SW heq5 polar red led dimming

[starship trooper]

Hi there,

Just tried my first polar alignment and found it very hard to see polaris because of the led's brightness,so i was wondering if anybody has manage to fit something to dim the led's brightness and if so can you point me to a how to?

Thanks dazz

[Psychobilly]

Thanks again to Astrobaby...

Polarscope Illumination Dimmer for the HEQ5/Sirius EQ-G

Billy...

[starship trooper]

Cool I knew ab was looking at doing a mod for this problem but I didn't think about checking her site doh!.

Thank you and thank you astro baby

[Merlin66]

The Synscan controller V3.27 for the HEQ5pro has a polar illuminator dimmer option under the utility menu.

[Psychobilly]

Does it do anything Ken?

[Merlin66]

Peter,

It certainly seemed to work on my NEQ6pro polar scope....

[m.tweedy]

The Synscan controller V3.27 for the HEQ5pro has a polar illuminator dimmer option under the utility menu.

It worked well on mine. when it arrived the illumination seemed to be set near 100% and as Ken said I used the dimmer option and turned it down to something like 5%

[Merlin66]

There's some discussion going on over on the Y! group EQMOD re this feature...they say it needs a V2.xx motor control board, so infact it may not work with older mounts???

[Psychobilly]

yeah its seems that the HEQ-5 driver boards dont support it

[Merlin66]

StarShip Trooper in the start message shows he has a HEQ5pro mount so maybe he's OK with the handcontroller???

[Psychobilly]

My HEQ5 Pro doesn't dim but the leds ok... maybe just lucky...

[starship trooper]

I have got the upto date firmware on my synscan but I can't recall seeing any function for dimming the light but I shall have. A look also my mount is a year or 2 old so the board might be wrong.

Thanks for the help

Ps how do u turn the hand controller button lights up?

[Merlin66]

With V3.27 handcontroller....

Setup menu

Handset Setting

You can change the LCD Contrast and Backlight as well as the LED Backlight...

HTH

[Starjumper]

Hi Merlin66,

Is the LED backlight the light for the polar scope ??

John

[Merlin66]

No, It appears to be for the handcontroller display.

[starship trooper]

cheers merlin66 for pointing me to the menu for changing the hand controls lighting but i had a look through the menus and couldnt find anything to dim the polar led...poo...oh well i shall have to do astro baby's mod thanks again

[Merlin66]

It's a while since I played with the dimming, but have you checked that when you dim the handcontroller LED that the polar illuminator doesn't dim at the same time?????

[starship trooper]

I shall check that out tonight cheers

[starship trooper]

sorry i has took my so long getting back to you but the hand control dimmer doesnt adjust the polar led Looks like i will be doing the mod all though last night i did try it with the mount turn off and flashing a red torch down the scope thats was better.

[astrosathya]

Hi,

I have checked the utility functions of two synscan v3.27 handsets, but neither of them have such an option in their utility functions menu. Is there something obvious that I am missing here?

[Psychobilly]

You need to check the firmware version thats running on the motor controller pcb....

IIRC it needs to be v2 or higher as well...

Peter...

[Astro_Baby]

The orion equivalent mount dies support led dimming. You do need a version 2 motirbiard though and not all mounts have it. No idea why.

Polarscope dimming is under the UTILITIES menu on the handcontroller I am reliably informed.

[kirkster501]

Yes, the LED is ridiculously bright. What were they on when they designed this?

Another option you can use is EQdimmer from the EQmod project. You only use it the once since the mount remembers the setting after you have dimmed it down. Its a little program you run on its own -its a bit unstable I have found - when you have your mount connected to a PC (which you will have if you are going to use EQmod). Worked a treat for me. Coudl not see Polaris due to the brightness. Now its perfect.

Steve

[tingting44]

is it possible to say borrow a handset turn the brightness down, then will the brightness stay at that setting so you will not need to adjust the brightness again?

edit, just see this post!!

"Yes, the LED is ridiculously bright. What were they on when they designed this?

Another option you can use is EQdimmer from the EQmod project. You only use it the once since the mount remembers the setting after you have dimmed it down. Its a little program you run on its own -its a bit unstable I have found - when you have your mount connected to a PC (which you will have if you are going to use EQmod). Worked a treat for me. Coudl not see Polaris due to the brightness. Now its perfect.

Steve "

will check this out right now!! thanks

[namreg]

Old thread I know, but I've just bought a used HEQ5, circa 2011 I believe, with version 3.27 firmware. The polarscope dimmer on mine is under the Setup menu, not under the Utilities menu. It's labelled Polarscope LED and it comes after the LCD Contrast option.  Works a treat, but doesn't remember the setting after switching the mount off. Still, can't have everything I suppose