T-Rex vs DM-6 mounts: brief comparison

[casstony]

Peter (Waxing_Gibbous) dropped in at my place with his T-Rex and we had a daytime play with the mounts, doing a bit of solar viewing in a brief sunny period. (also had some stunning, crystal clear views of power line insulators through Peter's TSA120 :))
They're both very classy mounts with fairly minimal differences in use so I'm aiming to outline the essential differences that a buyer might want to consider before purchasing.

T-Rex: easier fine tracking due to slow motion controls; the controls are light and effortless to turn for fine adjustment.

DM-6: large adjustments are smoother but high magnification tracking requires more effort due to lack of slow motion controls.
An OTA can be mounted on either side of the mount (just need to change encoder sense) allowing the main focuser on my C11 to be at the bottom of the OTA instead of the top.

If I was exclusively doing high mag planetary viewing I'd choose a driven equatorial over either of these mounts.

I imagine Peter will spot this thread and add his own (possibly different)impression of the two mounts.

I would like to stress that the differences between the mounts are fairly minimal and if you already owned one there's probably not enough incentive to change over to the other mount (IMHO).

[gb_astro]

Tony I understand in theory you can set the clutches on the T-Rex so you can either push it or use the slow motion controls at those same clutch settings.
Does this work in practise? Say you want to look at an object at X150 with the T-Rex.
Can you push it accurately enough to easily centre the object then start using the slow motion controls without readjusting the clutches?

Thanks,
gb

[casstony]

I'd say yes, though even with the clutches fully released the T-Rex was not quite as easy to push around as the DM-6. A long refractor with it's extra leverage would reduce this difference between the mounts. Peter can give you a more informed answer and hopefully balance any unintended bias I may have.

If both mounts were the same price, you didn't want to mount the scope on the right hand side, had no intention of putting a C14 on the mount and wanted to do some high mag viewing I'd recommend the T-Rex as first choice. I don't think you can really give an unqualified 'mount a' is better than 'mount b' answer.

[JethroB76]

Thanks for your thoughts. What are the rough prices for each mount, landed in Australia?

[casstony]

You can check out the pricing at:
http://www.discmounts.com/price.html

http://www.kkohki.com/English/T-REXmount.html

Then add shipping and gst and try not to give your bank account a seizure.

I bought my DM-6 set-up second hand and piecemeal so it was probably 25% off new price and no gst.