dhinson919

Lawyers.

You're right. In the end there are few alternatives. (By design if the class-action allegations are true.)

I've given up trying to unravel all of this and since I can't read Chinese my sources of information are limited. But from what I can tell there is no entity named Sky-Watcher who manufactures anything. Sky-Watcher brand telescopes and motorized mounts are manufactured by Nantong Schmidt, who possibly took that over from Synta Optical as much as 15 years ago. Synta Technology is/was a holding company who owns both factories (unclear what Synta Optical does now if anything) as well as Sky-Watcher USA, Sky-Watcher Canada and Celestron which are their import/export and sales operations. If Synta Technology no longer exists though (if the Wikipedia article is to be believed) it is unclear who controls those subsidiaries now. Why does it matter? Well before I buy any more Sky-Watcher gear I'd like to know if there's going to be an organization around in the coming years to support it.

I did. I can find no evidence that Synta Optical still exists or has had anything to do with the Synta or Sky-Watcher brands for the past 15 years. That's when Nantong Schmidt Opto-Electrical acquired the Synta international trademark from them (https://www.trademarkia.com/wipo/trademarks-search_mod.aspx?tn=synta). You can even book a trip to Schmidt's factory in Jiangsu where you can watch guys behind glass putting together Esprits (https://swz0726.en.made-in-china.com/company-NANTONG-SCHMIDT-OPTO-ELECTRICAL-TECHNOLOGY-CO-LTD-.html). That said I am somewhat relieved that it looks like a very nice factory, and there are some indications that it is owned by the government of China so it is unlikely to go bankrupt anytime soon.

First, I'm returning to the hobby after a 15 year break and I'm currently a pleased owner of a brand new SW EQ6-R. Things sure have changed for the better. But, in the category of not-so-fast, I'm now wondering if maybe I've made a big (and heavy) mistake. Suspicions first arose when I tried to update the firmware on its latest V5 hand controller. I succeeded but only after taking some extraordinary measures as I recently documented on the tail end of this But it's clear I should not have had to do those things. It appears that this procedure was once in the not too distant past a straight-forward one while now with the latest versions of things support for it is half-baked at best. Curious I thought for a relatively new product that by many measures is a market hit. Then I looked behind the curtain of the brand known as Sky-Watcher and a reason for the apparent lack of current support began to add up. But in a dreadful way. Here are the facts as I know them: - Sky-Watcher is a subsidiary of the Taiwan company Synta Technology Corp. - In 2016 a complaint was filed against Ningbo Sunny (of Meade fame) in California federal court alleging anti-trade collusion with Synta to fix prices. - Last June, 2020, a California district court class-action complaint was filed against Synta directly further alleging anti-trade collusion with Ningbo to fix prices and supply chain. (It is a very interesting read https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Telescopes.pdf) - In Feb, 2020, the Wikipedia page for Synta Technology was updated with a single-line edit from a user in Kiev Ukraine that read simply "Synta Technology Corporation announced its closure in 2019". - The company website registered with taiwantrade.com for Synta now returns 404 not found. Summed up, it looks like I may have just purchased an expensive device from a manufacturer which may no longer exist except on retailer websites and only while supplies last. Is this the case? Surely there is news that I have missed. Also noteworthy is that Synta is/was the parent of Celestron as well.

I suspect it had to do with Synta Tech, SW's (and Celestron's) parent, and Prolific both being based in Taiwan. Prolific got a bad wrap when fake chips made it into the supply chain but then FTDI had their share of problems with that too. It's a shame that USB devolved into such a shady business and it's a wonder that anything is compatible with anything else anymore.

Unfortunately Sky Watcher has left its customers in the dark with respect to the newer HC updates. The reason the firmware loader can't find the device is because they haven't supplied the needed virtual COM port driver for the USB chip in the HC. Fortunately this is easily corrected without their "support". - Go to Device Manager and under "Other devices" you should see one named "USB-Serial Controller D". You'll notice it has a yellow triangle beside it. (Bad.) - Right click on it and select Properties. Under the General tab in the default status windows you'll see "The drivers for this device are not installed. (Code 28)". This is the root cause of the problem. - Click the Details tab and select the Hardware Ids property. This string is how the USB device identifies itself to the host. The host then tries to find a driver for this but it cannot. So we'll have to go hunting for one. - Copy the string and Google it. You'll see a link for "PL2303 Windows Driver Download USB to UART RS232 Serial" at prolific.com.tw. This sounds promising. - Clicking on it should take you to a download page for PL23XX_Prolific_DriverInstaller_v204.zip. Download it, check it for viruses (my AVG Free found none), then unzip it somewhere. - You'll find PL23XX-M_LogoDriver_Setup_v204_20201208.exe. This is the chipset driver installer. Run it. - When it's finished look at Device Manager again. The "USB-Serial Controller D" has been transformed to "Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port (COMx)" where COMx is the virtual COM port where the device is now listening. - You can confirm this by running PL23XX_checkChipVersion_v1020.exe in the unzipped files. Set the COM port to the value indicated in the name and the result should be "This is a PL-2303 SA chip". Bingo! - Now run SynScan Firmware Loader (Ver. 3.3 in my case) and leave Auto-detect COM port checked. It should find it automatically and start the firmware loading. I was able to update from 04.39.06 to 04.39.15. Thank you, Prolific.