Anyone using an OGEM mount??

[ollypenrice]

2 hours ago, johnturley said:

I thought it was necessary to keep worm wheels regularly greased

John

As Zakalwe says, the friction drive is blissfully free from worm drives.  Virtually all the problems I've had with mounts over the years have been connected to backlash in the gears. I've been running one Mesu since 2012 and another, bought second hand, for the last three years. Both just work, and that's in commercial use. I would now be very reluctant to go back to worm drive. I was also pleased with a belt drive Avalon and only sold it when the second hand Mesu turned up.

Olly

[cotak]

16 hours ago, johnturley said:

I thought it was necessary to keep worm wheels regularly greased

John

Yes and when it gets truly dirty you get this:

Surprisingly, the scoring did not impact guiding and tracking.

[dahle]

On 04/01/2019 at 11:41, johnturley said:

I thought it was necessary to keep worm wheels regularly greased

it comes down to putting grease on the car brake discs!

The motor axis is in direct contact with the edge of the wheel and it is the pressure that drives the wheel. The surface of the edge wheel  of the  OGEM are treated against rust.

There is no gear and worm in the OGEM mount training

[Northernlight]

 I believe the ogem will be covered in like the mesu, so shouldn't be too much of an issue, but the key issue is that we wont know until people start actually receiving their mounts.

I think JTW has put itself in a tricky position here. They have to either solve the issues with the planned FreeGo2 system quickly or switch to the SiTech control system.

If they switch to the SiTech control system, will they still be able to use the same absolute encoder options at the same price points ? If they cant then they have nothing to differentiate their mount from the tried & tested mesu.

I would love to see this mount launch soon as it helps to promote healthy competition which in turn helps to drive innovation.

If anyone from the uk purchased one of these mounts direct from jtw, i would also be worried about the impending brexit, as this could potentially have ramifications on import taxes not to mention loosing a lot of your legal rights if you had any issues with your mount.

Rich.

[RayD]

I still fail to see how or why this mount is constantly being levelled directly at the Mesu200.  Is it just because of the visual similarities?  

The Mesu200 is totally friction drive i.e. all contact between the drive surfaces from the servo to the the main wheel is friction.  This mount looks as though it is going to be using belt drive between the servo and the secondary drive wheel which, whilst removing the gear element of final drive so is no doubt a great improvement, still makes it very different and introduces a component which is subject to flex and induced movement when at the upper limits of weight capacity.

It will be interesting to see how it performs under heavy loads for sure as in my personal view it is fundamentally very different from the Mesu200, albeit visually unnervingly (for Lucas) similar, but not necessarily in a way which is definitely going to have an adverse effect on performance.

[Northernlight]

Hi Ray,

My mistake i thought the ogem worked in the same way as the mesu. If its belt driven, does it mean it's closer to the mechanics of a avalon mount ?

 

[cotak]

28 minutes ago, Northernlight said:

Hi Ray,

My mistake i thought the ogem worked in the same way as the mesu. If its belt driven, does it mean it's closer to the mechanics of a avalon mount ?

 

No. The Avalon ones are entirely belt driven. All he means is the belt reduction drive from the motor to the input roller in contact with the friction wheel.

 

He has a point. Belt reduction drive while often sort after in mid range mounts, can cause a host of issues if not done right.

[RayD]

19 minutes ago, Northernlight said:

Hi Ray,

My mistake i thought the ogem worked in the same way as the mesu. If its belt driven, does it mean it's closer to the mechanics of a avalon mount ?

 

No it's not your mistake, this mount has been compared directly with the Mesu200 by many people since the details were first released, but I can only assume this is because of the visual similarities.

I think the concept of the friction final drive is the same, but from the servo motor to the secondary reduction wheel is belt, which the Mesu200 doesn't have.  In fact, the design on the Mesu200 of this part is extremely clever with two stainless steel reduction discs, and very robust and possibly the bit that actually makes it as good as it is.

I'm not sure how the Avalon works but I understood this to be direct belt, so no friction element at all, although I could well be way off the mark there.

As noted, it looks a pretty good mount, but in the same kind of price bracket I struggle to see the benefit it will bring over the tried and trusted (and in my view not over priced) Mesu200, but also to understand why it is only this mount it is being compared to.

I'm actually really looking forward to the first deliveries and test reports as it is always good to have other options available (hence me just buying an iOptron CEM120).

 

[steppenwolf]

Whilst the OGEM is unnervingly similar in appearance to the Mesu 200, its drive system is indeed a belt/friction hybrid. This still makes it an interesting product and I wish them luck with it but a Mesu it is not! I am looking forward to reading end user reports once the product is released.

[Davey-T]

I'm waiting for somebody to make a kit to convert an SCT like mine to belt drive, it's got large worm wheels that could be changed for belt driven ones, looks possible in theory but don't know about practice 

Get rid of the backlash and PE maybe.

Dave

[RayD]

12 minutes ago, cotak said:

No. The Avalon ones are entirely belt driven.

Ah, thanks for that.  This was my understanding but wasn't absolutely sure.

[RayD]

7 minutes ago, steppenwolf said:

Whilst the OGEM is unnervingly similar in appearance to the Mesu 200, its drive system is indeed a belt/friction hybrid. This still makes it an interesting product and I wish them luck with it but a Mesu it is not! I am looking forward to reading end user reports once the product is released.

Likewise, Steve.  It must take an awful lot of design and effort to make a new mid/high end mount from scratch, so I certainly hope it is a success for them.  It certainly looks an extremely interesting concept if it manages to deliver on the 75Kg recommended payload.

[RayD]

7 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

I'm waiting for somebody to make a kit to convert an SCT like mine to belt drive, it's got large worm wheels that could be changed for belt driven ones, looks possible in theory but don't know about practice 

Get rid of the backlash and PE maybe.

Dave

Get out in the shed and start chopping bits about, Dave.  You've still got 9 1/2 fingers left to come up with an idea that you can get to the market ?

[Davey-T]

7 minutes ago, RayD said:

Get out in the shed and start chopping bits about, Dave.  You've still got 9 1/2 fingers left to come up with an idea that you can get to the market ?

I'm alright with the mechanical side but no idea how to get the electrics to talk nicely after converting to stepper motors, on the plus side there's plenty of room and it would be easy to unfit and swop back non destructively ( in theory ) 

Dave

[RayD]

9 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

I'm alright with the mechanical side but no idea how to get the electrics to talk nicely after converting to stepper motors, on the plus side there's plenty of room and it would be easy to unfit and swop back non destructively ( in theory ) 

Dave

I can feel a new thread coming on.  There's plenty of clever cookies on here who can help with the electronical bit (not me I hasten to add) so nice little summer project ?

[Davey-T]

It's got DC servo motors at the moment as it needs a fair bit of power to shift it, they've got encoders on them and reduction gears then worm wheel so doing away with the gears would upset some calculation along the way I'm sure.

Preferably wouldn't want to mess with the main electrics so would need to be able to convert the signal to the DC motors to get the same result when running stepper motors, don't know if that's even possible ?

Perhaps I'll just defork it and stick it on a Mesu 

Dave

[RayD]

1 minute ago, Davey-T said:

Perhaps I'll just defork it and stick it on a Mesu 

AHA!!  And there, my friend, lies the answer 

[Davey-T]

Just now, RayD said:

AHA!!  And there, my friend, lies the answer 

Trouble is my wife needs / want's a new car 

Dave

[RayD]

Just now, Davey-T said:

Trouble is my wife needs / want's a new car 

Dave

Well, in that case I suppose you have to get priorities right...........Mesu it is ?

[japz]

On 31/12/2018 at 19:30, dahle said:

I understand the reaction of Japz, but he must understand that he is part of the early birds, and as such, he takes some risks. You can not have the butter and the cake. 2900 € for early birds, even adding the price of stainless steel discs, we come at the price of an EQ8, it's still worth it!!

It is also true that sometimes Mark does not respond to emails; just send it back to get the answer....simply.

Come on, Japz, more than a few weeks to wait, and after that will be only a bad memory .... and that happiness after!?

In the meantime, I will prepare for the New Year's Eve.
See you next year and Happy New Year, good health and clear skies for 2019 
Alain

Hi Alain,

Thanks for responding, I like your postive attitude and I'm also a bit more optimistic after the last update. My previous post was written after my e-mails went unanswered for multiple weeks. No communication for weeks after a message the mounts will ship soon makes me nervous, so yes I was a bit cranky.

The reason I posted in this topic is that indeed, the early birds like us are taking some risk, and I could not in good conscience stayed silent and have others place an orders without being aware of the risk that this is a product that is not yet shipping. None of this was meant as an attack on Mark, the rest of JTW, or the other early birds.

Of course I accept risk on the project, I did sign up for the early bird after all, but I also think there is a responsibility for the manufacturer to be transparent and communicate frequently to the people who are essentially investing in this new product. Even if it's just a sign of life, an update that there hasn't been much progress for a week or two is better than radio silence. I also think expectations could have been managed better: if I get a message at the beginning of December that the mounts will ship soon, I get my hopes up and think I might have it before Christmas!

I'm pretty confident the mount will be mechanically sound. I met Mark at his workshop last year, and although I'm not a mechanical engineer I really got the impression he knows what he's doing. I'm less confident about the controller though and will definitely opt for the SiTech controller if FreeGo2 is not ready in time. I found it a bit disappointing to learn that this controller is not open source as initially indicated. I think a modern open source mount controller would have been a great asset to the astrophotography community and I still wonder how much of a competitive advantage a proprietary controller really is. I hope at least the protocols on the wire are open so we're free to tinker with the drivers and controller software as needed. This is not a deal breaker for me though and I'm open to being pleasantly surprised.

In the end it turns out these delays don't matter all that much to me: it's been cloudy for 2 months straight. ? I'm excited to exchange experiences with other users of the mounts as we receive them.

Clear skies!

 

 

[dahle]

WAHOOO !!! ? ? ?, Japz, I totally agree with you, from the beginning to the end. You have all summarized.

It is true that since the mount is in the hands of the FreeGo2 team, communication is rare. But what can Mark of JTW say, since he does not control this team? I'm sure he did not think he had all these problems!

Clears skies (but for me, 2019 starts badly, not a single clear night since the beginning of the year ?️)

[Northernlight]

Dahe.

I disagree somewhat. I think mark has a duty to keep his customers updated on a reular basis even if there is no progress.  Not updating customers results in mistrust and damage to your reputation which in reality is the last thing you want if you are a new player trying to bring a new product to market.

I was initially very keen on this mount and very nearly went for the early bird deal, but i was a bit nervous

 

 

 

 

[dahle]

Mark may have made some mistakes (who does not?) But he dared to make a new mount at an affordable price. Let's be confident ?

[Neil27]

Totally agree, it’s a great time for us amateur astronomers with some of the choice around nowadays.

Turn back the clock 10 years and the only people selling high end mounts were Astro physics and their ludicrous wait time and possibly Sortware Bisque and no offical UK importer. Or the tried and trusted Losmandy offering and also Takahashi and the sole UK distributor.

Although many moan about its performance and dubious QC the EQ8 went some way in prompting manufactures to look at alternatives and ways to improve performance without increasing relative prices. And a well fettled S/H EQ8 can rival many of today’s mounts.

And then there’s Gemini, ioptron, Fornax - one word competition ?. So I’m hoping the mount succeeds and adds another quality item to the market and further improves the competition and overall increase our choices. I just hope they pull it off in the time frame and at the proposed price point.

[Northernlight]

Dont get me wrong......I'm rooting for Mark to succeed and can't wait to see this mount come to market. I just think that if the Freego system isn't working out or is being delayed indefinately then they need to scrap the FreeGo solution and focus on the tried and tested SiTech controller system.

I think they just need to be honest with their customers and say the FreeGo system isn't working out and that they want to chnage to the Sitech Solution. If there is an increased costs to the customer they have to present the additional costs and then give the customer the option of agreeing the the extra costs or a refund.

The problem is that i think they are a bit trapped as i dont think they have the money available to offer refunds as all the money from the earlybird orders went into paying for the tooling and Raw materials.

Lets hope they find a solution soon.