I bought one directly from Rob, who is very nice and very helpful. I use it with a 90/600mm (f:6.5) triplet ED astro-scope with a DSLR attached, about 4kg in weight. I use it for bird photography.
There were a couple of things that bothered me personally, so I modified it to better suit my needs. Basically, I just replaced the plastic bushings on both the tilt and pan axis with ball bearings to reduce resistance and slop. I replaced the large "teflon" washer on the tilt with a harder one (Formica) to be able to lock the tilt down tight when need be. 1/8 turn of the knob and the tilt is smooth, 1/4 turn and it is resistance free. I made a large polished brass washer to go between the arm and the base to reduce resistance and broaden the support. I drilled a new hole in the base of the arm to center my scope on the tripod and reduce leverage, and I drilled a second hole very close to the vertical for reversing the arm for transporting the tripod.
I am now extremely happy with it and as I said, my goal was to modify it to suit my needs. I wanted free movement, no slop, and to be able to lock it down tight in an instant for moving around. I feel I was able to turn a very good product into an excellent one.
See:
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=194800&page=10 post#241 and 248,
page 11, post #275, and page 18 #440.
Thanks to Rob who was very friendly and open to my ideas. As a manufacturer he has to find the best possible balance between quality and cost. I don't have those restrictions, and although my costs were minimal,(14 for the bearings), it did take a lot of puttering.
There were a couple of things that bothered me personally, so I modified it to better suit my needs. Basically, I just replaced the plastic bushings on both the tilt and pan axis with ball bearings to reduce resistance and slop. I replaced the large "teflon" washer on the tilt with a harder one (Formica) to be able to lock the tilt down tight when need be. 1/8 turn of the knob and the tilt is smooth, 1/4 turn and it is resistance free. I made a large polished brass washer to go between the arm and the base to reduce resistance and broaden the support. I drilled a new hole in the base of the arm to center my scope on the tripod and reduce leverage, and I drilled a second hole very close to the vertical for reversing the arm for transporting the tripod.
I am now extremely happy with it and as I said, my goal was to modify it to suit my needs. I wanted free movement, no slop, and to be able to lock it down tight in an instant for moving around. I feel I was able to turn a very good product into an excellent one.
See:
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=194800&page=10 post#241 and 248,
page 11, post #275, and page 18 #440.
Thanks to Rob who was very friendly and open to my ideas. As a manufacturer he has to find the best possible balance between quality and cost. I don't have those restrictions, and although my costs were minimal,(14 for the bearings), it did take a lot of puttering.
