Why are there soooo many iOptron mounts?

[Elp]

I guess they're not making them (far east) fast enough. More delay as they import to base then redistribute worldwide, not enough to go around.

[SamAndrew]

1 hour ago, jjohnson3803 said:

Related question - Why are many (most?) of these mounts out of stock or more coming or whatever?  Reminds me of a restaurant with an extensive menu, but the server tells you only a few are available.  Or am I just looking at the wrong vendors?

😲 With so many mounts, the retailers don't know which ones to order and in what quantities. Wouldn't surprise me if Ioptron don't know which ones to make either

[SamAndrew]

On 27/06/2023 at 12:53, Northernlight said:

SamAndew I think you are being a little unfair to iOptron

just keep in mind, iOptron drives competition and innovation in the market and with more options competing in the market you usually see prices of the technology driven down. So if iOptron didn’t exist, I bet your bottom dollar the AM5 would have been a lot more expensive.

a good example of this was the rainbow Astro mounts, when they first came out, they were ridiculously expensive and then as soon as the completion turned up in the market they had to reduce their prices massively.

also flip the argument the other, some might say that zwo’s offerings are too limited with their 2 mounts available.

so it doesn’t matter if you like 1 manufacturers gear or not or if you find their product line up confusing , competitions is good for the end consumer.

Lots of other manufacturers have extended and somewhat confusing product lineup’s especially when it comes to scopes,  but as other have have said, Google is your friend, do your homework and above all else understand what it is that you actually want.

Rich.

 

Nothing wrong with lots of competition, but as I said in the first line, analysis paralysis is a thing, having too many products can lose you sales.

Having lots of products doesn't make those products cheaper, take budget supermarkets for example; limiting choice means they can have smaller stores and undercut the big supermarkets.

[Ouroboros]

For me the choice is simple. I would not buy any of them.  I had the opportunity to try a GEM 45 for a couple of nights. A lovely mount in so many ways, but with one huge BUT.  I didn’t like the design of tightening down Allen bolts after polar alignment. Try as I might I always found I’d knocked my PA out of alignment after tightening down. So, since all their mounts use the same method (I believe) …. I’m out. 

[Elp]

Depends how much weight you've got on top, I simply ever so lightly hand tighten so they don't bind into the mount, polar alignment doesn't change much, still below 50 arc seconds (not 0.5, that would be amazing).

Edited July 4, 2023 by Elp

[Ratlet]

4 hours ago, Elp said:

Depends how much weight you've got on top, I simply ever so lightly hand tighten so they don't bind into the mount, polar alignment doesn't change much, still below 0.5 arc seconds.

Never had the green dot go red when tightening it down.  I did swap my Allen bolts for thumb screws so maybe I'm not getting it tight enough?

Edited July 3, 2023 by Ratlet

[Northernlight]

If you have a pc you could try Nina’s polar alignment routine, I can generally my alignment within 10-30 arc seconds with ease on my little SW StarAdventurer GTI and it’s mechanical prowess leaves a lot to be desired