoned the company I purchased the mount from up, was told it was my fault!!!! Fortunately, they sent me some new ones free of charge... just for them to bend again. So I put a bolt in from B+Q.

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Oh those rubbish bolts! When I had my Celestron on their EQ5 mount, the things bent pretty much instantly. Phoned the company I purchased the mount from up, was told it was my fault!!!! Fortunately, they sent me some new ones free of charge... just for them to bend again. So I put a bolt in from B+Q.

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I couldn't see for certain any locking mechanism for the alt adjuster.  It looks like there may be something there, but it wasn't demonstrated unless I missed it.  Personally I'd like to see something to lock the adjuster in place so the knob couldn't be turned accidentally.

James

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I guess that may well be possible, true.

It looks like those two bearings have some sort of liner to prevent aluminium bearing directly on aluminium.  I wonder what material it's made from?

James

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Sorry, meant to ask, did the b&q bolts do the job.

Not a chance in hell I'd pat astronomical prices for something like this if a bolt from b&q will do the trick

That's all fine if you live in the UK or Dublin, but the bendy bolt problem is not the only one.  This mod is I would guess more directed at people who live in the extremes of Alt where there is an inherent problem with the existing mechanism where the bolts do not make proper contact with the blade.

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Fair enough. Don't get me wrong, it looks like a beautiful piece of engineering, and for the right price I'd probably buy it.

But I'll go through every bolt from b&q before I do ;-)

It's a shame that one of the most basic functions of the mount doesn't work properly.

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It's a shame that one of the most basic functions of the mount doesn't work properly.

It's certainly frustrating.  Unfortunately in the UK and northern Europe (and Canada as well, I guess) we're a bit of an "edge case".  With the exception of Alaska, almost all of the USA is "below" 50N; a large amount of Europe (depending on exactly how you define it) is below 50N; almost all of China is below 50N; other than Antarctica there's hardly any land mass in the southern hemisphere that isn't above 50S.  Between those latitudes the existing system quite probably works fine because it won't be imposing the lateral loads on the bolts that occur (for example) above 50N.  I imagine that covers the majority of their market :(

James

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