First Impressions - iOptron AZ Pro

[AdeKing]

I've recently received an iOptron AZ Pro mount from FLO after glowing recommendations from two members of my local astro society and also seeing that it was generally well thought of by those users on SGL.

I'm visual only and although I do have an EQ5, it really isn't conducive to visual observing, trying to star hop with an EQ gives me a headache, so I decided that I wanted a high quality Alt Az goto and the AZ Pro seems to fit the bill.

Order duly placed at FLO for the AZ Pro, Mini-Pier, Secondary Clamp, counterweight, central bolt and levelling adjusters and the nicely machined but pricey altitude axis clutch lever things that make the altitude clutch look like an old fashioned ships wheel.

After a bit of a wait, the order arrives then after an even longer wait the skies clear to put the mount through its paces.

Cue first problem.  The finish on the mini-pier is definitely not what I was expecting from something I'd paid over £100 for.  I unscrew the thumbscrews at the base of the mini-pier try to pull off the bottom plate and find it to be a VERY tight fit, but it eventually yields and I think to myself "probably no bad thing".  I bodge together a fit on my EQ5 Berlebach top plate after removing the north alignment pin from the tripod and putting a 10mm threaded rod through with large washers then wing-nuts, its good enough for now and is secure.  I did order an IEQ45 top plate but at this point it hasn't been delivered to FLO yet.   

However, when I try to re-fit the mini-pier I run into problems, because of the tight fit, it is very difficult to line the holes up, but I eventually succeed in lining things up but the bolts won't thread back in, so I I give it a gentle knock to make sure its seated properly and try again.

Still no joy so I rotate the mini pier by 120 degrees and with a bit of effort line up a different pair of holes, bolt still won't thread in.  Getting frustrated now but I rotate it a third time, line up the holes and presto, the bolt threads in.  Puzzled, as I don't have this sort of trouble with the Skywatcher EQ5 extension (which is quite a bit cheaper) I take a look at the partially tightened bolt and see that it is disappearing into the mount at an angle.  Thought this odd so partly threaded the other two bolts in to find the same thing, all the bolts thread in at an angle whereas I'd expect them to be at 90 degrees to the pier wall. 

If i'd drilled the holes, I'd expect this, as my DIY skills are somewhat lacking, but I don't expect this from something costing over £100.  So I remove the bolts fully and take a closer look and then discover why the thing would fit together in one orientation only.  The threads are cut into one side of the hole in the pier wall.  Again, I'd expect the outer holes to be plain and the holes in the base plate to be threaded.  The reason the bolts wont go in is because the threads only match up to one of the three holes.  Not a great start.

Eager to use the mount I curse mildly and get on with levelling the tripod and fitting the mount, then all goes well.

I really am impressed by the mount, after levelling the mount and balancing the OTA on the alt axis, the mount points the OTA at the zenith and then rotates through 360 degrees to calibrate itself.  I leave it doing this as I figure that it will take a while to get acquire the GPS almanac and I make a cup of tea.  By the time I return it has picked up its location from the GPS and is pointing in the general direction of Vega and is asking for the bright star to be centred using the L & R arrow keys.  Luckily I'd read previous posts so I knew that the alignment differed from Skywatchers method and I knew only to use the L & R buttons to centre in azimuth I press enter and then the mount puts up a second message asking for the bright star to be centred using the arrow keys, again having done my research I use the up and down keys to centre in Altitude so Vega is in the centre of the FOV, I click the enter key and I'm ready to go.

To test the mount out, I select M57 as my first target and there it is right in the centre of the FOV, excellent result.  Next I go for something a bit further away and decide to hunt for Neptune, the mount starts slewing at max speed and squeals, like a car with a rubbing brake pad.  After apologising for waking the neighbours (joke) I carry on and Neptune is in the centre of the FOV good result again. 

I try a few more targets and almost every target is dead centre in my FOV, but every time the mount slews at maximum rate it squeals.

Anyway, after some dialogue with Rob at FLO and sending photos of the mini-pier problems and a video of the squealing mount Rob decides that the tension needs adjusting and asks me to send the mount back.  This is on a Friday so collection on Monday and clear nights forecast over the weekend, hurrah.

When I get home on Friday the Berlebach Tripod Top plate has been delivered so I swap out the EQ5 top plate and fit the iOptron one.  I go to bolt the mini-pier base plate to the top of the tripod, one bolt goes through no problem, but why wont the other bolt go through.  Oh I see, there isn't even a hole drilled in the base plate on the other side where the second hole should be so I can't even fit the mini-pier to the correct top plate.  Grrrrrrrr, getting rather cross now 😡.  Anyway, determined to use the mount I fiddle around again and re-fit the EQ5 top plate and apply my bodge again, fit the mount and go outside.

The mount performs brilliantly (except for the squeal), it even works properly with SkySafari, both SS5 and SS6.  I'd read reports that the mount didn't work with version 6, but I didn't have any issues with this side of it.

I had a whole weekend of viewing fun but duly packaged up the mount and mini-pier in preparation for their return to FLO.

Time rolls on and I get a message that the mount has been adjusted and has stopped squealing and will be back with me shortly.  Well tonight I've got it and have set it up for a play, even though its raining canines and felines outside.

Good news is that the squealing has definitely gone.  Bad news is that the mount now clunks every 15-20 seconds.  Having researched adjusting the alt and az tensions whilst the mount was away I'm now expecting to see the target jump in FOV every time the mount clunks 🤬, but can't check as I can't fit it without the mini-pier and the weather is awful.

How am I feeling, well rather deflated if I'm honest. 

I've saved for this mount for absolutely ages and was really excited about receiving it.  I know that sometimes we have to tweak mounts to make them perform better, but was I naive to expect everything to fit together easily and expect the mount to work nicely when it was brand new out of the box?

I'm aware that iOptron have had some bad press in the past, but from reading recent reviews that seemed to be a thing of the past.

This isn't aimed at FLO as they're only selling sealed items direct from iOptron, but I am really gutted that the mount has come back and has now developed a different problem.  I am happy to fiddle with it, and wouldn't be bothered by this if it was secondhand but I'm totally gutted that a brand new unopened item has issues.

I've corresponded with Steve (@Trikeflyer) who has also recently purchased one of these mounts and he tells me that he hasn't seen any of these issues with his so I'm feeling more than a bit cross about it at the moment.  It's not even like this could be classed as a "budget" mount and the old adage "you get what you pay for" applied.  Surely paying four figures for a new mount should mean that it should be pretty well adjusted out of the box shouldn't it?.

Email and video going back to Rob at FLO and also to iOptron customer support to see what suggestions there are going forward.

Sorry for the rant, but I needed to get this off my chest as its really got me down 🙁.

Does anyone out there have an AZ Pro and have any suggestions? 

FLO have performed brilliantly in delivering as soon as everything was in and in organising a collection for the mount to be checked.

As I said above the ease of setup and accuracy are brilliant and are exactly what I was looking for, can't fault those, its the rest of the issues that have rather let the side down.

Ade

 

[Knighty2112]

Not a good experience Ade. I’d be more than a little cheesed off myself with these problems too, especially with the price of the mount. Was maybe looking at an iOptron mount at some point next year, but now maybe not after your experience. Hope you eventually get it sorted out. 

[johninderby]

Makes you want to collect one of these mounts in person from the shop so you can check it out first. 🤔

Edited October 18, 2019 by johninderby

[John]

Sorry to hear about these problems.

The trouble is, once you have had some negative experiences with a piece of kit, it can be difficult to build up confidence and enthusiasm in it again.

I'm sure FLO will do all they can to help though.

[AdeKing]

15 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

Not a good experience Ade. I’d be more than a little cheesed off myself with these problems too, especially with the price of the mount. Was maybe looking at an iOptron mount at some point next year, but now maybe not after your experience. Hope you eventually get it sorted out. 

From speaking to those members of my local society and to Steve, I'm inclined to think that I've just been unlucky and received a bad example of both the mount and the mini-pier.  I know Steve asked for FLO to check everything worked and fitted together before shipping it out.

3 minutes ago, johninderby said:

Makes you want to collect one of these mounts in person from the shop so you can check it out first. 🤔

Absolutely, I know iOptron received a lot of flak in the past and were accused on CN essentially using users as beta testers for the firmware for one of the earlier products but there doesn't seem to have been many, if any complaints for a few years, and I tend to take stuff I read on CN with a handful of salt rather than the customary pinch.

Ah well, I've received nothing but excellent service from FLO so no doubt  things will get sorted out, just frustrating in the meantime and has taken the shine off the shiny new kit.

[AdeKing]

1 minute ago, John said:

Sorry to hear about these problems.

The trouble is, once you have had some negative experiences with a piece of kit, it can be difficult to build up confidence and enthusiasm in it again.

I'm sure FLO will do all they can to help though.

Thanks John, I'm absolutely sure that FLO will sort it all out as they've always given me excellent service.

I do desperately want to love the mount as it should be able to cope with the weight and length of my Celestron XLT 102ED and my Gold Skywatcher 120ED, though I'm not intending on using them at the same time. 

It will also let me have both Ha and WL set up at the same time on a single mount so it ticks pretty much all of the boxes I wanted.  

I'm not sure that it will cope with the length of the Starwave 102 f/11 though, which is why I'm interested in the new Rowan AZ100. 

The 102 f/11 is useable on the EQ5 and Uni 18 combo, but would probably be better on an HEQ5 or EQ6, but as I really don't like EQ mounts for visual as they're not easy to star hop with (my star hopping leaves a lot to be desired at the best of times) and so I don't really want to upgrade an EQ, AltAz is so much more intuitive to use.

Email has been sent to iOptron support on both issues so I'll see what comes back from them.  I'll also let Rob know, but I want to test with the mount loaded up first just in case the problem is manifesting because there is no load on it, but I suspect that I'm grasping at straws there.

 

[johninderby]

Just so disapointing when your shiny new perfect bit of kit isn’t perfect. Like buying a new car and it breaks down on the way home. Yes it would be put right but takes the gloss off the experience. 😢

Edited October 18, 2019 by johninderby

[djpaul]

So sorry to hear about the problems you are having.

It sort of puts you off .

I had issues with the sky tee and wouldn't buy another one because of the issues I found with its build quality.

I was considering the ioptron pro a few weeks back.

But I'm holding back and also extremely interested in the Rowan Astronomy mount.

BTW at the moment I'm using an EQ5 and have done a modification to use it as an alt az mount.

I'm looking to purchase the Rowan Astronomy mount pending field reports from John and Stu. 

 

[Stu]

Sorry to hear about the problems Ade, hope they can be sorted so you rebuild confidence in the product. Is a complete swap out an option if this one was a Friday afternoon job?

FLO will sort you for sure, however you want to resolve it.

I confess I've been interested in this mount for a long time but have always held off because of some of the negative reports. It's a shame because it seems perfect for what I would need in many ways.

Fortunately a rather large box has just arrived.... AZ100 no doubt, just need the tripod now but will have a look later on. Exciting 😁😁

[AdeKing]

8 hours ago, djpaul said:

So sorry to hear about the problems you are having.

It sort of puts you off .

I had issues with the sky tee and wouldn't buy another one because of the issues I found with its build quality.

I was considering the ioptron pro a few weeks back.

But I'm holding back and also extremely interested in the Rowan Astronomy mount.

BTW at the moment I'm using an EQ5 and have done a modification to use it as an alt az mount.

I'm looking to purchase the Rowan Astronomy mount pending field reports from John and Stu. 

I've now slept on it and have to confess that some of my emotions last night were probably due to tiredness and annoyance at a very long drive home last night. 5 hours from just outside St Albans to just outside Southampton. It felt like I'd been in a 92 mile traffic queue. 

I've seen the EQ5 mod you're talking about. If I switched the SynScan cable for the SynScan AZ cable would that give me a goto solution.  I suspect it won't but am thinking out loud. 

41 minutes ago, Stu said:

Sorry to hear about the problems Ade, hope they can be sorted so you rebuild confidence in the product. Is a complete swap out an option if this one was a Friday afternoon job?

FLO will sort you for sure, however you want to resolve it.

I confess I've been interested in this mount for a long time but have always held off because of some of the negative reports. It's a shame because it seems perfect for what I would need in many ways.

Fortunately a rather large box has just arrived.... AZ100 no doubt, just need the tripod now but will have a look later on. Exciting 😁😁

Thanks Stu, I'm feeling better and much more positive about it now that I've had a good night's sleep. I'll bodge together something to fit it to the tripod and do a proper setup to see whether it was a result of it not being properly level as I know they are sensitive to being dead level. 

9 hours ago, johninderby said:

Just so disapointing when your shiny new perfect bit of kit isn’t perfect. Like buying a new car and it breaks down on the way home. Yes it would be put right but takes the gloss off the experience. 😢

That's exactly it John I felt like a child that had been given a shiny balloon and then had someone pop it. 

[AdeKing]

51 minutes ago, Stu said:

Fortunately a rather large box has just arrived.... AZ100 no doubt, just need the tripod now but will have a look later on. Exciting 😁😁

Very excited to hear your thoughts on this setup Stu, as are a fair number of others on SGL I suspect. 

[johninderby]

13 minutes ago, AdeKing said:

Very excited to hear your thoughts on this setup Stu, as are a fair number of others on SGL I suspect. 

Waiting for my AZ100..................impatiently. 😁

[Trikeflyer]

Sorry to hear about your experience with the mount Ade.  Mine has been pretty good so far so I may have been lucky.  I had the whole Ioptron set up including the tripod so maybe mine just fitted together well because it was all Ioptron kit.  The  sky safari 6 working is because the firmware is the last but one on your mount - mine worked fine with sf6 until I upgraded the firmware to the latest. So if you want to continue with sf6 don’t upgrade the firmware. The new firmware is fine with sf5. I must admit if I had seen the Rowan mount pre buying the Ioptron, I might have held out for one - they do look well put together even the prototype.  Like everyone I’m waiting to hear more from the tests being carried out. That said, my ioptron mount has performed well except for the sf6 hiccup so I can’t say I’m unhappy with it.  It pretty much hits the target every time once it’s aligned and it tracks pretty well too. 

Like others have said, I’m sure FLO will either fix or exchange it for you and hopefully soon. 

Steve 

[garryblueboy]

Sorry your having troubles with your AZ Pro I recently purchased one second from Dave on here with the pier tripod and pier extension I must say I’m not experiencing any of The Troubles  you mention in fact I think it’s a step up from the old versions in build quality as for the mini pier extension  I think there vastly over priced and this is the same as the older one  I had with my older min tower mount   The tripod is very stable and would highly recommend getting one I’m sure FLO will sort your problem out and this is a minor blip .

[AdeKing]

16 hours ago, Trikeflyer said:

Sorry to hear about your experience with the mount Ade.  Mine has been pretty good so far so I may have been lucky.  I had the whole Ioptron set up including the tripod so maybe mine just fitted together well because it was all Ioptron kit.  The  sky safari 6 working is because the firmware is the last but one on your mount - mine worked fine with sf6 until I upgraded the firmware to the latest. So if you want to continue with sf6 don’t upgrade the firmware. The new firmware is fine with sf5. I must admit if I had seen the Rowan mount pre buying the Ioptron, I might have held out for one - they do look well put together even the prototype.  Like everyone I’m waiting to hear more from the tests being carried out. That said, my ioptron mount has performed well except for the sf6 hiccup so I can’t say I’m unhappy with it.  It pretty much hits the target every time once it’s aligned and it tracks pretty well too. 

Like others have said, I’m sure FLO will either fix or exchange it for you and hopefully soon. 

Steve 

Thanks Steve, I'm partly regretting not going for the kit, but can't justify having the Berlebach sitting there and not getting regular enough use so went for the new top plate. 

I haven't checked the firmware but when it worked with SS6 I remembered your advice and didn't bother to upgrade it. 

Once the mini-pier replacement turns up hopefully everything should sort itself out and the mount is travelling to SGLSP with me so hopefully can get any remaining niggles tweaked out by Rob if he's attending this year. 

14 hours ago, garryblueboy said:

Sorry your having troubles with your AZ Pro I recently purchased one second from Dave on here with the pier tripod and pier extension I must say I’m not experiencing any of The Troubles  you mention in fact I think it’s a step up from the old versions in build quality as for the mini pier extension  I think there vastly over priced and this is the same as the older one  I had with my older min tower mount   The tripod is very stable and would highly recommend getting one I’m sure FLO will sort your problem out and this is a minor blip .

Thanks Garry, I'd seen that Richard had contacted you. I didn't bother to put up a wanted ad as I didn't expect one to come up, then after I'd clicked buy Richard said he was selling and then another one came up on ABS a bit later.  Hopefully the lack of used ones is an indication of many happy owners. 

As above I think when the pier arrives and I can actually use it again things will be OK. I have since played with it again and the clunk noise didn't manifest again so possibly a bedding in problem. 

Edited October 20, 2019 by AdeKing
Spelling

[Alan White]

Just read this Ade, fully understand the frustration, long drive or not.
Good to see that FLO are being very helpful as usual, so that makes a bad experience easier.

I too rather like the look of these mounts, but with the varying reports have always held off even saving for one.
But as you say the AZ100 is very interesting indeed, but again for me is a save up job if I decide one is for me.
I did try the alternate methods of fund raising;
but so far no body parts sold and someone else won the EuroMillions!

As to the riser and it's cost, the add on bits with so many things are always stupidly high,
I needed a cover ring for my Olympus Pro lens to cover where a bracket can be removed,
it's made of plastic, but specific to the lens, £35 for a small lump of poor quality plastic.

I wish you well with this mount and I am sure things will work through OK in the end, they always do.

Edited October 20, 2019 by Alan White

[AdeKing]

I thought that it was about time I gave an update on my experience with this mount.

I eventually returned the original mount to FLO and Rob kindly inspected a replacement before it was sent out to me.

The replacement was delivered last Tues, I picked it up from work on Thurs and for once clear skies were forecast on Thursday night.

I didn't have time to charge it fully before use so set it up running from my 12v Tracer battery which is 11Ah and was fully charged so should have been fine.  However, on running the auto alignment the mount selected the Moon and it was way off, approximately right in altitude but about 3-5 degrees out in AZ.  All gotos were out by 1-2 degrees in AZ but pretty close in Alt, so I cleared the alignment data and tried a 3-star alignment several times but with the same result, the AZ error didn't get smaller with each alignment star like it should so I packed it in as a bad job.

I left the mount to charge through the day on Fri and was lucky enough to have clear skies on Friday night and set the mount up using the internal battery and presto, everything ran like clockwork, the auto-alignment target was only just out of the FOV and after completing the auto procedure everything was within the FOV of a 24mm on my ED100.

I've used the mount a couple of times since including for the Mercury transit today and then for about an hour tonight and it has performed excellently.  No squealing, no clunks, no sign of jumping at high mags, lovely and quiet, and tracking was spot on for the entire 3.5 hours of the mercury transit.

Since having received the replacement unit, I have been nothing but impressed, which I'm very pleased about given the initial tale of woe.  However, given my experiences, I would recommend that others purchasing this mount request that it is checked over prior to dispatch.

It would also appear that the Tracer battery that I have doesn't kick out enough juice for the mount to function properly using it as a power source so it looks like I won't be using it as a backup.

On 20/10/2019 at 17:08, Alan White said:

I wish you well with this mount and I am sure things will work through OK in the end, they always do.

You're right @Alan Whiteit looks like things have worked out in the end.

[Alan White]

16 hours ago, AdeKing said:

You're right @Alan Whiteit looks like things have worked out in the end.

Glad it has Ade, very pleased for you.
These mounts do look interesting to me>
I wonder what the biggest scope it can handle well?

 

[AdeKing]

Specs state 15kg primary and 4.5kg secondary payload. 

I will be using ED120 or an ED100, though I've only tried it with the ED100 at the moment.

Im pretty sure that @Trikeflyer uses an Equinox 120ED quite happily.  I suspect tube length rather than weight will be the deciding factor. 

I will try it with my 102 f/11 which is fairly light but I suspect that it might be a bit long for the mount based on other reviews that I've read. 

As long as it handles the ED120 I'll be happy. 

 

[Trikeflyer]

1 hour ago, AdeKing said:

Specs state 15kg primary and 4.5kg secondary payload. 

I will be using ED120 or an ED100, though I've only tried it with the ED100 at the moment.

Im pretty sure that @Trikeflyer uses an Equinox 120ED quite happily.  I suspect tube length rather than weight will be the deciding factor. 

I will try it with my 102 f/11 which is fairly light but I suspect that it might be a bit long for the mount based on other reviews that I've read. 

As long as it handles the ED120 I'll be happy. 

 

Thanks Ade, yes I use this mount with a 120 equinox which I think weighs about 9kg+ with all the paraphernalia - weight for this scope is not a problem.  With this scope I do need the ioptron pier extension otherwise the scope would hit the tripod on initial mount auto alignment. I have actually used it with an 8 inch revelation newt that all up weighs about 13kg and it is ok apart from taking time to get the balance point right and the slight vibration when adjusting focus which does settle pretty quickly but is annoying it works pretty well. 

Steve 

 

 

[garryblueboy]

On 12/11/2019 at 15:59, Alan White said:

Glad it has Ade, very pleased for you.
These mounts do look interesting to me>
I wonder what the biggest scope it can handle well?

 

I have my APM 152 on it ok seems fine with it Alan 

[AdeKing]

23 minutes ago, garryblueboy said:

I have my APM 152 on it ok seems fine with it Alan 

Is that the f/7.4 one Harry with 1200mm f/L? 

If it's happy with that length and weight then it should be OK with my Starwave 102 f/11.

I have it mounted on a Berlebach Uni18 rather than the tri-pier but it gives me hope. 

[Alan White]

23 minutes ago, AdeKing said:

I have it mounted on a Berlebach Uni18 rather than the tri-pier but it gives me hope.

Does the Berbach need a specific head fitting Ade?

[AdeKing]

4 hours ago, Alan White said:

Does the Berbach need a specific head fitting Ade?

Alan, 

The mount wont fit directly onto the standard EQ5/HEQ5 berlebach tripods unless you drill out the central hole as it uses a larger thread. 

You can however make the mini-pier fit the EQ5/HEQ5 or I guess any of the other top plates that allow you to remove the North pin. 

You remove the North pin, use the correct diameter threaded rod for the tripod top (M10 for EQ5/HEQ5) with some large washers and clamp the bottom plate of the mini-pier to the tripod using nuts and washers. 

Or the more elegant and easier but more expensive solution is to get the Berlebach top plate suitable for the IEQ45. The bottom plate of the mini pier then bolts directly to this with 2x M8 bolts and once the extension is fitted the levelling bolts for the mount thread into the top plate of the mini-pier and the mount bolts straight to that. 

I'll add some photos to explain when I get home. 

If you look at the instructions for the mini-pier this should explain the simpler but more expensive option. 

Ade

[garryblueboy]

13 hours ago, AdeKing said:

Is that the f/7.4 one Harry with 1200mm f/L? 

If it's happy with that length and weight then it should be OK with my Starwave 102 f/11.

I have it mounted on a Berlebach Uni18 rather than the tri-pier but it gives me hope. 

Hi Ade it’s the 1200 Fl LZOS triplet F8