Looking for 10 micron GM2000 user opinions, experiences

I used to have a GM2000 QCI hosted at AstroCamp for a few years, and I operated it remotely. Honestly, the thing has never given me any issues. I don't know if others might be better, that was the only "high level" mount I've ever owned, but it was flawless for me.

Hi,

I'm a 10M user for almost 10 year now.

I own a 2000 QCI, but several friends have HPS 1000s, 2000s and even bigger models. Absolute top notch, both for field and observatory use. Firmware and ASCOM driver are incredibly solid; as far as I remember I never had a single issue in years (aside for my errors). I think a 2000 HPS would be a perfect match for your 50 pound (for non-americans: 23 kiloghrams ;-)  fast Newtonian. At 1300 mm f.l. the 2000 HPS will guarantee 100% perfect tracking even for 15' exposure with no guide - no doubt.

I use my 2000 QCI with a 20 kilos 12" ODK, but with ancillary equipment it is surely more than 25 kilos. I clearly have "robustness to spare" even in mild winds, working in open fileds, with no wind protection. I guide with a 6 cm refractor, just because I'm used to do so.

A friend also on Astrobin, @Edoardo Luca Radice (Astroedo) , has a 1000 HPS in a small observatory, and he routinely has perfect 10' exposure from his C9.25, with a 2350 mm f.l. with no guide.

I personally used 3000s and 4000s in University observatories and similar installation. I never heard a comply, and Rüdiger's message is the first "no solved problem" I read of. I will ask in 10M about this.

I worked for several astronmy related companies (including Officina Stellare) and I had the chanche to test tons of hardware, both optics and mechanics. My personal opinion, in brief is simple: 10M is the "LaFerrari" of mounts. It is worth every cent of the price tag.

If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer. I have good contacts in 10M also, so maybe I can help also with very specific questions.

Clear skies.

Luigi

I run both an AP1600 with encoders and a Planewave L500 mount.  For a while I seriously considered a 10-micron mount so I've often wondered about how well they work.  The demos that I've received at trade shows have been super impressive.  Since I'm based in the US, I personally shied away from having to go back to Italy for support (assuming that the local rep couldn't handle a problem.).   The support issue is what ultimately tipped my decision but it's something to think about.  Either way, the 10-micron mounts sound top notch and it's great to see owner comments here.

Besides the software comments, I found one other thing that Ruediger mentioned to be particularly interesting.  Doing a 90 point sky model within an hour is 2-3x faster than my AP mount but WAY slower than the L500.  The L500 does a full sky model in about 10 minutes!  It slews at 50 deg/sec and it downloads the data while the mount is slewing and it is simply stunning to watch how fast it completes the task.  I couldn't believe it the first time I saw it!  Stand back!  It will knock you silly if you get in the way and since the mount is completely silent, you won't even hear it coming!  Doing a sky model with the AP mount is so clunky that I eventually gave up on it and instead simply rely on plate solving to center objects.  AP support is A+ but their software only ranks in the "good" category.

John

John Hayes:
The L500 does a full sky model in about 10 minutes!  It slews at 50 deg/sec and it downloads the data while the mount is slewing and it is simply stunning to watch how fast it completes the task.  I couldn't believe it the first time I saw it!  Stand back!  It will knock you silly if you get in the way and since the mount is completely silent, you won't even hear it coming!

Hi John,

The 10M is with the latest FW branch 13.x also absolutely silent. It is not audible anymore. The typical bumblebees noise is gone. The resonance was removed by implementing a new motor firmware. 

You can also speed up creating the model dramatically but I have added for each point a 15 second settle time to let the system calm down after a slew. The slew time is definitely the fastest component. Image download, solving and settle times are much more significant. 

But actually it is not really relevant since I do that during sunset. I lose no observing time.

I also had a look on the PWI L-Mounts and have to say, they are impressive. But actually I could not install ohne, since it is not my own house, but I rent it. The landlord was not very happy with that idea...😝😂. I was not allowed to drill holes into the balcony floor, which you would need for the L-Mount. With the 10M you stay still flexible to some extend. In worst case you can put it on a tripod.

Cheers
Rüdiger.

Hi John,

many thanks for sharing your experience with the L-Mount. They are very interesting. I have seen the 10M and the L-Mounts side by side on the big exhibition AME at the Baader booth. Both were moving at top speed a dummy slew path. Very impressive and better not to get hit. That could really spoil your day!

The 10M is meanwhile absolutely noise less. It emits during tracking no audible sound. You simply think it is dead. When it is slewing it has a pleasant sound, not screaming or sounding like a tortured animal, but smooth and not at high frequency.

The slew speed can be raised to 20°/s also. But this requires more current and 24V/5A power supply (which is no issue at all in stationary use). But the problem is the momentum when accelerating. It uses an ramped acceleration (also when stopping), but actually I prefer to to reduce it to 6°/s in order to be gentle to mechanics. Especially if I have stacked scopes on top of each other.

Balancing is also crucial for the 10M. It has built in function to measure the balance of both axis an it tells you the imbalance. e.g. 0.2% shaft heavy, or 0.1% front heavy. This is extremely sensitive and useful. My "human balance meter" ends at approx. 1-2 %. So this is much more sensitive compared to manual balancing. 10M allows a maximum imbalance of 0.2% per axis to grantee the specs.

Please also let me emphasize I also do not want to persuade anyone. The L-Mount is excellent, AP and Paramount are also great mounts. I only want to share my experience and report about its features.

But as I also said: There is a lot of potential to grow in communication. 10M is a very small company (a spin of a robotic producer) with excellent technical know how, but a huge gap in communication - especially if there is problem.

Cheers
Rüdiger

I will try to be fair and give an objective reply, though it is my personal experience:

Positive:
Well, for repair and standard questions the support is fine. Also when a mount is bricked, they usually log in very quickly and solve it (via SSH). Usually within one work day. Also repair is acceptable. Usually 2 weeks from Germany via Baader.

Negative:
A significant bunch of people are fighting with an issue for more than a year now. Some mounts show a significant drift in some areas (not over the complete sky, and not for all the same area) and we do not know the root cause. This is easy to handle with guiding, but when running unguided you produce trash. The test team exchanged meanwhile more than 1500 mails, has made analysis like geodesy measurements of the foundation, up to laser collimation and fine mechanics measurements and (almost) wrote an PhD theses. They always replied the argument of "flexure", but this could not being confirmed so far. We even replaced all components which could be prone to flexure e.g. replaced the 3" dovetails with 8". We have professional mathematics, geodesy and IT specialists in the team. Even we had written a proxy communication software and decoded and decrypted the logs, what made us to receive a legal warning and all communication was seized. All related entries in the 10M forum were deleted by 10M. But instead of corporation, the FW was changed, so we cannot access the logs anymore. Also Han, the author from ASTAP supports us, and added the "mount tab" you may have noticed in the latest versions. We are doing elaborate tests e.g. positioning the scope to one point with deactivated tracking and image every minute and plate solve the result. By that we measure whether we have thermal expansion in the concrete or steal pier or long term flexure. So far all motions were below 2" per 5 hours with my setup. At this precision level you definitely need specialists for cords transformation considering Epoch, nutation, precision, aberration and refraction.

To make a long story short: With this very, very elaborate and sophisticated problem we were left alone. Though even Baader supports us in his very best way (many thanks here) we were not able to re-initiate a reasonable communication so far. The last answered mail from 10M support dates from 2020-10.
But I have clearly to state: There are also many, many users who do not suffer from this problem in any way, or did have actually a real problem with flexure (some cases we could sort out).

Disclaimer: This is my very personal experience and may completely differ from others. Also it is not clear where the root cause is. I do explicitly not exclude a problem in our setups. But we need vendor support, since the 10M mount is very complex and actually a black box. If we do something wrong they should also be able to tell us.