Meade LX200 Classic

[blenkda]

Hi All

I have decided to dust off my 12" LX200 on a pier and EQ wedge, after around 5 years in storage. ( I know, how could I leave it that long) Anyway I connected everything up and as soon as I switched on the motors started working and the only way to stop the scope was to turn it off. Does anyone have any idea what could be the problem. I thought about changing to a Skywatcher HEQ 6 Pro synscan EQ mount but if the Meade electronics is an easy fix it will save a lots of dosh. Any help gratefully appreciated.

Cheers

[callump]

The Yahoo LX200 Classic group is the best place to get advice and help on problems like this.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/LX200-Classic/info

C.

[Davey-T]

There's someone in the USA  makes replacement boards to upgrade to later spec.

Dave

[michael8554]

As calluump suggests, post your problem on the LX200 Classic Group, they routinely successfully diagnose LX200 Classic problems.

Whatever your problem turns out to be, you should replace certain tantalum capacitors as a matter of urgency - search on the Group for details.

These dodgy tantalum capacitors were underrated for 12V in the first place, and things got worse when 18V supplies were used.

Michael

[Dave In Vermont]

Dr. Clay Sherrod is the world's leading authority of all the LX-series of telescopes - from the first one to today. And he has a website you can join to find information and ask him questions. He used to take in sick LX's and fix them up to run far better than they were designed to run! You should join - which will show you're not a spammer or a robot:

http://www.arksky.org/index.php

I am certain he will be able to help you. And do check out the Yahoo group which callump so well found for you - these Yahoo astro-groups are one great thing Yahoo did. Dr. Clay often makes an appearance in these himself.

Your old friend will be up & running in no time.

Dave

[ronin]

As the scope is equatorially mounted then is it possible that it should do this?

Ask as I know of one where this is "normal".

The scope being equatorially mounted makes or has the presumption that it is aligned to the axis and at power up it slowly slews (clockwise I think) until the scope gets to some internal sensor or encoder that then tells the unit exactly where the actual OTA is.

The rotation is slow and can take 3 or 4 minutes until whatever position internally is found. The whole action will I suspect depend on the equatorial aspect of the mounting and it may be a setting made in the handset of the one I know but when thinking about it then it all adds up. The equatorial takes the place of "level and North" and what you do is in effect a one star alignment performed by the sync of scope to star.

After that the process is simple in that you pick a suitable star and manually slew the scop to it, centre it then select that star on the handset (just select not goto it) then press and hold Enter for 2 seconds and confirm Sync.

The scope then knows where it is pointed and will goto whatever is next selected.

[Dave In Vermont]

That would be so, at least it was on my LX200 GPS. And therein is the problem with an older model - it doesn't know where it is as there is no GPS sensor to tell it so. GPS sensor weren't in use on Meade scopes until around 2001 or so.

Good try!

Dave

[ronin]

They do not need a GPS sensor they just assume or use the last position they were given as the position, I have not altered my Meades for about 3 years as I only use them, in one place.

At power up you just tell them the time and DST.

The location is supposed to be maintained as is the timezone.

As long as I have a watch on I do not need GPS, no scope I have has GPS.

[michaelmorris]

I've had a 8" LX200 Classic for years.  It has never started up with an uncontrolled slew.  I would follow the suggestions given by others about consulting the Yahoo LX200 group or Clay Sherrod.

[callump]

You could also try Steve Collingwood at SCTelescopes - he does LX200 repairs, and might be able to give advice, bur probably you would need to ship to him to repair, which might not be worthwhile...

A friend and I repaired an LX200 with the 'blown capacitors' problem - but the scope appears dead with that problem. It's not that hard a repair, and well documented.

I am sure the runaway problems are well known too - i am sure there are threads on the LX200-Classic yahoo group about this sort of problem.

You could also look at:

http://www.bbcl03736.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/LX200%20Faults.htm

Good luck!

Callum

[barkis]

If it had Level North Technology,, then perhaps it would have done a gig to find itself.

However, the Classic is unlikely to posses that function.

Perhaps your first task should have been to update the Firmware after such a long pause between uses.

The Meade 4M Community is a good place for help too.

Ron,.

http://www.meade4m.com/

[michael8554]

Classic firmware isn't easily updated - it's in ROM.

Michael

[Dave In Vermont]

The LX-series has a number of mechanical problems that are more straight-foreward to address. For instance: The focus-knob is tough to turn and just plain sloppy. And the clutch in the declination-arm requires a Sumo-wrestler to tighten enough to hold the scope. These problems transcend from model-to-model and year-after-year. Meade turned a blind eye and deaf ear to the warehouse of complaints they received. Optically, the Meade LX-series are wonderful. Mechanically, they must have hired their designer's by holding a Job-Fair in the Baboon cage at the City Zoo.

So aside from working on computer-problems, you might want to take a look at some actual solutions to the mechanical deficits:

http://www.petersonengineering.com/sky/

These are for real. I am pleased to say I installed these fixes, and both of my LX-scopes are much, much happier now

Peterson-Equipped,

Dave

.

[blenkda]

Thanks all for the replies. I have joined Dr Clay's Arksky group, so will hopefully get some good help from there.

Dave

[Davey-T]

Classic firmware isn't easily updated - it's in ROM.

Michael

Only tried once using the Meade updater, never again, if I want to add comets etc I do it manually

Dave

[damnut]

I used to have the 10" LX200, one of the best mods made was by d fansler, a dongle that plugs in to the handset port on the scope, that fools the scope in to thinking the handset is connected. this allows full control of the scope from a laptop. This is great if the capacitors have blown and taken out the membrane in the hand controller..

[michael8554]

Only tried once using the Meade updater, never again, if I want to add comets etc I do it manually

Dave

Agreed Dave, the Meade Updater is horrid.

Have a look at Starpatch instead.

The guys that created this know the Autostar LX's code inside-out

Their patches fix most of the dodgy coding in Meade's 4.2g firmware, and it does reliable fast updates.

Michael

[Erekose]

As the scope is equatorially mounted then is it possible that it should do this?

Ask as I know of one where this is "normal".

The scope being equatorially mounted makes or has the presumption that it is aligned to the axis and at power up it slowly slews (clockwise I think) until the scope gets to some internal sensor or encoder that then tells the unit exactly where the actual OTA is.

The rotation is slow and can take 3 or 4 minutes until whatever position internally is found. The whole action will I suspect depend on the equatorial aspect of the mounting and it may be a setting made in the handset of the one I know but when thinking about it then it all adds up. The equatorial takes the place of "level and North" and what you do is in effect a one star alignment performed by the sync of scope to star.

After that the process is simple in that you pick a suitable star and manually slew the scop to it, centre it then select that star on the handset (just select not goto it) then press and hold Enter for 2 seconds and confirm Sync.

The scope then knows where it is pointed and will goto whatever is next selected.

That is an LX having been placed into Sleep mode and then being brought back to life. It is similar to Park except that Park has the limitation that the scope be permanently mounted and not moved, so that the OTA position cannot be corrupted. Sleep requirs the user to perform an Synchronisation at the end.

In Sleep the location, date, time and more important the alignment data is preserved and when brought back to life the LX takes this from the handset and does not need aligning. What it does required is that the OTA is pointed at a star and that the scope is Synchronised to that star. Then the scope operates normally.with valid alignment data. I think that the slewing performed at the start is the scope determining when it is in regards to the end stops. It slews until it is past an end stop position or hits an end stop position. In the basic Sleep Mode no GPS is required as the data is maintained from the previous use and that includes date and time.

The LX Classic Manual is poor, or very poor and little real functionality of the early or original Meade Handbox is detailed, however the Sleep feature is on every handbox Meade appear to have produced in more recent times. The disadvantage of Sleep is that the handbox requires power to be maintained to it, so it all needs to be plugged in and left On. This I would say is why hte mode is not used a great deal. One place it is used extensively is Cambridge, see Ronin's location,  where they have handsets that maintain power independant of the LX. So when they are put away for the night they maintain the all important data until the next time they are used and do not require the alignment procedure to be performed. A much quicjer method of setting up their equipment.

So the description is correct relative to that Mode. However I cannot think that the LX Classic of blenkda has returned to life in that Mode after some 5 years. It is highly dependant of which specific handset blendka has. Although Sleep is selected from Utilities and some of those settings are maintained in NV ram or eeprom or whatever the latest term is.

Home now as the product and support to the customer 8 hours time difference is finishing.

[michaelmorris]

Agreed Dave, the Meade Updater is horrid.

Have a look at Starpatch instead.

The guys that created this know the Autostar LX's code inside-out

Their patches fix most of the dodgy coding in Meade's 4.2g firmware, and it does reliable fast updates.

Michael

The original poster has an LX200 Classic, which doesn't use the Autostar, so this is all irrelevant to his problem.

[Davey-T]

The original poster has an LX200 Classic, which doesn't use the Autostar, so this is all irrelevant to his problem.

But you can replace all the innards to update it to LX200GPS ish.

Dave