Modern technology is making hobbies better; but at a price. I like to look at the stars above with telescopes. It’s fun, it’s nice and quiet and friends like to see it as well. There is always a lot of new stuff to learn about, both in technology and in astronomy. Most people think of either giant professional telescopes or the junky ones you buy in department stores. The latter are still terrible, but they have very little reason to be. A good mount and eyepiece makes those much better and more usable. This post is not about that though.
I am writing about a new iOptron mount which I purchased as a modern upgrade to an older electronic mount that I have outgrown. I settled on this brand after a lot of research and I am happy with it. It is a fully modern computerized alt-az mount. It finds things and tracks them so you can spend time looking at them.
There were some quality control issues however, like the GPS did not work out of the box. I ended going to various astronomy forums and groups and discovered that lots of people seemed to have had this issue. It took 10 minutes for me to fix, but I should not have had to. From the boards, it seems that most of the modern mass produced gear has some of these issues and there is a vocal minority really tearing into the companies that are selling these systems. Most of them are made in China, but so are all modern electronics.
I believe it is that more sophisticated quality control is required when outsourcing, and most companies underestimate that. It requires better design that takes into account the production issues you might have when outsourcing. I don’t know but it might even cost as much as the savings you think you would be getting from outsourcing. Software faces similar issues, good design is hard to do and managing the process remotely is difficult at best.
More on that later though.
Tags: astronomy, hobbies, ioptron, quality control
