Meade Equatorial Wedge for LX-90

"Pete Lawrence" wrote in message
...
I've now managed to get a solution for what I consider to be a
reasonable price. Thanks for looking into it anyway.

No problem. What did you find?
Grim

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 00:18:26 GMT, "Grimble Gromble"
wrote:

"Pete Lawrence" wrote in message
.. .
I've now managed to get a solution for what I consider to be a
reasonable price. Thanks for looking into it anyway.

No problem. What did you find?

An offer I couldn't refuse on a standard wedge. Although it is
probably too lightweight for a 10", at the price I paid I won't worry
about beefing it up with a few extra braces.

--
Pete Lawrence
http://www.digitalsky.org.uk

"Pete Lawrence" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 00:18:26 GMT, "Grimble Gromble"
wrote:
"Pete Lawrence" wrote in message
. ..
I've now managed to get a solution for what I consider to be a
reasonable price. Thanks for looking into it anyway.
No problem. What did you find?
An offer I couldn't refuse on a standard wedge. Although it is
probably too lightweight for a 10", at the price I paid I won't worry
about beefing it up with a few extra braces.

Nice one. Are you any good at welding?

I finally had a word with my works director. He's interested in producing
wedges (he'd want to try making one first) but thinks I should shelve the
fixed latitude idea as he would want to see some kind of adjustment on it.
Happily, we won't need much adjustment - being as how we're only interested
in the UK. Accordingly, I'm going to have to take another look at the
design. This is the bit I dread - there's so many ways of doing it.

Once we come up with something cheap and sturdy, would you care to be a
guinea pig? You obviously have lots of experience and that's essential. We
often develop our archery products in association with an experienced
archer. That way, we get something that we can make at a reasonable price,
and the archers get something that they can readily use. Our guinea pig gets
a free product (free unless you count the time put in and they're usually
happy to be involved)!
Grim

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 17:20:26 GMT, "Grimble Gromble"
wrote:

"Pete Lawrence" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 00:18:26 GMT, "Grimble Gromble"
wrote:
"Pete Lawrence" wrote in message
...
I've now managed to get a solution for what I consider to be a
reasonable price. Thanks for looking into it anyway.
No problem. What did you find?
An offer I couldn't refuse on a standard wedge. Although it is
probably too lightweight for a 10", at the price I paid I won't worry
about beefing it up with a few extra braces.

Nice one. Are you any good at welding?

No but I know an outfit that is!

I finally had a word with my works director. He's interested in producing
wedges (he'd want to try making one first) but thinks I should shelve the
fixed latitude idea as he would want to see some kind of adjustment on it.
Happily, we won't need much adjustment - being as how we're only interested
in the UK. Accordingly, I'm going to have to take another look at the
design. This is the bit I dread - there's so many ways of doing it.

Once we come up with something cheap and sturdy, would you care to be a
guinea pig? You obviously have lots of experience and that's essential. We
often develop our archery products in association with an experienced
archer. That way, we get something that we can make at a reasonable price,
and the archers get something that they can readily use. Our guinea pig gets
a free product (free unless you count the time put in and they're usually
happy to be involved)!

Yeah definitely. I'd love to help out. Hopefully the cheap standard
wedge will give me some pointers to what would be a good wedge too.
There's nothing like using the damned things in the field to identify
what's wrong or badly designed ;-)

--
Pete Lawrence
http://www.pbl33.co.uk
Most recent images http://www.pbl33.fast24.co.uk/recent_images.html

"Pete Lawrence" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 17:20:26 GMT, "Grimble Gromble"
wrote:
Once we come up with something cheap and sturdy, would you care to be a
guinea pig?
Yeah definitely. I'd love to help out. Hopefully the cheap standard
wedge will give me some pointers to what would be a good wedge too.
There's nothing like using the damned things in the field to identify
what's wrong or badly designed ;-)
You're too kind. Will be in touch. And if you have any ideas yourself as to
which way to go, do let us know.
Grim

If it's any help. I've got the standard meade wedge. Here's what I like
and don't like about it....

First I have mixed opinions of the adapter plate. I like that it means that
if it's permently fixed I'm not wearing down the big bold hole in the bottom
of the fork mount. I don't like that everytime I setup the scope, I need to
hang it on the wedge from a single bolt. (then add the other two to secure
properly) It's a real pain that I need to completely remove the three bolts
everytime that I take the scope apart.

The latitude adjustment for the wedge is also extremely crude, if possible
it would make the scope better if this adjustment also provided the main
support. Whilst your at it if the adjustment was placed into the center of
the wedge it will help to maintain the stability a little better. Although
once adjusted the place can be tightened down to secure.

Another nice touch would be to help calibrate to the pole star. A small
scope that can be easily attached to help make the inital alignment to
Polaris would be really useful. It would mean that the tripod can be better
lined up visually without the need for a compass, which really does seem
like a gimic as it's practically useless. A big bubble level would also be
better than the tiny thing that's on the Meade wedge. These two alone would
make life alot more pleseant.

I'd strongly recommend that you allow the wedge to have alot of travel,
maybe not quite as much as the meade enough so that the wedge could be used
anywhere from the top of Shetland to the Algarve (don't forget about COAA,
people do take their scopes on holiday!)

Regards

Colin Dawson
www.cjdawson.com

Many thanks for the input, Colin. Most of your comments steer in the
direction of greater cost, though it wouldn't be too expensive to provide
places to mount the extra gear you refer to.

As for mounting, I think that would be worth addressing. Assuming that the
telescope would seldom be mounted on an alternative support, it would
probably be as well to mount a suitable simple light-weight fixture directly
(semi-permanently) to the telescope base, and provide a slot-in mechanism,
or similar, to position it securely on the wedge. Any other ideas gratefully
received.
Grim


"Colin Dawson" wrote in message
...
If it's any help. I've got the standard meade wedge. Here's what I like
and don't like about it....

First I have mixed opinions of the adapter plate. I like that it means
that if it's permently fixed I'm not wearing down the big bold hole in the
bottom of the fork mount. I don't like that everytime I setup the scope,
I need to hang it on the wedge from a single bolt. (then add the other two
to secure properly) It's a real pain that I need to completely remove the
three bolts everytime that I take the scope apart.

The latitude adjustment for the wedge is also extremely crude, if possible
it would make the scope better if this adjustment also provided the main
support. Whilst your at it if the adjustment was placed into the center
of the wedge it will help to maintain the stability a little better.
Although once adjusted the place can be tightened down to secure.

Another nice touch would be to help calibrate to the pole star. A small
scope that can be easily attached to help make the inital alignment to
Polaris would be really useful. It would mean that the tripod can be
better lined up visually without the need for a compass, which really does
seem like a gimic as it's practically useless. A big bubble level would
also be better than the tiny thing that's on the Meade wedge. These two
alone would make life alot more pleseant.

I'd strongly recommend that you allow the wedge to have alot of travel,
maybe not quite as much as the meade enough so that the wedge could be
used anywhere from the top of Shetland to the Algarve (don't forget about
COAA, people do take their scopes on holiday!)

Regards

Colin Dawson
www.cjdawson.com