EP cups & barrel change?

[vineyard]

Hello,

Cloudy day-and-night tinkering continues.  Two Qs pls for tips!

1.  I'd like to get eye-cups for a few EPs where the ER is quite long - what would folks recommend?  I know Televue have eyeguard-extenders but that will become far too expensive too quickly.

2.  Barrel change.  I have a couple of EPs where the barrel diameter is somewhere between 29.5-30mm (ex-microscope pieces).  So they rattle around a bit - luckily the compression rings can tighten enough to hold them firmly in place, but it becomes slightly annoying when changing them.  I'd ideally like to change them to 1.25" (31.75mm) barrels.  The current barrels thread in - so can be unscrewed off - but unfortunately the thread-size is different from that on normal T2-1.25" adapters (typical!).  I'm leaning towards just putting some black duck tape around the outside of the existing barrels as that should do the job, but thought I would check in case anyone had any other tips from prior experience w microscope EPs?

Thank you & stay safe,

Vin

[DaveL59]

might help to say what eyepieces you're looking for eyecups for as there's a few places you can obtain from. For plossls I've bought some from astroboot that fit and work fine but they aren't tall such as you'd maybe want for LER. Others have made DIY eyecups using bicycle inner tube cut and folded to suit their requirements so that may be an option.

For the barrel change the 1.25-inch nosepiece tube will be of too large a diameter to fit the body unless you can get some engineered to suit. 

[vineyard]

Oops apologies @DaveL59 - the EPs would be 40mm plossls & 25mm microscope EPs as the ones w the largest ERs (quite distracting).  The inner tube idea is great!

Ah ok re the barrel change - duck tape it is then.

Cheers

[DaveL59]

1 minute ago, vineyard said:

Oops apologies @DaveL59 - the EPs would be 40mm plossls & 25mm microscope EPs as the ones w the largest ERs (quite distracting).  The inner tube idea is great!

Ah ok re the barrel change - duck tape it is then.

Cheers

I've a similar issue with the older TAL when I want to use a regular 1.25-inch EP as those old russian ones are 32mm diameter so the standard EP's rattle and can easily drop out if not careful. Electrical tape might be a better solution than duct tape, less stick mess left behind 🙂 

For the plossls you might find the right diameter fit on astroboot tho they're closed for refurb at the moment.

[Louis D]

You might try aluminum foil tape on the insertion barrel.

[vineyard]

1 hour ago, Louis D said:

You might try aluminum foil tape on the insertion barrel.

Hadn't thought of that either - is there any risk of the aluminium somehow creating reflections (even though its on the outside of the insertion barrel)?  Cheers

[Louis D]

13 minutes ago, vineyard said:

Hadn't thought of that either - is there any risk of the aluminium somehow creating reflections (even though its on the outside of the insertion barrel)?  Cheers

Probably no worse than a chromed brass barrel.

[vineyard]

2 hours ago, Louis D said:

Probably no worse than a chromed brass barrel.

You're right - I never thought about it that way!  (The existing barrels on these EPs are black and so I just went with that...😂)

[markse68]

i’ve been using high temp masking tape on my microscope eps. I think it’s kapton  or polyester- a harder plastic film anyway than most and the adhesive is very low mess. you can get it in variety of precise thicknesses so easy to make quite precise fit. It lays down flat without bubbles and is hard wearing and unlikely to catch and pucker.