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Nightmare...

Gareth88

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Gareth88

Gareth88

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Well... After a few months of it all working perfectly.. Tonight the first clear night in a very very long time ( seems like a century ! ) My skywatcher explorer 200p eq5 Goto decided to play funny with me :( Every single star it seems to think its Below the horizon, I've checked, double and then triple checked all the data put into the handset e.g. Location, Date, Time, Time Saving mode, elevation etc. And its all bang on the money... What the hell is going on I do not no :( Anyone have any beautiful Suggestions? :happy6:

 

Gareth

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Gareth88

Gareth88

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not that im aware of, Heres another nightmare... Just tried parking the scope.. the other night it parked sideways after I gave up getting far to frustrated.. Done it again, not weights down scope up, more like Weights at a angel and scope sideways ready to balance! ( Which it is ha ) :help:

 

Gareth

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Gareth88

Gareth88

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Il try that now.. and get right back to you on it  :)   I also tried 2 star alignment with the first star with the clutches released aswell , Could this be a mechanical fault? Once I did the 2 star, it said successful ... and thought the moon was in the north! Ha it lies! I think my scope has Cold / Clear fever?

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Gareth88

Gareth88

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Right.. Parked it "sideways" as per normal ha! well not normal.. And released the clutches ( which are tight I never answered the other question ! )  and put it to where it should be... Unparked.. and moved to align to castor.. Well it seems to enjoy trying to look through solid rock! which if it could... Clouds wouldn't be a problem ither! Ha  Im truly at a lost, maybe I should try and reset to factory? That's the last solution I have -_-

 

Gareth

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YKSE

YKSE

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What's the power source your mount is using? Is it battery?

It happened to me that when battery was not fully-charged, alignment went nuts. or forgot setting the weight downward to north when starting alignment  had also caused funny scope positions too.

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Cornelius Varley

Cornelius Varley

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Release the clutches and put the mount in the correct parked position (counterweight pointing down, telescope pointing at NCP) . Power up and input the correct time / date etc and then do a 1 star alignment. Wherever the telescope stops release the clutches and manually move the telescope onto the alignment star. Once aligned retighten the clutches and fine tune the alignment using the handcontrol. Accept the alignment by pressing the enter key and then repark the mount, the mount might not finish at the correct position but this is ok. Switch off and then release the clutches again and put the mount back into the correct parked position. Retighten the clutches and switch on.  This time do a normal star alignment, the alignment should now be more accurate.

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Gareth88

Gareth88

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I understood a few of your comments about the battery, I've had that a few times last year, tonight I fully charged it up, so 99% sure it wasn't the battery, unless I've been supplied a faulty one Hmm.

Varley, I did all of that and still to no joy :( here's a question, is it normal for the north/south directions to go funny and not work at certain Angles? Mine stopped working until I moved the telescope into another position, or if I gently gave it a hand as the motors were whiring along as if it's trying to move it.

not using eqmod, my brain can't function that well to read and understand it :p just plugging it all in and only running apt, backyard eos, PhD and cartes and obviously the usual celestron drivers for the mount to run on laptop :) 

Gareth 

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Physopto

Physopto

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The reason I asked about EQMOD was that a friend had a similar problem. I suggested rebooting everything including removing all, ALL power to everything. Then reboot. We suspected it was a glitch in EQMOD but any way it worked. Thought it was EQMOD but maybe it wasn't , who knows. It may be worth a try if you have not done so already.

Derek

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Gareth88

Gareth88

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Eqmod, I think I'm going to start to try and understand it, as there is so many positives on it, just need to get myself a cable and I'm set to go more or less :)  il go about deleting drivers etc from the computer and starting everything from scratch tomorrow, and see if it plays ball :) if all else fails, I think a quick ring to the shop as its still under warranty to see what they can suggest :) thank you everyone for all your kind warm advice on such a chilly night! 

Gareth 

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Cornelius Varley

Cornelius Varley

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12 hours ago, Gareth88 said:

I understood a few of your comments about the battery, I've had that a few times last year, tonight I fully charged it up, so 99% sure it wasn't the battery, unless I've been supplied a faulty one Hmm.

Varley, I did all of that and still to no joy :( here's a question, is it normal for the north/south directions to go funny and not work at certain Angles? Mine stopped working until I moved the telescope into another position, or if I gently gave it a hand as the motors were whiring along as if it's trying to move it.

not using eqmod, my brain can't function that well to read and understand it :p just plugging it all in and only running apt, backyard eos, PhD and cartes and obviously the usual celestron drivers for the mount to run on laptop :) 

Gareth 

I'm suspect there might be a power issue. Erratic behavior is sometimes cause by low voltage or an inadequate psu. You can check the voltage using the utilities function in the handset's menu. Utilities > Show information >  Power voltage.  If possible try an alternative power source, this should confirm if the problem is with the battery.

" is it normal for the north/south directions to go funny and not work at certain Angles? Mine stopped working until I moved the telescope into another position, or if I gently gave it a hand as the motors were whiring along as if it's trying to move it."

No this isn't normal.

"Mine stopped working until I moved the telescope into another position"  - how did you move it ? Did you release the clutches and repositioned the telescope ?


 

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Gareth88

Gareth88

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8 hours ago, Cornelius Varley said:

I'm suspect there might be a power issue. Erratic behavior is sometimes cause by low voltage or an inadequate psu. You can check the voltage using the utilities function in the handset's menu. Utilities > Show information >  Power voltage.  If possible try an alternative power source, this should confirm if the problem is with the battery.

" is it normal for the north/south directions to go funny and not work at certain Angles? Mine stopped working until I moved the telescope into another position, or if I gently gave it a hand as the motors were whiring along as if it's trying to move it."

No this isn't normal.

"Mine stopped working until I moved the telescope into another position"  - how did you move it ? Did you release the clutches and repositioned the telescope ?


 

Hmm, il have a check on that, thank you for letting me know on how to view voltage information, I moved it into the other position by gently pushing it, while the motors whiring away, when it wasn't moving if that makes sense, and once it reached a certain point it took back over, I was so tired last night, I should of just waited till morning and explained everything in a better manner ha! 

 

Louise, would they cover this on the warranty? I'm to nervous to do it myself ha only thing I'm confident is building computers, but haven't got the bottle to strip down the mount.

 

Gareth

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Thalestris24

Thalestris24

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21 minutes ago, Gareth88 said:

Hmm, il have a check on that, thank you for letting me know on how to view voltage information, I moved it into the other position by gently pushing it, while the motors whiring away, when it wasn't moving if that makes sense, and once it reached a certain point it took back over, I was so tired last night, I should of just waited till morning and explained everything in a better manner ha! 

 

Louise, would they cover this on the warranty? I'm to nervous to do it myself ha only thing I'm confident is building computers, but haven't got the bottle to strip down the mount.

 

Gareth

Hi Gareth

Not sure - depends how old it is. If you've had it for a while and used it without problems then it might come under 'maintenance'. I think you need to test the mount on its own and methodically eliminate possible sources of problems like settings, power, connections etc. If you still find the mount is misbehaving then it could be a mechanical problem. I'm not myself familiar with the eq5 but I'm sure others on here can assist with fault-finding and performing simple repairs and adjustments.

Good luck

Louise

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Gareth88

Gareth88

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Sorry louise, forgot to mention I did buy it back in October, I think its got a years warranty, ive spoken to the supplier and they have contacted their technical department for suggestions as well, so just waiting on a email! *fingers crossed*

Fuzz, its not a daft question, we are all human and sometimes do silly things... example, at work, decided to get the hoover out, and then thought "Why isn't this working!?" Only to realise that I haven't switched it on at the mains ha! but to answer your question, the ota is on the right way round ( as according to the manual, yes I actually read the not so informative manual! )

 

Gareth

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Thalestris24

Thalestris24

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Hi Gareth

Having read through your posts again the more it sounds like a settings problem i.e. time, lat/long, hemisphere... One thing you could do is when trying to align on a star is to estimate how far out the mount is from expected and note whether errors are consistent. You could do this in daylight (greatly helped by having a tablet with Stellarium, an inclinometer app and compass app). The estimated error might give an idea as to where the problem lies. You haven't mentioned polar alignment - how are you doing that?

Louise

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Physopto

Physopto

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Whilst you are awaiting a reply to your emails why not start from scratch? Disconnect everything. Then put it all back together and then retrace your steps bit by bit just to see if it works.

 

It could be a daft error and when I get them, if I cannot see the error straight away I always do that. The obvious things like fuses etc, are always the first to check. I'm not saying it is a fuse, just that often it can be something we visually block from sight and memory, thinking we have checked them.

Derek

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