Aussie made 'highend' mount viable?

[toc]

As a complete business no nothing, I was wondering what others might think about the chances and long term viability of a locally made High end (say 10-15k?) mount to compete with AP, 10Micron, Paramount...Yes we can import these mounts from Europe and the US, but in the case where the mount needs repair, it's a very costly exercise for shipping.

Perhaps we could crowd fund it? :)

[Merlin66]

Have a word with Diego at Sidereal Trading......

[multiweb]

That would be great to have a mount designed and manufactured in Oz but other areas of the hobby are struggling as it is. Mirror making, ATM supplies, Aluminizing services even commercial telescope supplies. There is just too much O/S competition. It is a losing battle IMHO. Even if crowd funding got it off the ground how many people would buy local and support a start up? I don't think there's a market big enough for it. Maybe if shipping costs become prohibitive then as a result domestic manufacturing would pick up but it's still a long way I reckon. But I'd love to see a lot of domestic businesses pick up. That'd be great. Bit of a dream though.

[atalas]

Don’t know if I totally agree Marc although you might be right....you could push exports too which would be good oh by the way it has been tried before....but you did say high end though��

[diegocolonnello]

Hi everyone, we have started rolling the ball of Australian Made stuff by creating a brand called Axtroworx and out first products where Pier Plates, Dovetails, and now Truss Tube Newtonians...

https://youtu.be/DECRUUjNdzA


All designed and Made here in Melbourne........

We are working on the design for a direct drive mount...... i can not say more, but all your suport will be needed in order to make this a reality..

Australian made license approved
Name Trademark registered.
Webpage in the making www.astroworx.com.au

very exiting things, lots of work done and to be done....

[Rerouter]

As a cheapskate I am left looking at the 5k+ mounts and cant see much more than R&D recovery / prestige to explain the costs.

In my head there would be room for a competitive profit margin provided you can get the order quantity high enough to offset the batch tooling costs.

Other things would be cost optimisation on the operations to get your raw pieces. The gold standard would be cast sections with minimal cleanup machining for the body segments. Brushless servos are common. Would mainly be secondary feedback to trim for backlash.

Rigidity and friction across various angles is just time spent in the CAD package. The high end mounts are essentially expecting a peir. So that makes that criteria much easier.

There will be R&D costs involved. Mainly for the casting and machining. But if that can be minimised i can see some solid margin left compared to larger equally as precise equiptment e.g. lathes and mills.

Usb hubs and power hubs are literally a drop in the bucket. I would not expect that to contribe more than 1-2% of total cost

Hand controller could add some cost. Mainly for software r&d if synscan or similar is a closed standard.

[toc]

If my mate Diego makes a mount, then sign me up - he is about 3 or 4 minutes drive from my house :lol: (and lives across the road from my son)

[toc]

I know we have chatted a bit about this, but this would be amazing!

[lazjen]

While it would be good to have a quality Australian made mount, I think the feature set it has will be important. That's both hardware and software. Because, realistically there's probably enough different mounts out there now that we can use (ignoring the Oz made factor).

To help this mount be part of the competition, it needs elements that differentiate it from other mounts, because I fully expect it not to be able to compete on price alone.

[toc]

I guess if you compare it to ioptron or Skywatcher its not necessarily going to compete in that space price wise - but if you look at the price of something like the AP Mach2 or the Euro mounts (10micron, ASA etc...) its becomes not only a question of price, but also local support. The locally made factor is very attractive to me, especially for warranty repairs and after sales support. Just my 2cents.

[TrevorW]

Friction drive under 10K support up to 50kg I would be interested

[Merlin66]

Fork or EQ mount?
(The Canopus mount could easily carry >100Kg)

[Peter Ward]

Anssen Technologies did make a reasonable EQ mount about 20 years ago....I was not a fan. Looks like the market were not fans either, as my google search indicates they stopped trading a while back.

Any Aussie startup contemplating competing with AP, Bisque etc. have around 35 years of +
R&D to catch up on, plus big CNC's are not cheap. Think mid six figures for one CNC milling machine.

To quote from that Aussie Epic, The Castle: "tell 'em their dreamin'"

[Merlin66]

You don’t need to buy a CNC machine to get the benefits.
You just need the CAD design to send to a CNC machine shop.
I designed and manufactured precision spectrographs using quality sub-contractors for CNC machining, laser cutting etc.
You need a good design, good support from your supplier pipeline and good final quality control.
It can be made to work, just need the vision and dedication.

[Slawomir]

Mesu Mounts seems to be a rather small yet successful operation: http://www.mesu-optics.nl/home_en.html

Can be done me thinks :thumbsup:

[Slawomir]

Clicked on the link and got a warning.

[AdamJL]

I heard they're making some interesting scopes as well...

edit: oh hahaha I didn't see the post from Diego :)
I'd heard last year they were doing this, glad to see stuff coming out!

[toc]

Sidereal trading has a CNC machine :)

[jahnpahwa]

All the more keen to see this happen now to stick it up Peter :rofl:

[The_bluester]

I can see why there is a big gap between the mid tier and high end mounts.

When you look at it, just about everything on a SB mount is either NC milled or machined in some way, and anodised rather than lots of die cast parts with the lumps and bumps hidden behind crinkle paint. The time to machine and the wastage of materials from milling a large but spidery part out of a large and solid block of alloy has to add hugely to the cost.

[N1]

Catching up on 35 years of R&D and then going that little bit further is probably quicker and easier for a true innovator (who may well be an Aussie) than building a reputation for having a superior product to what's already out there. That will necessarily involve some early adopters taking a punt with some serious dollars (for an amateur). And I'm not sure the mount is where most would want to take that gamble these days. The real frontier I think is sensor technology, and to a lesser degree, optics. By cutting down required exposure times before saturation occurs, the mount will become less critical. And the prospect of greatly reduced data-capture times is a lot more attractive than another mount that does a good job at tracking and is locally made.

[lazjen]

The better each "item" in our setup is the greater the chance of getting better data. Even with shorter exposure times, a good mount is still worthwhile.

I'm no expert on production of items like this, but perhaps there are other ways to efficiently produce a good mount by other means than milling out metal?

And as I mentioned in my previous post, it's the extra features that are needed to make the mount stand out, e.g. good set of access ports, cable management, etc. Software/firmware to do things like satellite tracking. Adding optional extras like GPS (and providing that data to attached computer), good network options (wired/wifi). It has to be backed up with good quality drivers as well (ASCOM and INDI). All these types of things won't be cheap for a new player.

EDIT: forgot to add stuff before posting

[N1]

This kind of thinking is part of the winning formula.

[Peter Ward]

:rolleyes:

Losmandy and I have been friends for over 30 years and can assure any would be start-ups that over that time,
we have kicked around many "new product ideas" including the early development and testing of the Losmandy Gemini system to try and sort cool from commercially viable.

Prof Rene Goerlich was also pivotal in developing the Gemini GoTo system. Rene' is one of the most brilliant electronic engineers I have ever met.
The original code was in assembler and included pointing modelling without the need for an external PC. It literally took years to debug and refine.

Quite a few cool concepts never got beyond prototypes....and as much as you think you CAD-CAM out some brilliant idea, getting the precision required in real metal is another job entirely.
One of Scott's favorite sayings when looking at a knock-off of his product is "The Chinese can't machine for $_it".

To stay in business with a niche product for that time is really quite remarkable. Any start-up, Aussie or otherwise, will need deep pockets for the serious amount of work to do,
then to compete, will have to market a product that is faster/better/cheaper than the like of Losmandy, Bisque, AP etc.

It will probably be as successful as the Oz car industry.....
(which reminds me...why are we still paying the Luxury Car Tax?? Oh, that's right to protect our non-existent local car manufacturing industry :mad2: )

[Rerouter]

lazjen, the software time on that is the only realistic cost, the hardware is not a large fraction of these mounts,

- GPS - only needs to be timing mode and within 300m position accuracy, so about $35 in single units for the module
- Wifi / bluetooth, cheap hardware, just lots of software time to make sure its rock solid.
- Ethernet, pre-built in many processors with an external Phy and port, cheap and stable network stacks exist.
- Encoders, The actual detectors are not the cost, its usually the printing that has the cost, take a look at the eq8's approach for reference, and how they where so cheap they didn't even clean the PCB's! and used the flimsiest possible connector, which was then hand soldered, http://www.dangl.at/ausruest/eq8/eq8_e4.htm


About the CNC time, being able to reduce the number of operations and complexity of those operations cut down the costs considerably, you will have a mix of lathe parts for concentricity and mill for pockets and other non concentric features, being able to build within basic machine shop capacity would go a long way

Take standard stock sizes and try and build towards fitting as much as you can to fitting it into that so the external surfaces only need to be skimmed,

Again the more I look, the less I see the cost of the product in the hardware, and at this point I wonder about even the machining.

[Peter Ward]

Seriously?

While that may be true of cheaper mounts, I know for a fact some Losmandy parts go through about half a dozen processes after they machined before they can be installed into a mount and with some serious accuracy.

The worm gears are good to about 1/10,000th. And the RA/DEc gears are individually dialed in for perfect concentricity. That takes time and money.

I suspect the market would not be kind to cheap and nasty.

[lazjen]

I don't disagree with the cost of the components, it's the whole package deal, and yeah I am quite aware that software will be a big cost. There are ways of reducing the software cost by making as much as possible open source and standards based. In fact, mount that did the hardware side well, and provided open firmware/software - that would be brilliant.

I still think that while it can be done (making a good quality mount to compete at the high end), there's very little chance of a lower price. Depending on the difference, feature set, etc, that's not necessarily enough to kill it, but it will make it harder survive in such a small market (even if exports are done).

[Andy01]

Happened to stop by & visit Diego & Paul at Sidereal Trading (https://www.siderealtrading.com.au/) in Melbourne yesterday.
Have to say I'm absolutely gobsmakked by the operation they have put together and the quality of work that they are producing in house is astoundingly professional! :eyepop:

Can't comment on any proposed mounts, but I've now seen one their finished 12" f4 truss Newts in the flesh and it's a highly desirable, beautifully finished telescope. :thumbsup: I saw many others in various configurations in advanced stages of their build as well so the word is clearly getting out that First class 'scopes can and are being made right here in Oz.

The guys do it all in house, CAD, CNC machine, Lathe, 3D printing - the works. The new owner of the pictured 12" scope (that's Diego in the picture, not the new owner) is a well known, highly awarded Astrophotographer who commands great respect and that's a huge endorsement for the quality of the build in itself! :D

I forsee only good things happening for this company, and recommend you get in early with your order if you're after one of their stunning instruments!

[Peter Ward]

Sorry I missed this. Sounds exciting. Direct drive eh? I wish you the best of luck with the new venture. :thumbsup:

P.S. The Carbon Newt looks the business...but more details would nice. Certified Optics? Zerodur options? Dedicated field corrector? etc.. etc..

[jahnpahwa]

And then you took the time to read Diego's post. (Rolly roll eyes)

[Peter Ward]

What's your problem with that? I was not disparaging of Diego's venture in any way.
Suffice to say established names such as AP, Bisque and Losmandy have been around for several decades....
and have a heck a lot of R&D knowledge under their belts as a result.

To make inroads into the precision EQ mounting market will take seriously hard work, investment and quality product. .....my turn now :) ...:rolleyes:

[acropolite]

Australian companies can compete, Blackmagic is a good example of what Australian companies can achieve in competative world markets.

[jahnpahwa]

Sorry to everyone wanting to read about the possibility of an Aussie mount.



My original post of sticking it up you when Diego succeeds was simply stating that I will love to see egg on your face when, having replied to a thread where an Australian innovator and manufacturer of astro gear states an intention to (indeed, reports progress on) developing a mount, you reply with something ending with "tell him he's dreaming".

Of course we/I now see that you missed Diego's post, you weren't to know! You're a busy guy! I'm bloody loving watching you dig in over it, as always :rofl:



Also enjoying your name dropping Losmandy from the olden days and reporting his sublime observation of "The Chinese can't machine for s#%t" after looking at a single example of a single knock off.

He was right though, hey? His mounts are producing all the best astro images and all the Chinese ones fall apart after a year or two :shrug::shrug:. To me, the cherry on top of this broadest of generalizations, is that its one of your favourite sayings.


Oh, and that's all I'll say here, I feel like a mug for taking the time to say this much! I'm stoked for Diego's mount!

[Peter Ward]

Well, to be brutally frank, I think the chances of commercial success for Diego's mount are not great.

That is not a comment on his team's expertise....the mount may be a ripper! If they come up with a game changing product I'd be more than happy to support it.

...but unless they are competitive and can get export sales (the Oz market is simply not there ) it will be *extremely* difficult to make a go of it.

e.g. RIP Francis Lord Optics, Astro-Optical Supplies, Anssen Technologies

[TrevorW]

I for one really have some issues with my Losmandy Mount - OK the mount is well built but some of the tech they use is old school, accessories and parts cost a fortune to replace, eg take the hand controller for instance you have just got to belong to their forum to see the number of issues that arise with thee and others relating to the mount and these are not in the majority user related. When you consider here you'll pay near on $8000 for a Losmandy G11-G2 mount from some supplier(s), I would expect a lot more or better from them compared to say an EQ8. Like I said I for one would support a local manufacturer who could supply a quality EQ mount under $10k especially direct drive and able to support up to 55kg in gear. I have of recent been toying with selling off my Losmandy and buying a Rainbow Harmonic mount :)

[Nikolas]

I read this and no matter what happens will not be something I can afford...

[Peter Ward]

Interesting.

Like all products made overseas, the end user cost is very dependent on the $AUS to $USD. The G-11G is currently available for $A5900 inc GST. from some east coast dealers ;)

I'd be interested in hearing what you mean by "old School" tech. What features are missing or need an upgrade?

Going to a sample of two, I still have my original G-11 G2 hand paddle. Never missed a beat in 7 years.

[diegocolonnello]

No one here knows what i have gone through in order to get to where we are, and it is only the start of the road.... no one knows where we are heading, but i know that everyone can help to push forward a little bit..

We don't need to build the best equipment or the best features or a cheaper product, i need to build something you are going to love to use and i will be proud to support.

Australia can produce its own stuff, we can produce our own telescopes, mounts and accesories, and yes, Australia can compete worldwide... there is only one way to start doing it..... in only needs a dream.

The Australian made license is my best feature, and there is a nice group of Victorians behind it.

[Peter Ward]

As the old advert slogan went "You'll never never know, unless you never never go".
As I said earlier...I wish you well...dreaming or not...it's a gutsy move and I hope the result is a good one :thumbsup:

[Startrek]

Diego,
I take my hat off to you for “having a go” in a small competitive industry and doing something that you love with a passion
I jointly ran a $12M company for 25years a part of which was involved in supply and installation of commercial lighting to large retailers across the country
We tried to make our own luminaries ( locally ) but after time and investment and lack of competitive muscle , we caved in to the cheap Chinese imports.
At least we had a go and that I can be very proud of ...,
I wish you every success in your endeavours Diego
Cheers
Martin
PS: Still patiently waiting for my NexDome to arrive and be delivered !!

[netwolf]

How about an open source design with self assembly.

For controller you could use Onstep or something similar.
For mount you need a design that can come as an easy kit to assemble.

As an owner of an ancient Losmandy g11 who has many times considers selling it one thing I like is that it was quite easy to disassemble and service . Also I have been able to use Gemini, SiderealTech , AstroEq next is Onstep for Goto. The mount similar I think in many ways to Mesu is adaptable to many controller options. Some like the aesthetic finish of modern mounts but am more of a practical engineer and looks to me while important must go hand in hand with ease of self service. Especially when you consider we live on an island. Though I am not a huge fan of some new modifications from Losmandy that require mount to be sent back. Especially for people outside USA. But up until recent upgrades it has been a great mount. Sure you can buy of the shelf and get same or better results, but not seen many other mounts like my cg11 that still can be upgraded for a mount made in the 90s. And there are quite a lot of goto systems servo and stepper based that can be adapted to it. Even direct drive options.

I also like the Mesu for its sheer capacity compared to anything else in its price range.

I do understand that may not suit everyone, but some tinkering types like me.

Diego wish you best of luck , my wish list would be you make a mount that is easy for people to service themselves and adaptable to open source drive systems.

[Adox]

In May, we (Testar Australia) are going to receive a large stock of 10 Micron mounts: GM1000, GM2000 and GM3000, many accessories, hundreds of kilos of counterweight and tripods.



I have been trained at the 10 Micron factory so most of the repairs and the support can be carried locally.


I am excited to see the new telescopes by Sidereal Trading and the prospect of a new direct drive mount is very interesting! We support Australian manufacturer and we are looking forward to working together!

[toc]

That is truly great news to hear - the fact that we can have local repair and service for 10micron mounts is a huge win for Australian astronomers. :thumbsup:

[AdamJL]

+ both companies are awesome to deal with. Sidereal helped me in the beginning with my PoleMaster purchase and questions, and Testar have been amazing local support in Sydney for many things I bought from them, and even setup my guide-scope in store

https://www.facebook.com/TestarAustralia/photos/pb.346058505955642.-2207520000../840805386480949/?type=3&theater

Two great companies working together would be a big plus for us as customers :)

[bigjoe]

Hope it all works for Diego and Co..To have a good mount here for a good price and get it serviced here for vastly less money than sending mounts to E.G AP or Tak overseas would encourage more to buy a higher grade mount, knowing that if something goes wrong they'll be attended to here not thousands of kilometers away and at great expense..Bravo Diego.
Bigjoe

[AdamJL]

Make us some refractors, Diego!! :)

[bigjoe]

Yes a really good 5 inch or so ED doublet doesn't have to be a triplet for doubles for me but all are nice Diego.
Bigjoe

[Peter Ward]

Humm...am I mistaken...or has this post turned into an Testar advertorial? ;)

[jahnpahwa]

Yep, you're mistaken, jog on.


Adriano quoted the original post and had a response directly related to it.

[xthestreams]

I spent 4 years living and working in Silicon Valley - the difference between here and there?

They’re willing to give it a go, when everyone here shouts “no!”.

Market for electric vehicles when Tesla launched? Asymptotic to zero. Private, reusable space launch capability to take on NASA and Boeing? I *did* think he was dreaming!

Thank god we’ve got dreamers in this country, I for one don’t relish the idea of my grandkids having a choice between digging up dirt and serving lattes to tourists as their two career choices.

Here’s to the crazy ones. Go get ‘em Diego and Paul!

[kosborn]

Diego,

I wonder if you are open to "requests for features" for mount design?

I have always thought that motor drives on the alt and azimuth axes combined with a built in camera on the RA axis (and appropriate software) would make for very good automatic and accurate polar alignment. You could push a button, go inside and pour a beer, and by the time you walked back outside you could have arcsecond accurate polar alignment. :D

[Startrek]

Great idea !!
Long overdue in the design of quality mounts ( although you will have to pay a premium for such a luxury )
I’d be happy with just motorised Alt and Az bolts with fine threads , control box and USB port to control it from your laptop keyboard as most people use PA features in their capture software anyway

[JA]

If anyone wants motorised ALT-AZIMUTH functions on any equatorial mount, then just mount the equatorial mount to a very beefy ALT-AZIMUTH mount.... :D:D:D

Best
JA

[AdamJL]

100%
Still new to this hobby, and I was shocked that this part was still knobs and dials.

[Peter Ward]

For larger mounts you may have to lift over 180Kg of telescope and counterweights on the polar axis. Designing a system that can do that with arc second precision would be a challenge....

[AdamJL]

I would say that's probably the more niche part of the market.
The rest of the market could benefit from a fully automated solution.
Polar aligning and star aligning can and should be a one-button setup as the default with an option for more complex setups as just that.. an option, instead of the default complexity this hobby has forced upon everyone.

edit: just a link to a very old thread I made on this subject years ago
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=154402
I made that thread, then didn't buy anything. Came back last year because of Covid + boredom + interest. Learned a lot, but still generally agree with the old me as a newbie in that thread :)

Any company (waves at Diego!) that would like to try and create a fully automated solution "for the masses" might tap into a market that has a lot of interest, is time poor, and also has no desire to trouble shoot guiding errors, or learn the (frankly obscene) amount of jargon this hobby has :)

Sounds like Diego et al are after the super high end, which is cool. But that's a market that already exists. The most money to be made would be with the billions of people yet to try their hand at our hobby.

[Merlin66]

Let’s be honest.... if you’ve got a scope weighing in at 50kg or so, they will be mounted in an observatory and need a solid mount.
The novices market is more the EQ5/ HEQ5 and similar mounts.
There’s a hellava difference in the design and construction.
Would the novice be prepared the extra costs to give the “ bells and whistles “ mentioned?????

[Stefan Buda]

A fully automatic mount would have to be Alt-Az because such a mount, not having a polar axis, does not have to be polar aligned. It can be plonked on the ground with a roughly vertical azimuth axis and software can figure out it's position by platesolving several images taken through a small finder scope that is mounted parallel to the main instrument. That is the easy part. The difficulty comes from the need of a third computer controlled axis, to do the field derotation for imaging. Such a derotator needs to have high resolution and be backlash free - not easy or cheap to achieve.
Then you have the problem of rotating spider diffraction spikes in the subs if the scope has spider vanes.