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Rowan AZ100 Mount Owners Thread


johninderby

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Observations: the legs are spread wider than normal, the riser wiil not help. I am sure the grips at the top of the legs are tight. Have you checked that the thread on the tripod hand knob is engaging fully with the thread on the mount base/riser? Should be 10 - 12 mm. (Mine was short).

 

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4 hours ago, Stephenstargazer said:

Observations: the legs are spread wider than normal, the riser wiil not help. I am sure the grips at the top of the legs are tight. Have you checked that the thread on the tripod hand knob is engaging fully with the thread on the mount base/riser? Should be 10 - 12 mm. (Mine was short).

 

I tried the tripod at all three spread angles and the widest and middle position (I have the 3 position spreader) tested the best.  In the last test tried (as in the pic) they are at the widest to try with the riser pier. Oddly enough, this combination improved things to 2 seconds.  No riser and middle position with the weights set to the outside of the bar gives the worst at 3 seconds of damping time.  The center bolt engages with 4.5 turns of the knob worth of thread and I'm using the newest center adapter that extends downward past the base.  I also tested it with the T-Pod which has an extra two threads worth of bolt and  it was no better.  All knobs and bolts are very tight (I'm a big guy, so no worry of them being remotely loose.  I've set the tripod on cement as shown and in the grass with no change in oscillations.  I've tried one weight, two weights, no weights and the best performance comes from two weights set fully inward on the counterweight bar. 

So far, the way its set in the pic has given the best performance.  One thing I've noted is that AZ axis slow motion control is nice with the scope installed, but is binding a bit when the scope is removed.  Rowan suspects I may need to do some adjustments, but they wanted to rule out everything else first, which makes sense.  It's why I'm posting here, to see if there is anything else anyone can think of trying.

I'm happy to try any ideas anyone has!

Rick

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New parts arrived: short (AZ 75) Vixen clamp, with short handle + bracket, eyepiece weight.

I wanted the short clamp so I can get the mounting bar/scope further forward for balance.I have put my existing long handle on the front of the clamp sloping downwards. The bracket fits and adjusts in various positions from horizontal. The weight slides nicely whilst holding the handle to feel the balance 🙂. The slope and low position adds vertical correction to balance 🙂. The short handle for panning is fitted on the opposite side of the mount (to keep it out the way) and fits underneath the counterbalance bar plate (requires some spacers). This slopes up slighly as I prefer. (Could also be done with another saddle, or fitted scope side, of course). My scopes gets to zenith, a bit tight on tripod, no issue on pier.

All in all I reckon this will assist balance for both refractor and catadioptric configurations including focal extenders, bino viewers, eye piece turret and eyepiece changes. Rain prevents outdoor test today, let alone in the dark on the sky..😓 

 

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2 hours ago, Rixavatar said:

I'm happy to try any ideas anyone has!

Sorry that you are having this problem, those damping times are what makes smaller mounts a pain to use. I'll put my thinking hat back on (and sure others will). It sounds like a resonance issue , but you have tried so many arrangements that they should not all do it. Do you have a different scope (or borrow one) to try as a baseline?

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3 hours ago, Rixavatar said:

I tried the tripod at all three spread angles and the widest and middle position (I have the 3 position spreader) tested the best.  In the last test tried (as in the pic) they are at the widest to try with the riser pier. Oddly enough, this combination improved things to 2 seconds.  No riser and middle position with the weights set to the outside of the bar gives the worst at 3 seconds of damping time.  The center bolt engages with 4.5 turns of the knob worth of thread and I'm using the newest center adapter that extends downward past the base.  I also tested it with the T-Pod which has an extra two threads worth of bolt and  it was no better.  All knobs and bolts are very tight (I'm a big guy, so no worry of them being remotely loose.  I've set the tripod on cement as shown and in the grass with no change in oscillations.  I've tried one weight, two weights, no weights and the best performance comes from two weights set fully inward on the counterweight bar. 

So far, the way its set in the pic has given the best performance.  One thing I've noted is that AZ axis slow motion control is nice with the scope installed, but is binding a bit when the scope is removed.  Rowan suspects I may need to do some adjustments, but they wanted to rule out everything else first, which makes sense.  It's why I'm posting here, to see if there is anything else anyone can think of trying.

I'm happy to try any ideas anyone has!

Rick

Hello,

Quote

I tried the tripod at all three spread angles and the widest and middle position (I have the 3 position spreader) tested the best.

This is what I would expect as well., 

 

Quote

... with the weights set to the outside of the bar gives the worst at 3 seconds of damping time.

No surprise here.., 

Have you tried mounting the OTA on the opposite end? 

Also, If at all possible, set up an afocal-mounted camera (a smartphone will work as well) and record the view during dampening and send that off to the vendor for review.., 

Hope that helps - best of luck.., 

Best., 

bsdsgl84

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7 hours ago, Stephenstargazer said:

Sorry that you are having this problem, those damping times are what makes smaller mounts a pain to use. I'll put my thinking hat back on (and sure others will). It sounds like a resonance issue , but you have tried so many arrangements that they should not all do it. Do you have a different scope (or borrow one) to try as a baseline?

It's the only scope I have at the moment, but the tripod was testing with my previous DM6 mount and it was perfect, as was a G11 before that.  Rowan has been helping me with the issue and we might have found the issue.  I'll know more after testing it tonight.  Fingers crossed!

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5 hours ago, bsdsgl84 said:

Hello,

This is what I would expect as well., 

 

No surprise here.., 

Have you tried mounting the OTA on the opposite end? 

Also, If at all possible, set up an afocal-mounted camera (a smartphone will work as well) and record the view during dampening and send that off to the vendor for review.., 

Hope that helps - best of luck.., 

Best., 

bsdsgl84

Good idea, I'll try that.  I'm hoping the adjustments Rowan had me do today will take care of it.  Brief testing from my workshop looks promising, but I need to check it under the stars before I declare victory.  

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5 minutes ago, Rixavatar said:

Good idea, I'll try that.  I'm hoping the adjustments Rowan had me do today will take care of it.  Brief testing from my workshop looks promising, but I need to check it under the stars before I declare victory.  

:thumbsup:

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4 hours ago, Space Hopper said:

It could be the screw-in 'rubber feet' on the Berlebach, causing a few wobbles (more noticeable with a long focal length)

Can you swap them for the spikes, and set up on the grass and see if that improves things ?

I have the spikes on order, but they are not here yet.  However, with these feet installed, the DM6 and G11 with everything from a TSA-120 to a C11 were always rock solid.  I've tested the AZ100 now with both a T-Pod 110 and the Planet.  Rowan did some testing as well on their end using similar load but with a Uni tripod and got the same damping times (2 seconds) but the Planet is a more substantial tripod, so it should be better.  After I try things with the recommended adjustments, I'll know more.   I mostly need to know what the proper expectations should be for stability using this 35lb fully setup OTA.

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7 hours ago, Stephenstargazer said:

New parts arrived: short (AZ 75) Vixen clamp, with short handle + bracket, eyepiece weight.

I wanted the short clamp so I can get the mounting bar/scope further forward for balance.I have put my existing long handle on the front of the clamp sloping downwards. The bracket fits and adjusts in various positions from horizontal. The weight slides nicely whilst holding the handle to feel the balance 🙂. The slope and low position adds vertical correction to balance 🙂. The short handle for panning is fitted on the opposite side of the mount (to keep it out the way) and fits underneath the counterbalance bar plate (requires some spacers). This slopes up slighly as I prefer. (Could also be done with another saddle, or fitted scope side, of course). My scopes gets to zenith, a bit tight on tripod, no issue on pier.

All in all I reckon this will assist balance for both refractor and catadioptric configurations including focal extenders, bino viewers, eye piece turret and eyepiece changes. Rain prevents outdoor test today, let alone in the dark on the sky..😓 

 

20221021_105011.jpg

20221021_162535.jpg

20221021_162634.jpg

20221021_162415.jpg

Nice setup!  I may need to do this once I get things sorted.  What's the length of the short handle?  I could use this!

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9 hours ago, Rixavatar said:

What's the length of the short handle?

The short handle is 220mm, the long ones are 350mm.  However the lengths the weight can slide on are 140mm and 220mm, See Rowan website for pictures. They come with different brackets, to suit the 100/75 clamps, but am sure  that Rowan will sell either combination if you request by e-mail. They are very helpful like this in my experience !

For information: the weight is 55mm long, so on the short handle it can move 140-55 = 85mm.

Edited by Stephenstargazer
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As quick follow up on my AZ100...

To recap, with my Meade 10" LX850 f8 OTA on the AZ100 and Planet tripod, I was getting about 3 seconds of damping time when focusing or touch the OTA.  After several attempts to resolve this by swapping the tripod out with a T-Pod, using VSPs, trying a different 10" OTA, cement and grass, various amounts and configurations of counterweight and checking everything for tightness, I reached out to Rowan to get their advice as my experience wasn't matching what others were reporting.  The best I was able to reduce the damping time to was 2 seconds and Rowan confirmed that that wasn't what I should be seeing, so this was an anomoly to solve.

Starting with a quick shout out to Derek at Rowan for amazing customer service in working through things, I can now report that damping times are down to 1 second and the oscillations greatly decreased in amplitude, making fine planetary focusing easy!  I still have yet to try the spiked feet to see if they will improve things even further as they are on order, but it's meeting my expectations.  Considering this is a 35lb OTA setup with eyepieces (weighed to confirm) and two counterweights, I'd say that's pretty good!  Other's experiences with similar OTA weights I would guess are similar, but of course one person's opinion of "rock solid" may differ from another based on experience or expectations.  To me, my goal is 1 second or less, which is why I tend to try to overmount my scopes.  When I got the 10" f8 for the AZ100, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't overloading it for /my/ expectations of rock solid.  3 seconds was a bit much.

So, Derek helped me through the process of exploring possibilities, testing and reporting results which lead to making some adjustments (this mount is incredibly user serviceable, so credit is due to the designer!).  It's pretty clear to me that its designed to be a lifetime instrument.  After years of experience with mass produced mounts that eventually failed me from the effects of cost saving "short cuts" (just my experience and opinion, your mileage may vary!), having gone through this, its clear to me with the AZ100, there are no such cost saving shortcuts.  I was definitely impressed.

TLDR; Derek with Rowan had the patience and customer service to help me work the damping time down to 1 second, which is quite nice in use, especially considering the weight of this OTA!

I would wholeheartedly recommend the AZ100, and Rowan as a company, as not just a solid choice (pun intended) for a mount, but also a long term investment in astro gear.  Now I look forward to my GoTo upgrade when it finally arrives!

Thanks again to everyone who helped with suggestions towards getting things to where they are now.  Clear skies!

~Rix

One parting note:  Pic below while enjoying Jupiter.  I have the weights all the way inward while testing stability, but it now doesn't matter where they are.  The mount doesn't care.

IMG_0962.jpg

Edited by Rixavatar
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51 minutes ago, Rixavatar said:

As quick follow up on my AZ100...

To recap, with my Meade 10" LX850 f8 OTA on the AZ100 and Planet tripod, I was getting about 3 seconds of damping time when focusing or touch the OTA.  After several attempts to resolve this by swapping the tripod out with a T-Pod, using VSPs, trying a different 10" OTA, cement and grass, various amounts and configurations of counterweight and checking everything for tightness, I reached out to Rowan to get their advice as my experience wasn't matching what others were reporting.  The best I was able to reduce the damping time to was 2 seconds and Rowan confirmed that that wasn't what I should be seeing, so this was an anomoly to solve.

Starting with a quick shout out to Derek at Rowan for amazing customer service in working through things, I can now report that damping times are down to 1 second and the oscillations greatly decreased in amplitude, making fine planetary focusing easy!  I still have yet to try the spiked feet to see if they will improve things even further as they are on order, but it's meeting my expectations.  Considering this is a 35lb OTA setup with eyepieces (weighed to confirm) and two counterweights, I'd say that's pretty good!  Other's experiences with similar OTA weights I would guess are similar, but of course one person's opinion of "rock solid" may differ from another based on experience or expectations.  To me, my goal is 1 second or less, which is why I tend to try to overmount my scopes.  When I got the 10" f8 for the AZ100, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't overloading it for /my/ expectations of rock solid.  3 seconds was a bit much.

So, Derek helped me through the process of exploring possibilities, testing and reporting results which lead to making some adjustments (this mount is incredibly user serviceable, so credit is due to the designer!).  It's pretty clear to me that its designed to be a lifetime instrument.  After years of experience with mass produced mounts that eventually failed me from the effects of cost saving "short cuts" (just my experience and opinion, your mileage may vary!), having gone through this, its clear to me with the AZ100, there are no such cost saving shortcuts.  I was definitely impressed.

TLDR; Derek with Rowan had the patience and customer service to help me work the damping time down to 1 second, which is quite nice in use, especially considering the weight of this OTA!

I would wholeheartedly recommend the AZ100, and Rowan as a company, as not just a solid choice (pun intended) for a mount, but also a long term investment in astro gear.  Now I look forward to my GoTo upgrade when it finally arrives!

Thanks again to everyone who helped with suggestions towards getting things to where they are now.  Clear skies!

~Rix

One parting note:  Pic below while enjoying Jupiter.  I have the weights all the way inward while testing stability, but it now doesn't matter where they are.  The mount doesn't care.

IMG_0962.jpg

Interesting post. What changes did you make to the configuration that enabled you to reduce the damping time to one second?

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On 19/10/2022 at 07:24, bsdsgl84 said:

Thanks for posting.., 

I was curious to see what would eventually come of this - and I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed, really. 

I would have much preferred the counterweighting to be based at the saddle centre or at the front like you said, but I guess it comes down to preference.., 

Still - its good to see responses to customer feedback nevertheless! 

 

 

 

I spoke to Derek at the IAS about a weight to act as a counterbalance at the front of the mount and was told that such a system is in the pipeline.

I'd like one to counterbalance my binoviewers as the weight of the binoviewers is off-axis and makes balancing difficult.

Can't wait to see the solution when it is released.

Ade

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5 hours ago, AdeKing said:

I spoke to Derek at the IAS about a weight to act as a counterbalance at the front of the mount and was told that such a system is in the pipeline.

I'd like one to counterbalance my binoviewers as the weight of the binoviewers is off-axis and makes balancing difficult.

Can't wait to see the solution when it is released.

Ade

Hello,

Thanks for that.., 

Hopefully it won't amount to just a random pole sticking out the front with a weight attached to it., 

Best., 

bsdsgl84

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13 hours ago, Stephenstargazer said:

Good news! But what was the fix?

The fix was to adjust the axis bearing preload.

The azimuth axis in particular was possibly set too light by us resulting in some 'flexure' / or clearance in the bearings. The Preload adjustment applies some tension to all the bearings in the axis such that there is 'no' flexure allowable.

It is an engineering challenge to design something that is rigid both static and dynamically but still allows super smooth motion under heavy load, all those requirements contradict themselves.

The preload takes some easy but careful adjustment to get just right. In this instance we didn't get it quite right or the bearings were not fully seated during assembly and subsequently settled.

Rixavatar was very helpful and made the adjustment with guidance for us. Once the Alt and Az preload was adjusted and the slow motion backlash reset, all was good.

 

ATB

Derek.

 

 

Edited by Dek Rowan Astro
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3 hours ago, bsdsgl84 said:

Hello,

Thanks for that.., 

Hopefully it won't amount to just a random pole sticking out the front with a weight attached to it., 

Best., 

bsdsgl84

Hi bsd,

It's on the drawing board at the moment, if you have any particular requirements "speak now or forever hold your peace" 😉 

ATB

Derek.

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On 21/10/2022 at 20:20, Space Hopper said:

Can you swap them for the spikes, and set up on the grass and see if that improves things ?

Just to say that I find spikes dug into the grass to be a big improvement over rubber feet on concrete. The tripod just becomes completely rigid.

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3 hours ago, Stu said:

Just to say that I find spikes dug into the grass to be a big improvement over rubber feet on concrete. The tripod just becomes completely rigid.

Absolutely.

I think the concrete base is the issue here.

Moving the rig onto the grass (even with the rubber feet) should be a big improvement.

I use rubber feet / Planet / DM6 on grass regularly and have no issues with wobbles at higher powers (unless i start jumping up and down) and i'd expect the AZ100 to be the same.

The DM6 creator (Tom Peters) actually recommends having no rubber feet or spikes etc at all and even supply their own tripods that way.

Just the bare wood (its not tapered at the bottom of the legs) standing on the grass or whatever. 

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I concur.... with both Stu and Rob!

I have both rubber and spiked feet for my visual set-up using a Planet tripod (and a Half Hitch mount rather than a Rowan). After trying both, I now use the spikes pushed into the grass... mainly because grass is also a lot safer if I drop an Ethos !

What I would recommend for spikes, is to attach large washers between the spikes and the tripod - this allows you to push the things into the soil to a 'stop' (the washer) and that also stops sinkage as the night progresses - this is 'useful' if you are running encoders / push-to, to keep everything nice and true -stopping the system loosing that little bit of alignment over the night (although that can usually be re-done quite quickly,  but why not stop the issue in the first place!)

And I prefer it that way, just my OCD !

image.thumb.jpeg.2cc07a96730887041a4a8b1fc52391ed.jpegimage.thumb.jpeg.2d2d12d542891884221923f65bb6671f.jpeg

Just my pennies worth...

Damian

Edited by TakMan
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5 hours ago, Dek Rowan Astro said:

Hi bsd,

It's on the drawing board at the moment, if you have any particular requirements "speak now or forever hold your peace" 😉 

ATB

Derek.

As I have mentioned in previous posts so I will mention it again here, I vote for an interface between the mount and saddle like the altitude adjuster which would allow the OTA centerline to be raised or lowered (especially lowered) on the mount's Y axis. My Nova Hitch has that which allows for 2 axis balancing and was a game changer. While not meant for on the fly dynamic adjustment for eyepiece changes, as part of the Nova Hitch design it was meant to facilitate initial 2 axis balancing utilizing an eyepiece that represented an average weight of the eyepieces one might use and because the mount was so robust it resulted in really good 2 axis balancing for my whole range of eyepieces.

And nothing is sticking out of the mount! (and while you are at it a finder platform provision could me made for the top of it > that platform you see in the picture above that adjustment thumbscrew is a platform onto which a standard finder saddle can be attached removed for this photo. I really like the finder on the mount as opposed to the OTA)

I have attached a picture of my Nova Hitch showing where that is accomplished on it. On the Nova Hitch the 2 axis balancing was an integral part of the mount and not an add-on, but I feel an interface add-on on for the AZ100 could accomplish the same thing.

 

Nova Hitch two axis balancing.jpg

Edited by swsantos
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21 hours ago, Stephenstargazer said:

Good news! But what was the fix?

It simply came down to two adjustments.  The owner's manual discusses the adjustment of backlash and this was one component of it.  Also understanding how the dampener knob plays with backlash as well, as its not just for feel, but prevents any free play (which you must have, because pressure of the worm gear against the ring gear will cause wear and binding) from being able to bounce around undamped.  You have to have some play, and those dampener knobs take out most of the unavoidable effects of that.  It makes me curious if the goto upgrade will have any backlash compensation, though.

In my case, which I suspect is an anomoly, was that the thrust bearing adjustment for each axis was not quite tight enough, so each axis was wobbling a tiny bit, basically.  It's why the position of the counterweights were changing the oscillaition at the eyepiece, because the farther out the weights were, the more leverage they have.  Now that the preload is right, it doesn't matter where the counterweights are in relation to any "wiggles" because the axis is always held firmly.  It's actually straight forward, but as its not in the manual, Rowan might prefer I refer anyone who feels they need to do this to them for instruction, rather than posting it here.  I'll ask them how they feel about that.  The thing is bullt like a tank and it would be pretty darned hard to hurt the mount, but you might reduce performance if its not done right.

With both of those done up, none of the earlier things I tried with tripods, weights, etc even seem to matter anymore.  The mount is consistent and doesn't seem to care, which is a good thing!

Also, with the Planet legs on their farthest out position (I have the three position spreader version), the stability is great and the stance is wider, so I can actually get away without using counterweights at all if I was just worried about tipping and not exacting encoder accuracy).

~Rix

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