Quote:
Originally Posted by gregbradley
You've been very patient. If I were you I would be sending it back for a replacement or a refund. We get this gear to image with not to tinker with for the next year.
A certain amount of tolerance is often required but the better manufacturers get it right straight out of the box. The PMX has been a disaster for SB with lots of QC problems. My one is probably one of the better ones but I still had to replace the worm and fix the cam adjustment.
You would have been better off with the new AP1100 or an older AP1200. You never hear about issues with AP gear.
SB has to be on a buyer beware status for their mounts. Just on this one small astro community here there have been at least 6 or more problem mounts over the last year. They have shown they are not in control of their quality and seem to find it acceptable that the buyer debugs/replaces parts on their brand new mount. Not even mentioning the question mark over PEC in the southern hemisphere.
Although when they do work though they are good. So its a quandary we find ourselves in there. SB obviously changed something from when they made their PME mounts. Possibly outsourcing components from China?? But whoever assembles them is clearly incompetent.
Greg.
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Hi Greg,
I certainly can relate to what you are writing, and I have found SB's customer service quite spotty at times. But I have to say that in this instance I'm not going to blame them (entirely) for this issue. The more I think about it the more I'm starting to feel that I may have caused this issue when I changed over the belts 6+ months ago. For some reason Chris's video showing worm /motor replacement leaves out the 1/4-20 adjustment that is in the pdf file from SB. Perhaps it wasn't in the pdf when he made the video. But, I suspect now that this step was critical (for me) and has resulted in months of trouble. I'm sure someone with more experience would have noticed what the problem was sooner, but I cannot blame them for my inexperience.
However, SB recommends Chris' video but doesn't mention the missing step and I followed it rather than the pdf. I think that needs fixing and I intend to bring it to their attention. And, I think some sort of trouble shooting matrix as part of the manual would be incredibly helpful. I know of another former MX user that had the exact same slew issue I have (which I've yet to confirm I've fixed), and I have seen another one on the forum at SB a while back. I think what is most annoying about customer service at SB is that there is a feeling (that I detect and feel first hand) that the end user has made the mistake and that there is nothing wrong with their product. Eventually if one is really persistant they might fix something and/or send parts out. In fact, I think they are quite generous in that respect. But, on more than a few occasions I have simply been told that I'm wrong and only later have I been proved to have been correct from the getgo.
I still believe this is a great mount and that I will eventually get there. Right now I think I am very very close to having this all figured out. Fingers crossed!
Peter