iOptron SmartEQ Pro+

I have one with a William Optics Z61 so our weights aren't too far off. I like the mount but I will say it's pretty erratic. The longest I've been able to get a decent unguided shot was about 2 minutes. Guiding helps out immensely!

I've one of these but I never tried to use it unguided. Anyway one of the weak point of this little one is the tripod in dotation.
There're some mod that can help to improve the stiffness and the mounting hole of the head is luckly a standard 3/8" so if you have heavy-duty photo tripod you can use it instead of the unstable one in dotation.

I am looking to upgrade mine. I use it with the small TS 60/360, the recommended flattener, the tiny ZWO guidescope, the 120MM and a D7500 body. Total weight of the equipment is about 2.5kg and I have balanced it as perfectly as possible (which is not easy btw, as it looks like I'm on a bitter spot where the mount without any counterweight is too light to balance the gear, while even the smallest counterweight outbalances it by far, unless you push it really really high and also push the bar as deep as possible).

My biggest problems are:
1) The altitude and azimuth adjustment screws are of very poor quality and the whole way the mount head screws on the tripod leaves a lot to be desired. The mount head will be screwed either too loose (=instability when making movements) or too tight (=azimuth adjustment screws become nearly impossible to turn). Also, screwing/unscrewing the mount head markedly alters its leveling.

As a result, making the adjustments necessary for accurate PA (orientation and leveling) is a royal PITA.

2) Fits of rage. It will guide happily with <2 RMS error for 5, 10, even 30 minutes, then literally all it takes is me turning my head for a couple of seconds and the guiding error skyrockets, reaching 4,5, even 8" RMS for a few minutes until it returns back to normal.

3) A play in RA that I just can't get rid of even though I've disassembled it three times fiddled with the adjustment screws for countless hours.

In the few occasions that I plugged an ASI178 instead of the DSLR, guiding and tracking were much improved (but not gone) which leads me to the conclusion that apart from everything else the real payload capacity of the mount is closer to 2-2.2kg.

I don't want to go to CEM60/Atlas/EQ6 territory. The mount will never sit in one place and these are just too heavy to carry around. I just want something with better build quality that won't require an hour of adjustments and tuning before every session, and perhaps be able to carry 5-6kg of weight in the future.

Do you think the EQ5 Pro would be a good upgrade in this regard?

Thanks,
Dimitris

Well obviously, but mine at least seems to be very unreliable even when guiding.

Hi, my concern given my turbulent experience with the smarteq is about QA.

Sure, the CEM25p has impressive specs, but what if my particular model has minor defects? Or all these discussions about how easy it is to ruin them. Perhaps Skywatcher (or some other vendor) mount build quality is more reliable even if they are not as good as a "best case" ioptron? I really don't know, I am asking you guys.