Help sourcing a mini vixen dovetail mounting plate wedge bar

[Elp]

Anyone know where I can get these from on its own? I need the locking pin part of it plus the standard 3/8" pin for mounting onto. An alternative will be some sort of mini dovetail which has a threaded hole for a locking bolt to be screwed into. They usually come supplied with the Star Adventurer equatorial wedge.

[Elp]

@FLO can you help?

[LaurenceT]

Do you mean the plate for attaching the AZ GTI to a latitude base like the William Optics wedge?

[Elp]

Yes, ive got a longer photo one at the moment but want the short type like in the image. It needs that upstanding pin to fit the dimple in the azgti to stop it from loosely turning in Ra.

Edited April 21, 2022 by Elp

[LaurenceT]

I think that one can be obtained from Aliexpress, it's blue plate I believe it's called a latitude base mounting plate. Im not sure that they ship to the UK at the moment.

The plate is called a Hercules

Edited April 21, 2022 by LaurenceT

[Elp]

Thanks for that. Looking around I can probably achieve what I want with a longer dovetail that has threaded holes, didn't think of that, all mine just have slots in them.

[LaurenceT]

I managed to get one of these plates from a kind forum member but before I did FLO suggested a short dovetail plate.

[LaurenceT]

I saw these links for obtaining a plate from Germany, probably easier than from China:

Teleskop-Express: Artesky Polar Finder Adapter for Skywatcher AZGTI mount

 

Amazon.com : heirui az-GTI Polar Adapter for skywatcher az-GTI : Electronics

Edit: just seen that Amazon won't post this to UK

Edited April 22, 2022 by LaurenceT

[Elp]

That'll be good for polar scope aligning. I bought a short dovetail instead as I'm using an Asiair for PA.

[LaurenceT]

28 minutes ago, Elp said:

That'll be good for polar scope aligning. I bought a short dovetail instead as I'm using an Asiair for PA.

I discarded the polar scope bit and simply used mounting plate, I also use the Asiair.

[Elp]

This is the solution I came up with:

Bought a 100mm dovetail bar with a 1/4" through hole at the centre, hacksawed it shorter as it needed to be in clearance from the dovetail bar of my imaging train, fettled and sprayed black, 1/4" cap head screw through the hole as the rotation lock and also acts as a physical stop when unclamping the EQ mount saddle, standard 1/4" camera screw for the mount hole, 1/4" female to male 3/8" bush inside the hole of the mount, both screwed together with a M12 washer in between to ensure parallelism (long winded but done):