Portable Pier Plans

[netwolf]

Hi All,

There seems to be no locally made ones I can find. Perhaps someone could point me to one if you know of any.

Looking for consturction plans, drawings and pictures of portable piers that you have made. Its to mount my G-11 in the backyard, and I would like a portable unit that can be moved on wheels and setup. So I could potentially store it outside under a Ewning with a tarp over it. I am also interested in Wood based designs as well as aluminum or steel.

I like this one from Dave but it lacks wheels, but I design that has easy to remove legs.
http://users.tpg.com.au/users/daveg/gem6/gem6.html

Also could people advise what would the usual cost for parts for there designs and perhaps if you have done the cost to have it professionally made.


Regards
Fahim

[bloodhound31]

PM Sent mate.

Baz.

[ozstockman]

Hi Fahim,

Have you checked a Pier made by Skywatcher? It has the same design you mention and comes with wheals.
I know it's not for G11 but may be you can just add custom made top plate for G11 to it. It is on sale from andrews for $299.

Also there is a company in UK that sells modular pier systems.
http://www.epsilon-telescopes.co.uk/mps.htm

cheers,

Mike

[netwolf]

Bazz, email send mate.

Mike
Yes I had a look at this but I cant find any specs on the width of this Pier. I think for the G-11 you need a 6" Pier at the least. I was thinking of getting a 8" and a adapter plate to attach the Losmandy Pier adapter for Meade tripods.

[ozstockman]

Fahim, since I had no success with the Skywatcher pier (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=34576) I recommended to you above I bought and tried casters from scoperoller.com (http://www.scoperoller.com/casters.shtml). To be honest I didn't expect them to be so good.
I tried casters from Bunnings and I could not see any way why my mount would be completly steady and not shaking when any kind of casters attached to tripod legs.

However after I tried casters from scoperoller I can confirm that this is a real low cost portable pier solution. They sell tree types of casters for different types of mounts and I believe that they also have casters for G-11.

I've bought a zero motion version of casters for my EQ6 Pro and they come with locks that actually block both a wheel and a caster base rotation. So when all three casters are locked I cannot see any the difference in stability comparing it to tripod legs that have no casters at all.

In terms of mobility the casters make it very easy to move your mount around. I can easily move my whole 50kgs setup with just one hand.

[bert]

pm'd