Astro Engineering Weight set.

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Hi all, well finally received my new weight set from Astro Engineering in England today. The weight set arrived exactly 8 days from the time I made the purchase on line to my door. Open opening the box I was greeted witha very well engineered component. All parts looked very professional and best of all it only cost $265.00 AU, instead of $469 as quoted by a store here in Adelaide and it was going to take three weeks. Ha.

Anyway, those of you who own a LX200 this weight set really rocks. I now have a scope that is dynamically balanced. I did the horizontal first and then the vertical and it took exactly three minutes to balance the scope. No doubt it will require some fine tuning.

Anyway as usual I have provided pics. So here they are:

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Now for a side view

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Rear view shows you how the weight set is offset to keep the gears engaged.

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And of course the Long view of the scope in final configuration.

[Striker]

Looks great paul.......where did you get it from....

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Got it from this site.

http://www.metalplanet.us/

[[1ponders]]

I like your setup Paul :D Looks great :cool2:

[Mick]

Very nice Paul, how much weight have you got on the bar to balance?

[trufflehunter]

Yeah looks great Paul. I've ordered the Meade set which I hope will do the job. It should be OK as long as I don't use too many 'off-axis' accessories. I really only want it for the 2" diagonal and 2" eyepieces, and probably Nikon D70 (at prime focus, not 'piggy-back') Good to know there's an alternative though, if I need it down the track to radially balance guide scopes etc.
Are they three separate weights or one single one?

[rumples riot]

Thanks guys, for the comments.

Mick the balance bar has three 1lb weights on it. This seems to hold the scope in balance almost every where. Only place there seems to be a problem is when the scope gets near the pole and tracks backwards with the weight on top and the guide scope underneath. The weights require a locking nut on the top to hold the weights in position. Just need to get the nut from the hardware.

Other than that, this is a nicely made set and much more affordable than the meade set; and it works better.

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Truffle the weights are separated so that you can use all three or just one or two. If you want to get a cheap set of weights you can buy mine if you like. PM me if you are interested.

[acropolite]

There's also the ADM mini dovetail system available from the US.
Costs $89 US + freight There's some other nice add ons in the MDS system.
See http://www.astro.premcom.com/ADM/ADM%20Products/Mini%20Dovetail%20System.htm for cost and ordering and http://www.users.bigpond.com/lansma/art_adm_review.htm for some pix on a working LX90 system and a review. Looks fairly similar to the Losmandy setup but probably a lot cheaper. This is the system I am going to get. :D