I can't believe the rubbish Meade puts out now days
$80 I spent on a polarizing moon filter. A bit much I though, but hey, you expect to get charged for those odd little items. It was a big affair, like a barlow and I wondered why they needed to make it so flipping long since it's essentially just filters. Perhaps they wanted to justify the price I mused. Then on use I noticed that the screws that lock the EP and the movable polarizer filter were sloppy. Very sloppy like they had put the wrong threads on them or in the holes. Then it fell apart, luckily I caught it when it did. On inspection I find that the two halves are held together by a single grub screw and there was no recess for the screw to sit in. I had come a bit loose and the inner barrel had simply slid off the outer. Also there were score marks where it had ben rotating under the lose screw. Have a look at it in the pic below. Yes, that's RUST you see on it. Can you imagine that rust working it's way down onto the surface of your $400 dilectric diagonal? I can. A cheap mild steel screw and they haven't even finished the end off.
I drilled out a little depression for the grub to sit in but it's not satisfactory. I will have to drill another hole, tap both for proper grub screws and put countersunk depressions into the inner barrel before this thing is safe to use again. Mind you it is really a wasted effort since the optics on my $15 flea market plorized sunglasses are clearer than the rubbish Meade has put into this thing. It will be the last Meade purchase I will ever make I can assure you of that!
They market the whole range from rubbish through to very decent gear; you need to do some research before buying from these middle tier companies though.
I hear ya's, they turned me off a long time ago. I refuse to buy any of
their products. After spending $140.00 on an apo barlow and it's coatings
went to crap within months.
Having purchased an LX50 in the mid-90s that not only advertised the unit as being suitable for astrophotography but had the gall to put an autoguider port in it, I dont buy Meade any more. Apart from the optics the total unit an the overall concept of what they put together was crap. Then they advertise the Magellan II unit for push to which didnt have southern stars to align on and was programmed like a schizophrenic with a flickering fluoro light in it. Total waste of effort.
Meades mantra is release it now and well fix it later if the suckers complain loud enough. I really hope a Meade rep reads this but I bet they have read worse - far worse.
I'm feel I need to step in to balance the argument here, even though I've had my problems with Meade in the past. If you're about to make a Meade purchase read the forums to see what others think of that particular item. For example, the current LX goto scopes and the Lightbridge truss dobs seem to be well liked. Celestron and Skywatcher sell good and bad stuff too - you need to do your research before purchasing.
I once owned a Meade scope 10' LX200. Software was lovely and it pointed perfectly. I defended the optics of their scopes but now having owned my second Celestron I would never buy any of their older style SCT's again. I don't know what the R's are like, but it is little wonder very few great planetary images (I have never seen one) come out of any Meade scope. In my opinion all their gear is let down by their optics. I would like to see what the newer scopes are like though.
Below is a pic of the $120 dollar Meade plossel I bought new some months back, the same day I got the filter above. I took this one back and quired it, figuring that the factory must have forgot to put some 'glue' on it or something. Here is what I was told.
"Oh they all come up like that, the caps are too tight. Just push it back down." Oh! I said. And I walked out, not wanting to cause a fuss because they were good guys and had given me a terrific price on my EQ6. I really only bought the EP for collimating my SCT, so if the eye guard comes away, because the only thing holding it on is another rusty little grub screw, it won't be so bad.
In case anyone thinks otherwise, no it's not your typical press on eyecup, it's sides are flush and it's held on by some mechanism on one side
l don't agree with the comment as an across the board statement although when looking at the build quality between the early LX200 Classic and the newer GPS versions you can see a downward trend in assembly and all around finish.
Meade sells crap AND good stuff, the whole problem with Meade is "i think" that they are gone too big and sell too many different products.
Quality control goes down the drain when you want to sell a lot and too many product lines.
Just my opinion.
I own a meade at the moment and I have had my share of problems with it for the three (4? who's counting) years of ownership, but it's the only scope I have and I love it to bits (as it falls to bits :p).
I sympathise with KG8's gripe regarding quality and workmanship in meade - one of the screws that holds the plate in place on the mount head has recently broken off. It became stuck after an extremely cold night of observing, the mount head must have slightly contracted, making the screw impossible to unscrew. Also, when I first got the scope, and did some fine adjustments to the underside of the dovetail(? I can't remember what it's called anymore) plate (what meade calls the axis alignment procedure), all the washers that held the adjustment screws in place broke and fell to pieces. My meade barlow has also recently had it's screw broken off as well (the important part that holds the eyepiece in place!).
That being said, I am happy with the optics of the scope, even if the parts that hold it together aren't particularly great. However, I have had many, many nights of wonderful observing time with this fine telescope. I don't want any prospective meade buyers to be put off by our gripes because I'm sure, as Tony said, every manufacturer has their good crop and bad crop. I don't think we should make sweeping generalisations though about one particular brand. I haven't had experience with all of meade's product range so I can't say that all their stuff is crap, and even with my not so great experiences, I won't say that all their gear is total crap.
Very true Silvie, they do have good optics in a lot of their scopes. I posted my experiences so that others might not get duded on the items I was duded on, not to trash all Meade gear. I think that in this day and age we need to really scope out any purchases we intend to make because there are so many defective products in the market place. It's one reason I like to hold things in my hand before I spend, so I can check them out for myself. I didn't do this with my Meade purchases because they were spur of the moment ones and I guess I still had a sort of "blind trust" in the Meade brand. Something a lot of us are prone to do I guess. But, having been burnt, twice now! I wouldn't go back again at all.
The root of the problem is inflation of the money supply, which has pushed prices up 5 fold or more over the last 20 years. Hi quality telescopes can still be bought but they will cost us $20 or $30 thousand dollars, yet Meade scopes, and Celestron scopes, are the same price or cheaper than they were 20 years ago. They are manufacturing to a price point, and when you think about that for a moment it's obvious why there are problems. The trick I think is to just minimize the problems.
Very true Silvie, they do have good optics in a lot of their scopes. I posted my experiences so that others might not get duded on the items I was duded on, not to trash all Meade gear. I think that in this day and age we need to really scope out any purchases we intend to make because there are so many defective products in the market place. .
I'd encourage posting about defective products to warn others (it's getting harder to sort out the good gear from the bad) but we do need to be cautious not to give the impression that problems are isolated to one company. I imagine quality control is going out the door as competition becomes more fierce.
I have Meade filters, Meade astrometric eyepiece, and Meade DSI now 2 1/2 years old. The eyepieces are fine but the DSI has been changed a lot. Not likely to repeat purchases other than eyepieces. So, 50/50 maybe. Telescope is C8, from Bintel, then Celestron, now Meade. V.pleased with C8 - excellent optics. Cheers.
Ive had a 10" meade LX200 close to 4 years now & its been fabulous & has given me much pleasure. Mostly deadly accurate pointing & has worked flawlessy as advertised. Not all their stuff is great but by the same token, not all Fords, Holdens, Nikons, Canons, IBM's, Apple-Mac's etc etc(speaking from experience here) work flawlessly. Theres some real crap amongst mass produced consumables for sure & unfortunately, every so often for some reason or another, a piece of junk gets through. I had a recommended-to-me plumber that plumbed my house several years ago, charged $10,000 & it all stank. Shoddy, lazy workmanship, dripping taps and crappy installation.
My point is that in this day & age with mass produced consumables, there's going to be some rubbish amongst it as the " churn it out & worship the almighty the $$$ & blow the quality control" capitalistic mentality continues.There are many many happy meade owners out there & unfortunately you only ever hear the negative aspects. I will only upgrade my meade when it virtually falls apart or the electronics all die.(Which they will given time)....my two cents
heh, i have allways disliked meade's way of advertisement and the way it presents its products..
like for instance, anyone seen that meade add where it goes something along the lines of, "watch out for cheap chinese knock off's buy a meade mak?"
pathetic advertisment like that really puts me off.
Do you notice that Meade and Celestron both have stuff made in China marketed as top of the line products now?
I use Celestron, but i always make sure that eyepieces etc are made in Japan or USA,
A lady i know bought a Meade Telestar GOTO telescope, and its been nothing but trouble! Its impossible to collimate for one, and the drive mechanisms are very sloppy, has plastic everything (i'm surprised the batteries aren't plastic), the manual is all scrolling in the hand controller and it hurts the eyes to read, its a very cheap and nasty set-up, likewise the Celestron scopes that you see in Australian Geo Shops and Dick Smith outlets have very poor mountings.
These days you get what you pay for!!
Like riflescopes, ANYTHING made in JAPAN, GERMANY or the USA are first quality!
Last edited by Outbackmanyep; 30-08-2007 at 06:37 PM.
Do you notice that Meade and Celestron both have stuff made in China marketed as top of the line products now?
I use Celestron, but i always make sure that eyepieces etc are made in Japan or USA,
A lady i know bought a Meade Telestar GOTO telescope, and its been nothing but trouble! Its impossible to collimate for one, and the drive mechanisms are very sloppy, has plastic everything (i'm surprised the batteries aren't plastic), the manual is all scrolling in the hand controller and it hurts the eyes to read, its a very cheap and nasty set-up, likewise the Celestron scopes that you see in Australian Geo Shops and Dick Smith outlets have very poor mountings.
These days you get what you pay for!!
Like riflescopes, ANYTHING made in JAPAN, GERMANY or the USA are first quality!
these days basically everything is made in Taiwan or China. Even your $600 TV Panoptics are Taiwan-made these days. My Meade Series 5000 Plossl is made in China.
Finding Japanese/U.S products is becoming harder and harder.
