My (much cheaper) alternative to the Berlebach Monkeygrip

[AdeKing]

I've been wanting a more convenient alternative to my current arrangement  for holding my phone and observing notebook for a while now.

The middle tray on my Uni 18 is too far away to be comfortable and I have a habit of forgetting about the wooden camping table I sometimes use and end up tripping over it in the dark.

I came across the Berlebach Monkeygrip2 and Tray a while ago, but for me the Berlebach price of  169 euro for the MonkeyGrip2 and 35 euro was too high.  A total price of 204 Euro for a bracket and tray was beyond what I could justify by a fair amount.

So I set to thinking about a cheaper alternative and came up with the following list of parts that I thought would do exactly the same job though in not quite such an aesthetically pleasing way.

So my solution came  in the form of:

1x Manfrotto 035 Super Clamp - £14.70

1x  Manfrotto 037 Joining Stud - £4.50

1x Berlebach Plate Tray - £31

1x Cheap Ball & Socket Head - Free as I had two spares already

1x Manfrotto 102mm Tube Ring - £15 for two from SGL Classifieds

3x 3/8" to 1/4" thread adaptors 

I have two observing setups, a Vixen GP on a semi-permanent pillar mount and an iOptron AZ Pro on a Berlebach Uni18 and I wanted to be able to use the tray on both setups.

My plan was to fit the tray with a short Arca Swiss type QR plate so that it could be easily swapped between setups.

For the any of my mounts on either my Uni 18, any of my wooden tripods or my HEQ5 steel tripod the Manfrotto SuperClamp would fit and for the Pillar Mounted Vixen GP, I'd fit one of my Ball & Socket heads to a 102mm Tube Ring and then fit the tray to that via the QR plate.

All of the parts have finally arrived and I assembled them this morning. 

The wooden tray has a 3/8" threaded socket and so needed the 3/8" to 1/4" thread adaptor so that the QR plate can be fitted to the bottom of the tray.

Part assembled.

Fitted to the Berlebach Uni 18.

  

Fitted to my semi-permanent Pillar Mount

Being attached to a tube ring means that I can easily rotate the tray to suit wherever I'm sitting around the mount.

 

The tray isn't massive, but its big enough to hold my iPhone and notebook or the small S&T Star Atlas, which is all I wanted it to do.

This looks like it will do exactly what I want it to do but for significantly less cash that the all Berlebach solution.

Hope that this helps someone else solve a similar problem.

Ade

 

 

Edited June 20, 2020 by AdeKing
Removed duplicate photo.

[lifeonmars]

Looks like a good solution, does the clamp mark the legs on your uni tripod?

Do you think this solution would work on a Planet tripod.

The Monkeygrip looks a great idea but way to expensive

Looks like a great alternative solution.

Frank