I need a travel mount for my Quattro 150p that doesnt break the bank if damaged/ stolen/ confiscated by random 3rd world customs.
The SA GTi is unfortunately lower spec'd. Any idea if the EQM-35 would be up to the task? Total AP load around 7kg.
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I had an EQM35 a few years back, and was using it with an OOUK VX8, weight around 7kg.
Unfortunately i have nothing good to say about the mount, its just not well designed. I dismantled the mount to see if there is anything to improve or if the bearings need replacement. To my shockband surprise i found that the mount does not have any bearings at all but instead the axis are supported by plastic washers, hopes, and dreams.
The low weight of the mount is also a bit misleading when compared to the EQ5, because the EQ5 comes with heavier counterweights. All the weight savings are on the internals themselves, which is the worst part of the mount to save weight on.
Im not saying it cant be used, but i am recommending that you look elsewhere for your affordable mount. The EQ5 is not much more expensive and actually does have bearings so its not a complete fantasy to imagine it guiding reasonably well at a low focal length.
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I have Celestron cg4 which shares same DEC axis with smaller RA wormgear. I replaced most plastic washers with needle trust bearings but it still has big DEC backlash. It works well with my William Optics Z73, I can reliably get around 0.5" RMS guiding except while dithering due to DEC backlash. With my 6" f/5 newt, I cannot image with winds higher than 12 km/h. If you get lucky and get better DEC axis than mine, it might work with EQM-35's bigger RA workgear but I do not recomend.   |
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Oskari Nikkinen:
I had an EQM35 a few years back, and was using it with an OOUK VX8, weight around 7kg.
Unfortunately i have nothing good to say about the mount, its just not well designed. I dismantled the mount to see if there is anything to improve or if the bearings need replacement. To my shockband surprise i found that the mount does not have any bearings at all but instead the axis are supported by plastic washers, hopes, and dreams.
The low weight of the mount is also a bit misleading when compared to the EQ5, because the EQ5 comes with heavier counterweights. All the weight savings are on the internals themselves, which is the worst part of the mount to save weight on.
Im not saying it cant be used, but i am recommending that you look elsewhere for your affordable mount. The EQ5 is not much more expensive and actually does have bearings so its not a complete fantasy to imagine it guiding reasonably well at a low focal length. The absence of roller or ball bearings isn't proof of low performance i.e., the use of plain bearings isn't per se conductive of poor tracking performance as any user of the Vixen GP-DX or even the GP can testify.
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Oskari Nikkinen:
I had an EQM35 a few years back, and was using it with an OOUK VX8, weight around 7kg.
Unfortunately i have nothing good to say about the mount, its just not well designed. I dismantled the mount to see if there is anything to improve or if the bearings need replacement. To my shockband surprise i found that the mount does not have any bearings at all but instead the axis are supported by plastic washers, hopes, and dreams.
The low weight of the mount is also a bit misleading when compared to the EQ5, because the EQ5 comes with heavier counterweights. All the weight savings are on the internals themselves, which is the worst part of the mount to save weight on.
Im not saying it cant be used, but i am recommending that you look elsewhere for your affordable mount. The EQ5 is not much more expensive and actually does have bearings so its not a complete fantasy to imagine it guiding reasonably well at a low focal length. The EQ5 head itself weighs 7.8kg, almost as heavy as my home HEQ5. The EQM-35 head is less than half that. Lot of meat for the backpack. I've seen several accounts on replacing the stock washers with teflon shims, belt modding the drive, etc: if it's a smaller investment and not more than 2 afternoons work I'd consider giving this mount a chance... If anything larger, it will be the AL55i.
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andrea tasselli:
Oskari Nikkinen:
I had an EQM35 a few years back, and was using it with an OOUK VX8, weight around 7kg.
Unfortunately i have nothing good to say about the mount, its just not well designed. I dismantled the mount to see if there is anything to improve or if the bearings need replacement. To my shockband surprise i found that the mount does not have any bearings at all but instead the axis are supported by plastic washers, hopes, and dreams.
The low weight of the mount is also a bit misleading when compared to the EQ5, because the EQ5 comes with heavier counterweights. All the weight savings are on the internals themselves, which is the worst part of the mount to save weight on.
Im not saying it cant be used, but i am recommending that you look elsewhere for your affordable mount. The EQ5 is not much more expensive and actually does have bearings so its not a complete fantasy to imagine it guiding reasonably well at a low focal length.
The absence of roller or ball bearings isn't proof of low performance i.e., the use of plain bearings isn't per se conductive of poor tracking performance as any user of the Vixen GP-DX or even the GP can testify. But we aren't talking about Vixen mounts here, we are talking about the EQM 35 specifically. And i should say that even more specifically we are talking about my unit which was atrocious. I would be surprised if the very cheap Skywatcher mount was built with the same tolerances and care as the generally accepted to be higher quality Vixen mounts. The fact that the mount had poor performance is, i think, sufficient evidence of poor performance. And poor it was, DEC guiding just didn't work no matter the tweaks and adjustments, and ultimately i turned DEC guiding off and resorted to imaging very high declination targets only, with short exposures (30s), to try and make drift less of an issue. RA guiding was ok at best, which can be attributed to the larger diameter RA gear than in the EQ3. Oskari Nikkinen:
I had an EQM35 a few years back, and was using it with an OOUK VX8, weight around 7kg.
Unfortunately i have nothing good to say about the mount, its just not well designed. I dismantled the mount to see if there is anything to improve or if the bearings need replacement. To my shockband surprise i found that the mount does not have any bearings at all but instead the axis are supported by plastic washers, hopes, and dreams.
The low weight of the mount is also a bit misleading when compared to the EQ5, because the EQ5 comes with heavier counterweights. All the weight savings are on the internals themselves, which is the worst part of the mount to save weight on.
Im not saying it cant be used, but i am recommending that you look elsewhere for your affordable mount. The EQ5 is not much more expensive and actually does have bearings so its not a complete fantasy to imagine it guiding reasonably well at a low focal length.
The EQ5 head itself weighs 7.8kg, almost as heavy as my home HEQ5. The EQM-35 head is less than half that. Lot of meat for the backpack. I've seen several accounts on replacing the stock washers with teflon shims, belt modding the drive, etc: if it's a smaller investment and not more than 2 afternoons work I'd consider giving this mount a chance... If anything larger, it will be the AL55i.
You are right on the weight thing, but i dont think stability of the mount is a good reason to save a few kilograms. You are of course free to try and make it work, but i would not recommend this mount to practically anyone for any use. I think i have said everything i want to say about the mount, if someone has good experiences with theirs, great. I did not with mine.
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Oskari Nikkinen:
I think i have said everything i want to say about the mount, if someone has good experiences with theirs, great. I did not with mine. I used mine for 2 years with no problems and it worked fine with 12lb. load. A simple search on this site shows a lot of fine images with the EQM-35. There is nothing as good in the price range, The EQ5 costs about as much as an AM3 so if you are going to spend that kind of money, get the AM3. I sold my EQM-35 for $400, there is nothing even close to that price range that will work as well.
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I don't know the prices across the pond, but here the AM3 costs £1600, EQ5 £700, hardly comparable price tags  .
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I have the EQ35. It’s since been retired, but, in two years of use it provided capable, if not exactly excellent, guiding (.5 to 1.2) with a GT71.
however, it could not dither as the backlash was so great it would take 10 minutes to settle before resuming the next exposure.
So it is terrific for visual and just OK for astrophotography. That being said, I am amazed at how well some of those early images came out with no dithering and a non-cooled camera!
I have a big, heavy DSO scope and wanted to convert the smaller rig into an even lighter travel setup, which means losing the counterweight. The conversion is amazing, but it took 2 years of savings to make things happen.
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I would pass on it for that scope. I love mine with my FRA300. It works well especially since it’s fairly protected from the wind where I image. But I think that’s about the limit. With my camera, mini pc, and all that I’m around 5.5kg, and it seems like much more it wouldn’t be able to handle. I think a reflector would catch too much wind.
As a couple others have said, the dec has a lot of backlash. I usually only dither in RA because of it. It is great because of its weight, getting set up takes all of about 2 minutes for me to carry it outside all in one piece, but I don’t think it will perform well with what you plan to put on it.
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I'm all for heavier mounts for multiple reasons and for the same reasons I'm not attracted to small strainwave mounts.
With that being said considering tripod, mount head and cws the EQM35 would be a nightmare to take with me on an international trip. I own a CEM25 which is a bit lighter than the EQM35 and oh boy I can't imagine travelling with it whereas if I had a CEM120 I wouldn't think twice to go on a road trip with it.
I think you could take an AM3 on a handbag with you not to mention it would you wouldn't risk porters throwing around a EQM35 for you then to find it has very loose belts, damaged gear and horrid backlash under very dark and clear skies with nothing to do about it.
I'm cheap but considering the financial and time investment on a trip the am3 might be a better investment. I can perfectly picture being under new moon clear bortle 1 sky looking at 4" peaks in PHD thinking I'm an idiot (not saying you are but that is how I feel when this happens).
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