I don't know why this isn't a topic already; it seems to be the one serious weakness to an otherwise great piece of hardware.
As far as I can figure out, if you have the declination bracket mounted, then using the illuminator is tricky.
You get two pieces to work with: the illuminator itself and the small round part with four tangs on on one side (the adapter).
Being curious (imagine a chimpanzee holding these parts and wondering how they go together), I manipulated the parts until i fugured out a couple things:
1) the four little tangs fit nicely into the big slot on the declination bracket
2) the three tangs on the illuminator fit into the opposite side of the adapter
So, I thought wow, this should be easy to use, it all snaps together, except that it all fits worse than OJ's gloves.
(The chimp is jumping up and down and screaming now)
When you put the illuminator into the adapter, the adapter shape deforms and the tangs on the adapter no longer grip the side of the dec bracket slot and the illuminator just falls off. Sometimes, because the adapter is made of a semi-slippery thermoplastic, the illuminator just pops out of the adapter on its own.
I can't be the first to have this problem or to attempt to solve it.
As far as I can figure out, if you have the declination bracket mounted, then using the illuminator is tricky.
You get two pieces to work with: the illuminator itself and the small round part with four tangs on on one side (the adapter).
Being curious (imagine a chimpanzee holding these parts and wondering how they go together), I manipulated the parts until i fugured out a couple things:
1) the four little tangs fit nicely into the big slot on the declination bracket
2) the three tangs on the illuminator fit into the opposite side of the adapter
So, I thought wow, this should be easy to use, it all snaps together, except that it all fits worse than OJ's gloves.
(The chimp is jumping up and down and screaming now)
When you put the illuminator into the adapter, the adapter shape deforms and the tangs on the adapter no longer grip the side of the dec bracket slot and the illuminator just falls off. Sometimes, because the adapter is made of a semi-slippery thermoplastic, the illuminator just pops out of the adapter on its own.
I can't be the first to have this problem or to attempt to solve it.
