|
Hi Lewis,
Although the Ioptron Mount you are looking for is the Equatorial Version the Computer/Hand Controllers used is the same as the Ioptron Minitower Pro Alt/AZ hand controller.
I have just taken delivery of the Ioptron Minitower Pro Alt/Az Goto Mount and have the following observations (compared to my past Meade Alt/Az Fork Goto Mount, Celestron CPC Alt/Az Goto Fork Mount and Current Takahashi EM400 EQ Mount).
The Ioptron Minitower Pro appears to have lower build quality than any of my prior mounts (especially the Tak Mount).
From Shipment the Inbuilt GPS found my Co-ordinates correctly but did not automatically set the correct Time Zone.
The Minitower Az/Dec Manual Clutch has serious issues where it randomly completely locks up or releases (potentially letting the attached OTA smash into the tripod legs if in an unfortunate placement at the time)
Upon further research this is a known issue since 2009/2010 that Ioptron have failed/neglected to fix in the past 3 years. (There is a aftermarket independent fix).
The Controller/Computer Park Facility does not take into account the geometry of the OTA vs Tripod leading to potential impact of the OTA against the tripod legs.
The mount is much noisier than my Takahashi Mount (which is virtually silent) but slight less or similar to both the Meade and Celestron Fork Mounts
As mentioned the model of Ioptron Mount you are looking at is different but the lack of overall quality/operation/attention-to-detail in general should be considered.
If Takahashi had a Goto Alt/Az mount with the same capacity I would throw the Ioptron in the bin and buy the Tak in a heartbeat.
Cheers
|