A tale of woe, with a happy ending, and with a warning thrown in for good measure.
I don’t say much on here these days, but I think this is a story worth telling, as it may prevent a repeat of this problem.
I have a William Optics 110mmFLT and ever since I first purchased it I had nothing but trouble with the focuser. It didn't matter how I adjusted it; it would not hold the weight of my 2" eyepieces, let alone my camera. After some attempts to get Williams Optics to replace this focuser, with a rack and pinion focuser I finally decided to pull it apart to find out what was going on. As a machinist by trade, I was astonished by the construction of this focuser, a shiny metal rod against bare metal, no wonder it kept sliding out.
At first, William Optics, advised me to return the focuser to them for adjustment, they probably would have replaced it, but at my cost for freight. They also advised that many people who buy their scopes just replace them with a Feathertouch. They also offered to sell me a new WO R&P focuser, which I think they should have replaced since they knew there were problems with the focuser on this scope. However, fair is fair, I did leave it a while before doing anything about it, as I have been too busy with uni to use it in the past year, and I did get it cheap in any case.
A Feathertouch focuser was too expensive to consider, so I decided to go for the Moonlite focuser, as a Moonlite was on my mind in any case. On opening the box, when it arrived, I said, “damn this is big,” not my actually words mind you. What a magnificent piece of engineering. You could say I was somewhat impressed until I went to fit it to my scope tube. Oops, the internal thread on the focuser is too large, so it doesn’t screw on.
I sent an email to Ron at Moonlite, late in the morning here, and to my utter surprise, I got a response within minutes saying that he would sort it out in the morning. I was surprised he answered so quickly; he should have been asleep. It turns out; I had ordered the right focuser and Moonlite had supplied the correct focuser. Fortunately, I have top quality measuring equipment, so I sent Ron the appropriate measurements.
The problem actually lay with William Optics, as it appears that they supplied a Megrez focuser on my 110mmFLT, which has a different thread size. Ron at Moonlite advised that he has seen this before. It appears that William Optics may have had some focusers left over and just used them instead. It is no wonder that my 110 was so cheap; I bought it direct from WO. It was cheap and had the field flattener thrown in, which is why I bought it in the first place.
I have seen many on this site extoll the virtues of this company, or that, as they are friendly and supply things quickly. I don’t subscribe to that idea. Moonlite quickly processed my order and I received it very quickly. That is what any company is supposed to do.
The true measure of a company is when something goes wrong, or when you need a favour. Things will always go wrong, somewhere along the line, that isn’t important. What is important is the way a problem is dealt with. Ron at Moonlite exceeded my expectations in the way he dealt with the problem and sent me the right flange. No fusss, no cost. He could have abrogated his responsibility, as it was a WO problem, but he didn’t. In my mind, that is fantastic service and going beyond what is normally required. I have noticed several companies in America that I have been dealing with have been similar lately
As for the Moonlite focuser, I am very happy with it. Over the Moon, so to speak.
Would I buy a William Optics again? Absolutely! As their optics are superb, at least the optics on my 110 are. I now have a truly superb telescope, both optically and mechanically. And, to be fair with William Optics, they have changed most of their focusers to R&P, I believe. All goes well; my next scope will be the WO151mmFLT. The caveat being that I would immediately change the focuser. I would even try buying it without their focuser and save the $300 or whatever they are worth.
Lastly, anyone who has a Williams and plan on buying a Moonlite, check the thread measurements and send them along with your order. That may prevent a repeat of this sort of thing.
Moonlite have one very happy customer, both for their excellent service and the quality of their product.
Now, I can final go get my aluminium case made.
Cheers Peter
