Quote:
Originally Posted by Shiraz
that looks interesting Peter - thanks for posting.
Allan, the EQ8 suffers from some penny pinching decisions in the manufacturing stages and one basic design fault as outlined in the article that Peter linked. However, it is worth noting that it costs about 1/2 - 1/3 as much as a 40kg "name" brand and can deliver the goods if you work around the backlash issues. Spring loaded worms will fix the backlash/runout and if anyone can put together an upgrade set that works (without introducing a whole new set of problems), it will be up there with some very good mounts, since the basic design PE seems to be about 7 arcsec p-p.
the stripdown video shows swarf - mine regularly ends the night with a layer of damp dust all over/in it, so a bit of swarf is actually quite minor by comparison - shouldn't happen, but not a game changer. Additionally, using grub screws to lock threads is fairly standard - eg the EQ6 - it isn't pretty if you pull it down, but it works fine. The rust is also annoying, but it has no effect on performance. Overall, if you care about finesse and beauty, don't go there - if all you care about is quite robust functionality, the EQ8 is worth a good look.
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Thanks Ray for the info.
Looks like it's not worth buying until Skywatcher fixes up those problems
or a kit is available to modify it.
I am only in the planning stages so there is no urgency.
I know that with my EQ6 I had to change the counterweight shaft
to get it to work to my satisfaction:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/247194...in/photostream
cheers
Allan