Autostar Dead

[byrneg]

Can anyone help!!

Not used scope in over a year (Meade ETX-125) but when I tried it out last night there was no signs of life from the autostar controller. LED was lit on side of telescope base but no display or lights on autostar controller.

Running it from 12V power pack. Found some suggestions about a safe load by pressing "ENTER + SCROLL Down" on power up but still nothing. Cable looks in good condition but not checked continuity yet.

Anyone else had similar problems

Thanks in advance

-G

[michael8554]

Couple of things to try:

Try turning up the display brightness, it's in the book somewhere.

Are the up down left right buttons still working, this would indicate that the handbox isn't completely dead.

[byrneg]

Nothing working. Managed to get some pinout information and checked the cable. Power (12V) is getting from telescope base to PCB inside controller. However, there is a 5V regulator on the PCB but there is no input or output voltage present so does not look good! I would have expected to at least see the 12V present on the input to the regulator so there may be some other components failed.

Thanks

Graeme

[byrneg]

Unexpected result....

After a bit more research and fault finding managed to confirm the problem to be the +12V connection to the regulator. Must have been a broken track / via in the autostar PCB as soldering a wire-link to the PCB, from +12v pin on HBX port to the regulator input pin, and it came back to life!!!

-Graeme

[barkis]

Good man. Nice to know you found the trouble.

Those regulator pins are a nightmare. The number of times that same fault had appeared in different pieces of kit.

A hairline fracture, barely discernible visually.

They are better off with shorter legs, and plugged into a dedicated socket, rather than directly soldered to the PCB.

Ron.