Meade GOTO playing up, Help!!

[rikroe666]

Last week i had my Meade LXD-75 out for about 20 mins and then the handset lights dimmed and the messages across the screen started scrolling across REALLY slow, thinking the leisure battery i was using was running low on power i packed up and stuck it on charge not thinking much of it.

Anyway last night i set everything up and powered up the mount and the handset was still dim and slow so i went through the settings and turned the contrast and the scroll rate back up (don't understand why these have changed )  then went to align the mount, this is where the biggest problem started, every star i chose it beeped and basically said if i slew to that star the scope may hit the mount ( even though they were plenty high enough in the sky) so pressed ok to tell it to slew anyway and the motors did nothing but the handset said slewing!

I am using a fully charged 85ah battery, checked with multi meter and is reading 12.9v

Meade 495 handset

Any ideas what the problem may be???

I have been using this setup for around a year with no problems.

[ronin]

Can only assume that scope has reset for whatever reason and now thinks it is in California.

I would reset it and supply all the information again.

I did have a Meade that one day/night decided it was suddenly on an EQ mount not an Alt/As, so maybe yours has done the same. I reset the whole thing.

[rikroe666]

Can only assume that scope has reset for whatever reason and now thinks it is in California.

I would reset it and supply all the information again.

I did have a Meade that one day/night decided it was suddenly on an EQ mount not an Alt/As, so maybe yours has done the same. I reset the whole thing.

Thanks very much ronin that seems to have worked!! 

Never even thought to reset but then never thought it would think i was at the other side of the world all of a sudden, Strange!!!

Anyway happy days and thanks again.

[Fish]

Two weeks ago I had my LXD75 turn itself into a possessed mount, that fault started with a flashing handset. I must admit that the symptoms leading upto the eventual fault made you think that it was terminal. My problem was the handbox to mount lead, one cable was open circuit, but the symptoms when high resistance can throw you off. I even measured the resistance of the cable and each tested ok . After asking for help here and searching on the net this cable is a common cause of problems. Obviously the fault could still be on the mount but if you have a spare network\ethernet cable and a connector block you can re-configure it to make a test lead which could stop you throwing money down the drain.

[rikroe666]

Hi Fish,

Yes i have seen a lot about the cable been a problem and was going to try that but thought to ask on here first before ordering one, its strange how they can just go a bit crazy, when i sped up the messages coming across the screen some of the letters would disappear and  then come back!

The reset has fixed that as well.

To be honest i thought this was going to be terminal but luckily all good now.

[Fish]

Thats good news :-) glad it was so simple , did not see your reply as I was posting . Dont forget to do a calibrate motors and train drives (just in case you forgot ) as reset removes the data.

[rikroe666]

Thats good news :-) glad it was so simple , did not see your reply as I was posting . Dont forget to do a calibrate motors and train drives (just in case you forgot ) as reset removes the data.

Thanks i didn't know i had to re-calibrate the motors, i will sort that tomorrow.

Cheers for the help

[Fish]

When i reset my hand set one drive must have ran twice the speed of the other, recalibrated and all was good. Re-training after allso made me realise that I need to do it more often, goto is spot on again now .

[ronin]

Mine just decided one night that it was now on an EQ mount, never had an EQ and certainly never on the Meade.

It kept trying to run itself into the mount base.

I had to pull the power and "fix" at home.