2nd Celestron Evolution 6 Tripod Leg Broke Last Night!

[timothy4]

Hii All.  I used my Celestron Nexstar Evolution 6 scope I bought about 6 months ago lastvnight and one of the thumb screws on a leg made a clicking sound as I loosened it to take the scope down and it no longer clamps the leg so need a new leg.  A similar thing happened to another of the legs shortly after purchase which the retailer replaced.  

The leg clamps have always felt poor quality and weird to me but seem to firmly clamp the legs, at least temporarily!  All the legs produce a metallic sound like there is something loose inside and I can see a little metal plate through each thumb screw hole that slides around slightly; I don’t understand the mechanism inside.  The thumbscrew of the broken leg now just spins around in the hole and does not seem to tighten down on the leg.  As I say this is the 2nd leg now this has happened to within 6 months of purchase.

Can anybody shed any light on this strange phenomenon or experienced the same issue?

I persuaded the retailer to send me a replacement leg last time without having to bother returning the tripod but I think I may need to send the whole tripod back as all the legs could potentially be dodgy.  Weird thing is the locking mechanism of the replacement leg they sent to me when the first leg broke feels weird like the others and no different.

I aborted my observing session last night as was about to do my alignment and the red dot finder did not seem to turn on and assumed it was a dead battery.  I took the scope indoors and subsequently found out you have to remove the finderscope to replace the battery which I did.  Then guess what; I turned the finderscope on and it came on!!!  

I am beginning to hate this telescope and astronomy as I cannot see much with the scope anyway.  Yes, I have realistic expectations, use the Messier list and Stellarium to choose targets appropriately but alas all you see is a faint tiny fuzzy patch but mostly you see nothing at all.  Jupiter and Saturn which this scope would be good for are not observable at the moment from my location.  All I find myself looking at is the moon; I did not spend £1300 on a scope to look at the moon fascinating though it is.  This whole experience has been crap, very frustrating and disappointing.  The ironic thing is that I finally sorted out issues using SkyPortal on my phone and tablet with the scope a few days ago.  It worked like a dream and was the coolest thing ever but I still couldn’t see s**t  

Will I be able to sell the scope easily with a new tripod leg of course?

This rant had been very cathartic, thank you for reading in the unlikely event you got this far.  

Edited April 24, 2021 by timothy4

[Cosmic Geoff]

I had the same thing happen with the tripod of my C8 SE (bought used.) This is possibly the same tripod.  I deduced that since the parts are plastic the root cause was over-tightening. Rather than buy a new leg (!!) I found a metal tube the right size that would slide over the broken part as reinforcement and stuck the whole thing back together with Araldite.

Yes the Messier objects do look like faint fuzzy blobs, especially in light-polluted skies. We keep telling newbies this...

Yes the basic red dot finders are not reliable. I have been replacing them with other devices.  Latest purchase was a Bresser model that seems better made. 

Have you tried looking at double stars? If you find them interesting, there are enough of them viewable with a 6" SCT to keep you occupied for ages.

If you do sell your outfit, you should get a good price and ready sale with the current supply shortage.

[timothy4]

1 hour ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

I had the same thing happen with the tripod of my C8 SE (bought used.) This is possibly the same tripod.  I deduced that since the parts are plastic the root cause was over-tightening. Rather than buy a new leg (!!) I found a metal tube the right size that would slide over the broken part as reinforcement and stuck the whole thing back together with Araldite.

Yes the Messier objects do look like faint fuzzy blobs, especially in light-polluted skies. We keep telling newbies this...

Yes the basic red dot finders are not reliable. I have been replacing them with other devices.  Latest purchase was a Bresser model that seems better made. 

Have you tried looking at double stars? If you find them interesting, there are enough of them viewable with a 6" SCT to keep you occupied for ages.

If you do sell your outfit, you should get a good price and ready sale with the current supply shortage.

Thank you Cosmic Geoff for the useful information.  I am pretty confident I did not overtighten as I am very wary of this given how flimsy the locking nuts and mechanism on the legs have always felt to me and despite this I found that you do not need to tighten much to lock the legs firmly.  Understand about the message to newbies but it still seems like a remarkable lack of fulfilling observing as far as I am concerned.  I had a much better fun with a £70 refractor scope form Argos about 20 years ago in the SE London Suburbs as opposed to the edge of a Cotswold market town and £1300 scope.  I know it is hard to make direct comparisons like this but I can't help it.  I will try some double stars as I do not think I have tried that yet.  I did wonder about a finderscope upgrade but obviously not completely sure whether I am going to sell up or not at this stage.  Good to know I should get a good price if I do decide to sell.