New HEM44 harmonic drive mounts from iOptron

[nickaltair]

Hi there, just thought I'd mention I had an email from iOptron yesterday about the new HEM44 and HEM44-EC Mounts.

 

No prices or availability yet, but some features were listed:

 

• Harmonic Drive on RA, backlash free DEC worm/belt drive
• Head weight 6.2kg
• Payload Capacity 20kg
• No need for counterweight shaft. Electronic friction brake and "power down memory" features allow the mount to safely stop and and resume a GOTO slew or continue tracking even after power loss. No need to realign or start from the beginning of the slew.
• 270sec gear period
• Internal cable management system
• Dual Vixen/Losmandy saddle plate
• Built-in zero search position locator
• PPEC on the standard model
• RPEC on the EC model. The EC version has the precision RA encoder.

 

Product codes:

H443 HEM44 Mount head, 8409 controller, case.

H442A HEM44A mount head, iPolar, 8409 HC, Case

H444A HEM47EC mount head with precision encoder, iPolar, case.

8061 CF tripod 21" min, 36.8" max height.

 

So this is a beefed-up HEM27 ...!

 

[TerryMcK]

That looks very interesting. 

[William Shaw]

Amusing timing as I read this just after my gem45 arrived to complete a travel rig with the Altair tri pier! Pricing will be interesting as there seems to be a significant premium for light weight on harmonics right now. Guiding performance on the HEM27 also seems to be all over the place on early copies, but being able to downweight later when it all settles down would be useful as I get older. Look forward to seeing more detail - I’ve scoured the web and this is the only reference I can see to the 44!

[GazAstro]

On 8/28/2022 at 12:42 PM, William Shaw said:

Amusing timing as I read this just after my gem45 arrived to complete a travel rig with the Altair tri pier! Pricing will be interesting as there seems to be a significant premium for light weight on harmonics right now. Guiding performance on the HEM27 also seems to be all over the place on early copies, but being able to downweight later when it all settles down would be useful as I get older. Look forward to seeing more detail - I’ve scoured the web and this is the only reference I can see to the 44!

Here's some guiding info for the HEM 27, not played much due to the weather though. I had the odd period of 0.72 with overall about 0.9 while tweaking  / fiddling

PHD2_GuideLog_2022-08-20_213456 (1).txt