Farpoint Counterweight Set for 16 Inch Meade LightBridge

Comments about Farpoint Counterweight Set for 16 Inch Meade LightBridge:

Bought this for a new lightbridge 16" dob. Wanted a simple way to counterbalance heavier eyepieces and possibly one other add-on near/on the secondary housing. These weights fit the bill. Thought about trying a simple "sandbag" or other on-the-fly/household-item method for counterbalancing the heavier equipment and keeping the dob from sagging at off-azimuth pointing, but the shape of the scope and the need for continual manual repositioning, etc., turned me off from this idea. I read on the chat groups about hardware-store type solutions since the machine screws for the dob's base are widely available and small weights can be acquired or made with "bulk" starting materials, but I wanted something that would be very symmetric in weight distribution (to the limit of the dob's threaded bolt holes being symmetrically distributed) so as not to introduce yet another variable at the base which could affect mirror collimation and structure distortion through the dynamic range of the scope pointing. From experience, generic "standard" weights can vary signficantly from one piece to another, although an ounce or two may not really have mattered much here. All in all, it was worth the saved trip to the hardware store, working on my drill press, etc., to just get these very well-made & symmetric, machined weights. And they're stainless so they won't rust from dew exposure. I just hope I don't need to vary the counterbalance weight amounts very much in the future--these weights are fixed, and there's no room on the bolt length for adding more, so I suppose it does limit how crazy one can be with add-ons on the secondary housing--doubt these would be enough, alone, for a heavy eyepiece *and* a reasonably heavy spotting scope *and* a telrad, *and*... etc.