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What gets a lot of people is the sometimes slow turnaround on the support forum. Time differences between Colorado and Australia are no fun either. Some support forum posts can sometimes fall between the cracks, particularly the over the weekend posts. The Bisques also take off for shows like the recent PATS, leaving no one responding to forum posts while they're gone. In my observation, the best time to post for immediate response is during the work week Tuesday to Thursday between 7 AM and noon Colorado time.
When posting to the forum, if you want quick response, it helps to have the problem well documented with your very first post. Try to anticipate questions and have answers. Otherwise the back and forth is going to be frustrating. The forum has an option to notify you via email when a reply is posted. I recommend using that feature.
Thanks for the tips on that.
Polar alignment with this mount is trivial. Though you can go overboard and spend several full nights on it if you're into that sort of thing. No doubt well worth doing if you have a permanent pier.
The intial polar alignment step is easy for sure. Creating a t-point model especially an automated one is far from trivial. Its fast if everything works and set up. I use my PME and t-point and had everything working and have done t-point models a few times on that. Despite that experience I could not get the Sky X T-point automated working despite several tries. I restudied the manual carefully (its spread over 2 manuals, the Sky X, the T-point add on manual) and realised I had an additional setup to do on the FOV indicator. I did that and was able to do plate solves at home on saved images. Despite all that working it failed again in the field. This is using a FLI Proline 16803 camera. After 2 hours of trying this and that I was mainly getting index error out of range error 731 (no reference in the manuals as to what that means). I fiddled with it more and perhaps even accidentally it worked - Yippee! I did a 20 point model, adjusted the polar alignment, did another 20 point model
the filter wheel at times went close to hitting the pier so I widened the hole in the targets more. Got another model, did the polar alignment adjustment and was getting messages saying RA needed no more adjustment. Tried to start a larger model, the filter wheel was on course to hit the pier, stopped it. Now it wouldn't work again. Checked all the slewing limits to make sure it wouldn't hit the pier. It seemed to not want to do larger models so there seemed to be a conflict with limits.
Tried a smaller one, finally got it going again and then it failed after a while because of lack of disk space (images must be saved before it will do a plate solve - another hidden catch not documented in the manual - you need to have the autosave checked in the camera window).
Cleaned the memory using a turbo disk cleaner - mistake, it erased where the serial numbers must be kept. Had to reenter the serial numbers and got it all going again, had to reset the parameters. Finally got it all going then the motor stalls presumably from the cam adjustment. Time elapsed- approx 4.5 hours in 7C temperatures.
Oh I swtiched cameras in that period also to the ML8300 to make it easier for the software (although I have used PL16803 and t-point with my PME). The camera window where you can change binning etc was clicked off at some point and its unclear where to reactivate it. The camera tab that comes up if you do this is a different one that does not have the ability to change binning. Apparently there are 2 camera tabs not one - very confusing and hard to find in the software. I am not a fan of these side windows that you can click off like in Lightroom, Nikon NX2 and also PixInsight. Its a bad style of interface.
But I did get it to work and I think I can get it to work again but as you can see it is not always easy, that there are windows and settings you need to access that are not either written up in the manual or are not user friendly and require an intimate knowledge of the software. So no its not what I would call trivial in my experience and I am an experienced user of automated t-point.
Training the PEC with this mount is trivial. Takes 30 minutes if you do it right. 15 additional minutes (for a final verification run) if you guessed wrong on the East/West check box. Although one guy can't seem to get his PEC to save to the mount, he probably just needs a new MKS-5000 board.
No, mine does not save PEC properly either. I have downloaded the latest daily build so I need to see if that corrects this issue or not.
Automated calibration with this mount is trivial. It's almost always 100% user error on the failed image link front. Been there, done that. Default image link parameters really do work.
Only with your camera setup. Not in all cases. It does not seem to like large chips. You need to have the autosave in the camera window checked, you need to setup the FOV indicators in the Sky X (wasn'tt required in Sky 6 and T-point). The arc sec/pixel value appears to be done differently to the Sky 6 and t-point (there it wants the 1x1 value even if you are shooting in 2x2 or 3x3, Sky X appears to want the value based on the binning you are shooting - I may still not have that right though!).
I think you are right though, if you can do an image link you are 50% there but not 100%. I was able to do image links but not automated callibration runs as per above. So that has not been my experience.
The User Guide is better than ever. Compare it to the rather spartan ME user guide which was in service for 12 years and the even more spartan GT-1100S user guide. Paramount mounts and sophisticated technically inclined Paramount mount users have been around for many years.
The PMX manual is a superbly written document and I have to acknowledge it is one of the best technical manuals I have ever seen. However it is not complete and you will still need access to fine details when things go wrong that are not in the manual. I have had need of at least 2 important things that are not in the manual. Same with the PDF instructions to adjust the slipping cam - it is not complete. I did it exactly per their pdf and it made no difference. I worked it out for myself judging by their drawings (which are also inaccurate). The 2 adjustment screws either side of the cam tightening screw were set way off what they should be and it took a lot of trial and error to get the right setting which is 2-2.5 turns back from tight. Too far back from tight and you will continue to get slipping gears no matter how many times you adjust your cam. That's not written anywhere.
My own take on the MX is that the real problems with the MX have been with the new three way switch design, with a handful of people getting bad worms and with not including CCDSoft with the mount (for PEC training).
Yes this is pretty true but PEC is also bugged or was bugged. I need to do that again next as I did exactly per the manual and it failed. Like Chris's experience it either made no difference or slightly worsened tracking. It also produced a weird looking staircased curve and it also did not save it properly. I have to click retrieve everytime to recover it which is a waste anyway as it does not work. I have the latest build now so hopefully it will work next time. But I am prepared that it may not. I have Precision PEC so I'll use that if SkyX fails again.
I would not let any of that stop me from purchasing an MX or an ME II.[/QUOTE]
That's up to the buyers tolerance for the possibility of expensive items not working out of the box, but be prepared for the possibility of the above and potential fiddling with it factor.
I still think once the wrinkles are ironed out and with some tolerance it will be an awesome mount. I think my worm is good except for a recent sudden spike in PE which made all images a writeoff with double stars where it was quite good (not perfect but then I hadn't done a full t-point yet as it failed on the 3 or 4 attempts to get it to work).
The good thing about SB is it does have a lot of depth of sophistication but with that extra comes the likelihood of bugs and doing things wrongly or more prone to failure and less reliable.Look how long its taken Windows to sort out some bugs and they have many billions of dollars to spend.
Greg.
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