Fitting a SteelTrack Diamond to a Newt

[Northernlight]

Hi all,

I'm going through the process of trying to decide between 2 newt and one of them is the 10"  Skywatcher Quattro. 

As with any cheaper scope, you invariably always need to change the stock focuser. Queue the Baader steeltrack diamond, which appers to be highly rated for its performance, yet it strikes me as odd that Baader don't do an adapter base plates for common scopes so it's a clean fit and doesn't require drilling.

Does anyone know if anyone supplies custom adapters to fit the steeltracks without needing to drill.

Not interested in a moonlite as I used to have a CR1 and it was utter garbage.

Cheers 

Rich.

[johninderby]

Unfortunately you will have to drill new mounting holes however it is an easy job and Baader gives full instructions. There are a lot of different bolt spacings used and Skywatcher seems to use an awkward spacing.

https://www.baader-planetarium.com/en/downloads/dl/file/id/175/product/2859/instruction_manual_for_all_baader_diamond_steeltrack_bds.pdf

https://www.baader-planetarium.com/en/downloads/dl/file/id/31/product/2859/bds_nt_versabase_dimensions_technical_drawing.pdf

Edited November 11, 2019 by johninderby

[dannybgoode]

The SteelTrack is an excellent focuser but yes a little drilling is required.  I’ve yet to find a focuser yet that is just plug and play so to speak. 
It’s easy enough to do. Just take your time and use a quality drill bit. 

[Northernlight]

Danny there are loads of focusers that provide adapters to allow the existing plate to be used or a replacement plate that uses the existing holes, these include moonlite, featherTouch, PrimaLuce Lab to name a few, so not sure why they don't just separate out the main body of the focuser and the base plate.

[johninderby]

The problem with trying to use the baseplate from one brand of focuser with another ficuser body is that most focuser bodies have slightly different fitting. This begs the question why don’t all focusers have a common size of fitting? 

[dannybgoode]

10 hours ago, Northernlight said:

Danny there are loads of focusers that provide adapters to allow the existing plate to be used or a replacement plate that uses the existing holes, these include moonlite, featherTouch, PrimaLuce Lab to name a few, so not sure why they don't just separate out the main body of the focuser and the base plate.

I’ve seen plenty of adapter plates to fit various OTA’s however the hole spacing is usually different to the OEM unit as the focusers themselves are generally bigger so have a different footprint. 
 

Are you sure the baseplates allow the existing holes to be used and are not just for the OTA in general? Not saying you’re wrong but it’s not something I’ve seen.
 

 

[Northernlight]

Yes definitely look at moonlite as an example they do base plate to fit very specific scopes where the new baseplate fits existing hole pattern without requiring new holes to be drilled. I have one fitted on my old SW 200p which I bought to fit their CR1 model.