SW EQ5 Pro Problem

[Jim Franklin]

Hi all, I have acquired a second had EQ5 Pro mount and it worked fine for a week or so, but now when I turn it on the hand controller states it cannot talk to the motors and operates "Stand Alone", I have tried to connect to the hand Controller via my laptop but it cannot find the hand controller.

Can someone suggest the course I need to go along?

1: Am I doing something wrong?

2: Is the hand controller knackered and needs replacement?

3: Could it simply be the hand controller cable that needs replacing?

4: Are there historic issues of the motor control unit dying suddenly?

I have looked at the costs of buying the new Hand Controlled and the Motor Controller, but in reality it would be more economical to buy the EQ5Pro upgrade kit for about £290 as it gives me everything and spare motors should I need them.

If anyone has any experience of these mounts having these problems and what the fix was I am all ears..

Thanks in advance for any comments.

In case you are wondering, the scope to be used on the mount is a Meade ETX125PE as it's fork drive failed three times and I eventually took the damned thing apart...I have been using it on an undriven EQ3 mount for a few years...but it's optics are excellent so want to get back to astro-imaging with it along with my LX90 8" 

 

[Cornelius Varley]

Hello and welcome to SGL. When you plugged the handset into the laptop, how did you do it ? If the handset reports that it is in stand alone mode then it could be a broken wire in the cable. If you have a standard cat5 ethernet cable you can try using that instead of the supplied handset/mount RJ45 cable to eliminate a problem with the original.

[Jim Franklin]

On 14/07/2019 at 19:41, Cornelius Varley said:

Hello and welcome to SGL. When you plugged the handset into the laptop, how did you do it ? If the handset reports that it is in stand alone mode then it could be a broken wire in the cable. If you have a standard cat5 ethernet cable you can try using that instead of the supplied handset/mount RJ45 cable to eliminate a problem with the original.

Thanks, I tried the handset stand alone and also connected to the mount. I tried an ethernet cable and still got the same issues.

I tried the RJ11 connection via a Serial/USB interface but also the ethernet direct. 

Am I right in thinking if I buy the Lynx Astro cable I can use the drive direct from the laptop into the drive controller using ASCOM drivers? 

[Merlin66]

Yes, using EQMOD, ASCOM drivers and a EQDir cable will allow you to control the HEQ5 Pro using a planetarium program like Cartes du Ceil.

 

[Cornelius Varley]

26 minutes ago, Jim Franklin said:

Thanks, I tried the handset stand alone and also connected to the mount. I tried an ethernet cable and still got the same issues.

I tried the RJ11 connection via a Serial/USB interface but also the ethernet direct. 

Am I right in thinking if I buy the Lynx Astro cable I can use the drive direct from the laptop into the drive controller using ASCOM drivers?  

An ethernet cable direct to the mount won't work, the connection to the mount has to go through either the handset and the serial data cable or an EQDIR cable. Did you try connecting the handset to the pc using the serial data cable and then use Stellarium to drive the mount ?  A Lynx Astro cable using EQMOD might work but if the handset is reporting that it can't find the mount then the problem might be at the mount end.