Is my 2nd SkyWatcher AZ GOTO Mount faulty?

[i-CONICA]

Hi,

I took my previous mount back for replacment last week as it's motors were ****. The altitude motor was grinding and sounded awful. Anyway, I took it back and got a new one, which sounds much smoother.

A few days ago when we had a pretty clear sky, I tried to align, with no success, but I was cold and gave up. Tonight, there's a brilliant clear-ish sky and I wanted to give it another go (I've just got a new coat).

Bare in mind, I had no problem aligning my previous mount, and I kept my handset, so it's not "human" error.

So I told it my location, time, etc, and went to 2-Star align. The first on the list was Sirius, which I looked up and spotted instantly. So I slewed, centred, and hit go, ready for the next star to align with, I choose Aldebaran, I could see it clearly. The brightest point on the top of the "V" shape of it's constellation, so I selected that star, and my previous mount would then slew to it's rough location and I'd just have to fine-tune centre it and then we're aligned.

The problem is, after centring on Sirius, and choosing Aldebaran as the 2nd star, the scope goes about 10 degrees in azimuth, 15 degrees in altitude from it's location pointing at Sirius and stops, asking me to centre it. It's not even in the same region of sky! It's still pointing south, largely at Sirius when it should be pointing roughly west!

What's going on? Is this mount just broken too? I don't really see how it could be broken in that way...

What do you think?

[hemihaggis]

i think it will be to do with the handset/mount combo , your old mount will have had the info

from the handset in it , go through your menu till you find factory reset and try that

[i-CONICA]

Hi,

Thanks. I tried that, but it's not made a difference. Besides, it still knew the date, so it's clearly not a complete factory reset! Is there a reset for the mount separately? What is the "re-align encoder" setting? That sounds hopeful. But it's always "Not available!".

Thanks again.

[hemihaggis]

do they both have the same updates ?

[todd8137]

is the base level?

[malc-c]

There was a similar thread where someone received a goto dob with a handset that had an EQ version of the firmware. Once he flashed the handset with the correct alt / az firmware alignment was spot on.

TELESCOPE SUPPLIERS - SKY-WATCHER TELESCOPE

[i-CONICA]

Hmm... The handset is the v3.08 firmware, and I didn't know the goto mount was upgradable, or how to find out it's version.

The handset is the same handset that worked fine with my previous goto mount, when my previous mount's motor went, I swapped the mount only, not the handset.

What do you think I can do?

:S

[hemihaggis]

i would go on to skywatchers website and look under support , plug handset into mount and attch both to a pc , you might need to download some software from the skywatcher site , then reflash the scope/mount/handset to the latest version