[JohnH]

</RANT>

Nasty, unreliable, unstable. I have had 5. I started with a manual wheel - it was horrid, moving filters caused lost focus, lost guiding and/or changed framing, no use.

Second up was an ATIK EFW with hand controller - useable but now I had to stay up all night to press the button - I tended to not complete my colour series. ATIK brought out a USB interface to the EFW. Great, now I could automate filter changes. The only problem was the USB interface was very unreliable...may nights lost trying to fight that box and the poor mechanics of the wheel. Eventually the USB box died.

Now this had cost me about 6 months of real time and much of my patience with AP.

Still, after a while sans wheel I steeled my nerves and went for an Orion Nautilus, 1.25" 7 positions, single USB connection with inbuilt contol circuit great - now I can load LRGB and Ha, Oiii, Siii. Out of the box it worked, hovever I did get stalls due to instability of the whell which I tracked to the bearing which was loose but it was adjustable and, after careful setup, it worked well.

BUT

I had to go and change my CCD (to an SBIG model) - and it came with a FW so the Orion has gone to a better place.

Now I thought surely I will not have FW issues - the CFW8a wheel and ST2000xm are mated at the factory and the filters installed there to match...

Wrong. The bl00dy thing stalled on first use. I was mad. Back to 5 positions and not working...pulling it apart and testing step by step showed the problem to be caused by flexure of the front plate, this casued the wheel to stall in certain orientations. Of course it worked ok on the bench - just on the scope it would stall - and there is no warning in the s'ware when it happens either so you waste some more time. I had to shim the front plate to get more clearance. Then tape the thing up to stop the light leaks. Ugly but it worked. Turns out to be a known issue with a known solution - a muscle plate - but these are no longer made. Damn.

Then up one popped on IIS! Bagged it!

Then I got a bit more luck - and IISer was selling a CFW10 - now I can get all my filters back in service, and with a bit of luck move the CFW8 and muscle palte on, of course the 10 will not have any of the issues of the old 8 - SBig are bound to have fixed those...

So I set up the CFW10 today and guess what - it STALLED. Worked with the cover off but not with the cover on and filters loaded - ARGHHHH!

This time turned out the LRGB filters that came with the CFW8 - they are not compatible with the CFW10 - the holders are too deep and foul the fw casing. My Astronomic NB filters work ok and I sit here cursing because I sold my Astrnomik LRGB set wth the Nautilus wheel, should have sold the Astrodons instead. Bu33er!

So now I am looking for a good quality, low profile LRGB filter set and a new owner for a CFW8 with musle plate, LRGB and a Neb filters plus the adapter for the AO-8.

</end of RANT>