ETX Motor woes.. its not working!!

[Rob]

There I was enjoying a great evening, goto was spot on.... took in 7 or 8 targets. Great!. all of a sudden... stop. while trying to slew to a target all went silent from the motors, the Autostar reported slewing to M?. And nothing. I switched off the scope and switched back on again to find the RA motors are working, but no DEC!!....

Help anyone?.

Rob

[Grant]

This sounds like exactly the same problem my uncle had, he had to manually reset the motors somehow... if nobody else posts an answer I'll ask him in the week and write up the procedure...

[Rob]

Cheers Grant. All was going so well!! :?

[Grant]

I'm sorry to hear that mate! You seem to have been through a ton of hassle with that scope

[Rob]

Yep!.. There has to be an answer to this I'm sure

[Rob]

Also fair to say the Autostar is not reporting any issues?. There is no noise from the Dec motor when the key is pressed. I have reset Autostar.

Also fair to say its not a low power issue as I'm using a power station

[geppetto]

Could have snagged a wire internaly and snapped it off (they do that sometimes)

Hope it's more simple than that though :?

[Rob]

Yep, me too!. I'm going in for major surgery tonight... if its a wire or soldering job.. thats fine with me.

[Helen]

Yep, me too!. I'm going in for major surgery tonight... if its a wire or soldering job.. thats fine with me.

Be prepared for a bit of frustration and muttering... I found it awkward to get apart and even more awkward to put back together...! An extra pair of hands came in useful!

Helen

[Rob]

Yep, me too!. I'm going in for major surgery tonight... if its a wire or soldering job.. thats fine with me.

Be prepared for a bit of frustration and muttering... I found it awkward to get apart and even more awkward to put back together...! An extra pair of hands came in useful!

Helen

Right. What did you open up yours for?.

[Helen]

My motors were erratic and I decided to try the tune-up/fixes from the Weasner site. I took the tube out of the arms (that was the bit I found tricky and needing two of us) and cleaned up the cogs in the arm. I wasn't brave enough to contemplate doing the base! (I'd taken it to TH for them to look at that earlier.) I don't usually take things apart, but I'd decided it was useless to me as it was (in fact worse than that as it was frustrating me!) and I couldn't sell it complete because I knew it wasn't working properly, so I had nothing to lose. With hindsight, and having had a discussion on here after I did it, I think power supply fluctuations might have played a big part in my problem. I've only managed to get it out once since the fix - but it worked better that time than it did before Needs a bit more testing to be sure though...

Helen

[Rob]

Oh well. I'll take a look tonight (after the kids have gone to bed). Kill or cure then. Been here so many times before!. Maybe I should take up fishing?.

I would have thought Autostar would report a fault if something was wrong with the PCB or Motor.. this is wat makes me think its a break in the power, rather than a technical fault??. Is Autostar good enough to report such things?.

Cheers

Rob

[Helen]

If its any consolation Rob, the ETX125 that I have is recognised as being much more problematic than the smaller ones as Meade didn't upgrade the motors when they increased the tube size/weight. So your kit has a much greater proabability of being fixable than mine! And on the Weasner site there are loads of people who have got theirs working perfectly. (Don't know enough about Autostar to answer your problem sorry - although I did get an error message on the drives once, so maybe..)

Helen

[jonifive]

Rob,

Take the tube out and throw the stupid fork mount away!! It is the only answer. After years of frustration that is what I have done. I have mounted the tube in some rings and now use it on my HEQ5 or as a grab n go on my camera mount.

I had my mount apart so many times it was ridiculous. Meade had it apart twice and swore blind they had fixed it. It still either didn't work or slewed to wherever it wanted.

Sorry to be pessimistic, but my experience is pretty bad.

If you really want to have fun I can send you my old fork mount for you to butcher, I don't want the blooming thing!

Good luck

Jonathen

[Rob]

I may take you up on the old fork mount JV!.. may need some parts. Thanks mate.

And just to rub it in my right angle finder turned up today!!.. I had to pay £11.93 in fees to the Royal mail. £8 handling fee UK side ******* :x.

So I may have a lot of bits up for sale soon!

[Rob]

Ok. I've stripped the fork mount down and found one wiring lug half on (sorted that). Problem still there though!!. AutoStar now runs a motor test on startup and confirms motor error when trying to test the Dec drive. To be honest it seems solid so I guess it sized up!!.. I now need to replace the dec drive and poss the PCB that sits with it!.. :x :?

[Rob]

Giving up now................

[gsjag]

Sounds like a problem I had with my 125 and it turned out to be a broken cable between the autostar controller and the base unit. Returned it to Meade and they sent a new autostar unit with reinforced cable. This could be such a good scope but was obviously build down to a price and that has spoiled it for so many people (you and I included).

Gary

[Rob]

If the cable was faulty could you move it around and get some results from it though?. I may make another cable if thats the case!

[Rob]

Sounds like a problem I had with my 125 and it turned out to be a broken cable between the autostar controller and the base unit. Returned it to Meade and they sent a new autostar unit with reinforced cable. This could be such a good scope but was obviously build down to a price and that has spoiled it for so many people (you and I included).

Gary

Bingo!!... Ahh. I took the cable and reversed the ends - it worked!. For a while, pulled the plastic clips to make a tighter fit and reversed again.. it worked again, and then it didn't. Reversed one more time. Working.

I think I have a bad Autostar to base cable.. where can I get another?. By the way, the scope also seems a little tighter between the forks to move up and down with the Dec bolt released. The motor is moving it up and down ok though????.

Rob

[russ]

Rob, you can have my basic ETX controller, the manual version to tie you over. Pick it up Saturday when we do the Perseid watch with the kids.

Russ

[gsjag]

Rob,

Great, at least we know what the problem is!

I got my replacement cable from Meade under guarantee, but I'm guessing they sell them as well.

If not we can do a search, there must be a big market for replacements. BTW, the new one has strain relief at both ends; much better.

Gary

[Rob]

I'm going to make one today. It uses RJ45's and I can use Cat5 Network cable (give me something to do at work today)

[gsjag]

I had a go at that but didn't get a success before the replacement arrived. Still, I'm sure that if you're used to working with RJ45 you'll do better than I did. Even spent £15 on a crimp tool which I doubt I'll ever use again :-( Never mind, we have fun eh?

Good luck Rob and keep us posted so that we know you got a +ve result.

Regards

Gary

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

You sure they're RJ45, I thought they were smaller, like RJ-11? I cant check mine any more, just got it all packed up ready for sticking on E-bay. I never had a minutes bother with my ETX-105 Premium, maybe I got a good one.