EZ Focus Kit Reviews

From North Carolina: IT WORKS!   IT WORKS!  IT WORKS!  Yea !!!!! Finally something that works like it says it does !!

From Isle of Skye, Scotland: What a difference!  I can even now tell by the feel of the focuser alone whether the mirror is moving up or down.

From Massachusetts: This is the first time I have ever written any company about any product they’ve made that worked well.

     For the first time in the 5 years that I have owned my 8″ f/10 LX-200 I feel I finally have the ability to extract the most from the telescope’s optical potential. I am strictly a visual observer.  Observing at sea level near the coast is always a challenge, but it seemed I never could get a good focus at higher magnifications, no matter how much I fiddled with the collimation, which I thought was the reason why the focus was so poor. I was pretty much resigned to having 100x as the telescope’s highest useful magnification.

     I installed EZ-Focus last Saturday and used it that night. The difference was dramatic. I was able to achieve excellent focus up to 200x, splitting double stars near 1″ of separation consistently. Globular clusters were in focus at 200x, not just a smear of light at that magnification.

From Florida:  Your product has improved my telescope’s performance beyond the point that I thought it was capable of.  Congratulations.  Thanks for a great product. Your EZ Focus Kit is excellent and only took 10 minutes to install.  All the backlash is gone in my 12″ LX200.  I may not need that Crayford upgrade after all!

From Arizona:  … let me congratulate you for the improvement in the focuser on my Meade 10″ SCT!  Jimminy Christmas what an improvement and it “feels right” now!!

From Michigan:  I had to let you know how I feel about the EZ Focus Kit. This relatively inexpensive purchase saved me the cost of a Crayford focuser. It is amazing how well it works. It eliminated 75% of the image shift in my 8″ LX200 and gave the focuser a VERY smooth and positive feel. It took longer to read the directions than to install it.

From Virginia:  I can’t believe how much your kit improved the focus movement, backlash and even image shift on my new 10″ LX200.  This was the best $30 bucks I have spent in a long time.

From Colorado:  The kit arrived in yesterday’s mail, and I leisurely installed it in the afternoon.  Installation was easy – I was able to disengage the focuser on my 8″ SCT without trouble, and disassemble it by hand.  I was so pleased when I focused the telescope and found that I could move the focuser from inside to outside of focus, and back to the best focus position so easily.  I can hardly wait to try the telescope with my CCD camera on a star field.  I’ll be that my days of soft star images are over at last.  Thanks.

From Georgia: I received the kit today and installed it in a little time.  Although it was cloudy tonight, I HAD to test this enhancement promptly, so out to the back porch I went.  I zoomed in on a streetlamp and tested the focuser, noting that cylinder rotation is much smoother.  Intra and extra focal images do not suffer backlash anything close to what I was experiencing with “stock” components.  My electric focuser even sounds like it is laboring less!  This is a common sense, very simple, highly-useful, non-time-consuming modification that every LX200 owner must perform.  I encourage it highly.  Thanks!

From Melbourne, Australia: G’day from Downunder,  I received the focus kit yesterday and with trembling hands I replaced the three washers and added the grease. Hmm, it certainly was easier than expected!  Tried my LX90 on a bright moonlit night last night and wow, the focusing was silky smooth and far easier to get any object in focus! Boy, 3 washers and grease and I’ve got a more accurate focusing system and a lot of backlash gone!  So thanks Peterson Engineering Corporation and to Michael Hart for his original design.

From Florida: Congratulations on having great instructions included with your EZ Focus kit.  I studied them here at the office, went home at noon and installed both  the Mounting Assistant Classic and the focus kit.  My scope is an 8″ LX200 Classic and I was able to remove the focuser from the OTA.  Meade certainly does use a lot of grease on the focuser.  Everything fit perfectly, in fact after I had attached the focuser to the OTA, it was so smooth and effortless that I thought I had not attached the focuser to the 1/8″ pin so I took it back off, and yes it was attached.  I’ll put it to the test tonight if this high cirrus stuff goes away.  Again, great products and great instructions.  My friend will be calling to order one for his LX200GPS even though he has not yet received it.

From Massachusetts: Your EZ Focus worked like a dream on my second-hand LX200 Classic.  NO image shift now, smooth and easy focusing with no backlash.  Thanks!

From Massachusetts: …I absolutely love the way it feels and works as compared to the original that was on my 10″ LX200 Classic.  Thanks for such a great & low cost product.

Posted on Yahoo LX200GPS user group: Just my $.02 about Peterson’s EZ Focus:  I was not at all thrilled with the focusing action of my LX200 Classic.  There was WAY too much mirror shift, lots of backlash, and with each change in direction, a big “dead-space” where the focus wouldn’t change at all, then would change dramatically all of a sudden.  So I ordered an EZ Focus, and a JMI manual Crayford-style focuser ($169).  They both arrived on the same day.  Bottom line is the EZ Focus improved things so much that I returned the JMI focuser.  The backlash is gone, mirror shift is only a few arc-seconds; in short it works the way it always should have.  Thanks for an excellent product.

From Oregon:  Last week I installed the EZ Focus kit on my LX 200 GPS 10″. I also installed the EZ Clutch kit.  Of course as soon as I did so It rained for a week. 🙁    But it did clear this week and I took my scope out for a shakedown cruise.  I put my scope on the tripod (using the Mounting Assistant!) and went through the alignment procedure.  I did not use the electric micro focuser the rest of the night.  This is big.  Prior to installing the EZ Focus kit the coarse focuser was exactly that. Very coarse. So bad it was essentially unusable with major backlash and mirror shift. So to spend an entire observing session without once using the micro focuser is phenomenal.  Thank you very much. …………..  PS The EZ Clutch works pretty good to. And I am so happy with these products I just ordered an EyeOpener as well. I wish you made more stuff!

From Arizona: Sirs, I received the Focus Kit today for my new Meade 12″ LX200R.  It took me all of 25 minutes to install the new kit.  The instructions were very accurate and easy to follow.  I set my scope out in my drive after the moon came up.  To be honest, I really didn’t have any great expectations.  I put in a high power eyepiece (12mm) and My God!!! what a Difference your product made.  It was unbelievably clear, smooth as silk.  I’m sure you’ve every story about this Focus Kit but I just wanted to pass on my MOST SINCERE THANK YOU.

From the UK “Finally got around to installing the EZ Focus Kit and used it in anger for the first time. It really is a huge improvement. I can now almost spin the focus knob as everything moves so much more freely, and most importantly, the focus action is now direct and without lag. Meade deserve a kick in the tweeds for making such a hash of it in the first place – especially given that the purchase price of the 12″ LX90 was not insignificant to me!  The EZ Focus Kit (minus postage) cost me a shade over £15. I really don’t understand Meade scrimping over that sort of money, I would have gladly paid the extra for good focus control – which let’s face it, is an absolutely essential telescope function!  Enough preaching to the converted, cheers Pete, if only all my Astronomy purchases were so cheap and made such a difference!”

From New York:  After lots of hesitation, I finally installed the EZ Focus kit, which I had purchased from you months ago, on my LX200 10″ Classic. I had been apprehensive about breaking the scope in some way but yesterday I went for it. And to my surprise, it was MUCH easier to do following your instructions than I had anticipated; and better still, it really makes a HUGE difference in ease of focus, getting the images to snap into focus. Many thanks for a great product!