Hi
Anyone interested in getting digitalinclinometer there are some at good price on UK eBay site http://stores.ebay.com.au/GetItRightUK. For A$59 including postage. I have bought one and until it arrives cannot comment on quality.
These have been used with success in the US...there are a number of reports on its use in the degrees circle thread in the Cloudy nights reflector forum.
I have a Wixey branded one, but they are the same beast. Although I haven't used mine much yet I am happy with its performance so far..
I would assume one would use good small spirit level on the tube to make it level, then press the zero button.
I then also would imagine if you notice your pointing was always a little low or high, you could re-zero the tube when it was pointing slighty low or high, whatever was needed.
Does anyone know if they remember calibration settings? Or if they turn off automatically after a few minutes?
It would be quite frustrating to have to re-calibrate everytime it turned itself off through the night.
Use something like a spirit level as Dave said, press the zero button and it saves this 'zero' until the batteries run flat.
Like I said I've only used mine very briefly, but I don't think it has auto off, I think battery life is meant to be pretty good.
Even with these digital guages, keeping the base pretty level is needed to ensure greatest accuracy.
it says on the website that it turns off after 5 mins. would it be set to turn off 5 mins after a button was last pressed, or 5 mins after it was last moved?
The next model up (on the same website) can measure absolute inclination as well as relative. Does this one do the same or is it relative measurement only?
Best backlighting for it would be ELP. It provides nice even illumination and it is very thin and flexible. In fact it looks like piece of thin plastic. It is driven by about 100V AC and it uses very little power. As far I know it came in three colours only, green, blue and kind of yellow. Possible source of ELP would be alarm system LCD keypad. Keypad would also have invertor to drive it.
Second choice would be red SMD LED, if there is room to fit them. Illumination would be spotty and numbers would not be as clear as with ELP illumination
I used mine last night and it performed well putting objects nicely in the field of view, but it required a little warming up once the ice started to form on the scope- it actually seemed to shut down and lose its calibration in these temps, though its easy enough to warm up and reset.
The screen has no backlight but is easy to read under a red light.
Well, my digitalinclinometer arrived today. Pretty fast delivery from UK. Have a short play with it, it got only relative reference but it remembers reference after switch off. Used large bubble level (60cm) to check 0 deg. level and it seems to be accurate. But it is impossible to judge 0.1 deg. with bubble level. Anyhow it will do for things I need it for. For $49 US including postage it is good value.
Yeah I received mine today too....seems like a good bit of low cost kit to have. shame the front panel is a little on the flimsy side apart from that all good
Sorry to reply to such an old thread, but I'm wondering what people's long term experience has been with the digital inclinometers. I'm particularly worried that it will be impractical to use if it turns itself off.
I have thought of a reasonable alignment procedure. You still need a spirit level to level out the base of the scope (I'm thinking of a Dobsonian here) but should be able to get within a degree or less of accuracy. Simply point to a star of known altitude. (Looking it up with software seems to me to be the best way to get that known altitude). Then zero the inclinometer while pointed at the star. Move the telescope to the negative value of that altitude and zero again. I wonder how well this would compare to just using a spirit level to zero.
I'm just getting back into things now but in the past I've been able to get within +/- 3 degrees on a 10" dob with nothing more than home made paper setting circles. Tape marked at 5 degree intervals on the base, and a photocopy of a proptractor with some contact over the top at the pivot. My main problem with this approach is that I like to keep my scope portable and that means on wheels. I need to find a better way of securing the bottom of the base once I've moved my scope. Then I can use the same kind of alignment technique of finding a star with a known azimuth and moving the base to suit. Better would be a solution involving a compass and keeping a mental note of the difference between true north compass readings and the azimuth compared to a known star.
I am NOT spending $600 on setting circles that have the same issues, even if they are more accurate. I think it's ridiculous that people will grind their own mirrors but won't put 1/10th of that effort into making sure you can point the scope with some accuracy. I thought about latching on a Celestron SkyScout but not only is that more expensive (especially in Aus, what's with Celestron charging 3x the US RRP in AUS?) but I've read they have their problems (not compatible with latest Windows, GPS module failures, GPS takes time to align and doesn't remember last position), and are thrown off by metal tubes.
apart from that all good 
