I appreciate the optical quality of my pair of inexpensive Leupold BX-1 8x30 Yosemites. I have been wondering about the following.
The focus on it makes a slight squish sound, and while smooth, has a slight feet in tar sensation to it. This is at room temperature. When below freezing, it practically speaking, does not move. But i am not writing about Winter use.
I think that it be from 2 sources. First, that it plays against water resistance seals. The other is the nature of the lubricant.
These are manufactured in China.
The feel of the focuser does remind me of when I got an early model of a refractor of Chinese manufacturer. The focusers were crude.
Amongst the astronomy forum folk, the early Chinese focusers were suspect due to primarily, the lubricant used, which was probably ok for large industrial bearings, but not good for optical instruments,
This resulted in a small third party after market niche of quality relacement focusers.Now, to my question.
Have any of you ever sent one of the inexpensive Chinese binos with less than ideal focusing, to a repair place for a change of lubricant? Have you ever fixed this yourself? The results?