CharlesBeton

My home made power supply has now failed completely, so I conclude that my above mentioned "intermittent fault" was with that and not the motor drive! (I'll be returning the former to my brother, who'd made it for me!)

I have an intermittent fault with my EQ5 dual axis motor drive: its the original type, not the "enhanced" one. Instead of the supplied battery pack, I use a home-made 6 V regulated DC power supply. This set up worked well for several years until one night the motors stopped running. I subsequently set up the EQ5 with its motors, on its tripod, in my sitting room (without telescope); I connected the hand controller to the motors and to the power supply: the controller's central lamp flashed amber instead of green, the motors failed to run, and pressing the controller's buttons had no effect. I disassembled the controller: all was clean and I could see no fault. I reassembled the controller, re-connected everything and switched on the power supply to the controller: no change. I left it powered up for 30 minutes and on my return the lamp had turned green and all worked as it should. I was unable to make it fail. I switched off the power. The next day, after I switched on the power, the original fault returned and I couldn't clear it; I switched off the power supply. The next day the lamp turned green immediately after I switched on the power supply, and all worked as it should. I left it running for an hour, and on my return found the original fault to have returned: it looked like the RA axis had rotated only a couple of degrees or so, so I conclude that the motor had run for only about 15 mins. That was a few days ago, and the drive has never worked since! Whereas I could buy a new kit of controller and motors for £110, I'd obviously prefer to mend my original, so would be grateful to hear from anyone who has resolved/traced the same issue, please? I should clarify that mine is the original Synta EQ5 equatorial head with dual drive which I'd purchased in 2001: I attach a pix of my hand controller. Thanks, Charles.