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Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro won't power up and blowing fuses


Deeko

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No it didn't blow, did it one by one and no fuse blew this time. However the mount still doesn't power up and mount power LED doesnt come on. The LED strangely does come on when I plug in the EQMOD cable into the hand controller port, but the mount still doesn't power up or respond. Must be some power coming from the pc via the EQMOD cable. I am all out of ideas now and resigned to buying a new board, can't believe the part cost £120, shocking. That would get me a quite a high-end motherboard for my PC!

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2 hours ago, AndyThilo said:

Test both pins to a ground (usually the metal surrounding a screw hole). One will be short and show 0 ohms, the other should be open circuit. 

That was the problem I had, the metal surrounding the screw was not and but sitting at 12v

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54 minutes ago, AndyThilo said:

That definitely shouldn’t be and would indicate a short on the board that’s going to ground. All screw holes are always ground points. 

Well that was in the brand new pcb I bought after blowing 2 up!

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Hi all, have given up on it. A full day spent troubleshooting. Now looking at where I can buy a new board but Flo sadly doesn't stock. While I'm at it and out of sheer paranoia I am going to replace the current psu setup with a Pegasus Power Mini with decent AC power supply, will be able to check all the wiring and such when changing to the Pegasus. If it blows again its going in the skip 😕

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Before you give up, I think the problem could be the little black square thing.

I think its a bridge rectifier, are there any markings on the sides or under the silver looking stripe?

If the mounting screw is supposed to be -ve then the pin I've marked A should be the -ve and B is the +ve.

Can you do a simple continuity check between A-screw and B-screw. If both are continuous the the rectifier is blown. They are only a few quid if you can find out which one to get.

Maybe email a picture to RS Components or Farnell see if they can identify it.

20200223_101349.thumb.jpg.b4aed9fc9b2dea52145f386eda7d2dfe.jpg

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13 minutes ago, MarkAR said:

Before you give up, I think the problem could be the little black square thing.

I think its a bridge rectifier, are there any markings on the sides or under the silver looking stripe?

If the mounting screw is supposed to be -ve then the pin I've marked A should be the -ve and B is the +ve.

Can you do a simple continuity check between A-screw and B-screw. If both are continuous the the rectifier is blown. They are only a few quid if you can find out which one to get.

Maybe email a picture to RS Components or Farnell see if they can identify it.

20200223_101349.thumb.jpg.b4aed9fc9b2dea52145f386eda7d2dfe.jpg

Just so am following you, you want me to do a continuity test between the two physical pins marked A and B in the photo? Just double checking!

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HHMMMMM! I was expecting both to beep.

I'm not an expert but it might be shorting through the component only when powered.

Whats aggravating is not being able to find a board diagram and not having a part number visible, the components are less that £1, some less that 10p. Seems rediculous to spend £120 on a new board.

I have in the past been able to trouble shoot a couple of ultrasonic cleaner main boards and got them working but without schematics or part numbers its difficult.

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If we are going with pins ABCDE, then pin D also beeps, a brown cable.. Not sure if it helps but the colours for the connector  in photo above are below:

A= Black

B= Red

C= Yellow

D= Brown

E = White

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There are also a few forum threads with HEQ5 motherboard problems, if you have a handset and it says both axis no response, the likelyculprits are the 2 are capacitors.

They say to replace them with 35v 470mF ones.

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Try getting in touch with the manufacturers to see if they can tell you what the square black component actually is and its specifications and also send details to RS Components.

If you get a result then it's be an easy soldering job. Sorry I can't be of more help at the moment but if you end up having to get a new board I would be interested in trying to find the correct component myself and trying to fix it. I love messing around with this sort of thing.

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6 hours ago, Deeko said:

No problem and thanks for the help! Will most likely buy a new board but could see about sending you on the faulty one, you might be able to find a solution :)

I'll keep tabs on progress, in the meantime I'll see if something springs to mind that I've forgotten of my meagre electronics knowledge.

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Bought a new motherboard for £95 on Ebay from a reputable seller, delivered quickly too. Replaced board and all is well again, phew! If this happens again I'll be looking into buying another brand mount. The wiring and placement of the motherboard was an eye opener. Wiring was haphazard and chaffing and motherboard has no surge protection and exposed (to a degree) to the elements when you take the polarscope cap off at front.

For now I am happy, but of course wary of it happening again.

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2 hours ago, Deeko said:

Bought a new motherboard for £95 on Ebay from a reputable seller, delivered quickly too. Replaced board and all is well again, phew! If this happens again I'll be looking into buying another brand mount. The wiring and placement of the motherboard was an eye opener. Wiring was haphazard and chaffing and motherboard has no surge protection and exposed (to a degree) to the elements when you take the polarscope cap off at front.

For now I am happy, but of course wary of it happening again.

Hooray, rather £95 than hundreds for a new mount.

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  • 1 month later...
On 23/02/2020 at 17:33, MarkAR said:

Before you give up, I think the problem could be the little black square thing.

I think its a bridge rectifier, are there any markings on the sides or under the silver looking stripe?

If the mounting screw is supposed to be -ve then the pin I've marked A should be the -ve and B is the +ve.

Can you do a simple continuity check between A-screw and B-screw. If both are continuous the the rectifier is blown. They are only a few quid if you can find out which one to get.

Maybe email a picture to RS Components or Farnell see if they can identify it.

20200223_101349.thumb.jpg.b4aed9fc9b2dea52145f386eda7d2dfe.jpg

I'm in a similar predicament - after not touching the astro stuff for about 6 years I decided to take advantage of the clear skies and no need to get up in the morning... anyhow, tonight the scope packed up.  There's a high current draw from it which isn't enough to blow the fuse in my power lead but is enough to trigger the protection on the power supply.  No shorts on the power connector/switch board so I've traced it to the motor controller board also and taken it out to look around it.  Nothing obvious though which is disappointing.

In terms of the picture of the component above, the square one is an inductor (L1 marking on the board) and the SK34 marked on (D1) is a diode.  C3 on mine was showing a short circuit but after removing it from the board it seems OK so there must be something else wrong with the board. Without a circuit diagram it's all guess work!

I guess I'll be ringing around a few shops tomorrow to see if anyone has a spare board in stock... the is quite frustrating! 

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