LX200 Classic Dongle- Start-up without Handcontroller

[Merlin66]

Over on the LX200 group Dave Fansler has advised that he has prepared a "dongle" to allow the use of the Lx200 Classic with a PC (RS232) without having to have a handcontroller plugged in.

This little board plugs into the keypad receptacle of any LX200 Classic telescope (pre-mid 93 & post-mid 93) and will send the correct serial commands to the telescope on power up, leading the telescope to believe that there is a keypad attached. Upon receiving valid data from the telescope the on-board LED flashes a few times to let the operator know that control

via RS-232 is now ready.

LX200 Keypad Simulator

This may be of interest to people would have a faulty handcontroller or are looking for semi-remote LX operation.

Ken