Meade 16" acting flaky

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Ben Cartwright SASS
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Meade 16" acting flaky

#1

Post by Ben Cartwright SASS »


Our club has a 16" and a 12" LX200 Classic. I think the hand controller on the 16 is flaky, it moves the scope fine until it gets pointed at the zenith (the markers on the side say 50 degrees) and SOMETIMES it will suddenly stop, it isn't that the scope stops and the motors keep going (that used to happen a couple years ago) it just totally stops when pushing the North button, I can back it up with the South button but then when I push "N" it will move the scope until it reaches about 50 again and just stops, no sound from gears or motor. If I turn the scope off and back on it will start working again but then soon after it will do the same thing.

I tried plugging the hand control from the 12" into the coiled wire on the 16" and it worked fine as far as E-W N-S but I got yelled at by one of the members he said it is a different software version and will screw up the electronics.


So I have 3 questions


1) Has anyone experienced anything like this?


2) are there replacement hand controls available for the 16" I can only seem to see ones for the 8,10, and 12" scopes.


3) Can the 12" hand control be plugged into the 16" and what will happen, will it work as if it is the original control or totally screw things up?
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Re: Meade 16" acting flaky

#2

Post by sdbodin »


I thought all LX200 controllers were the same. I replaced the one on my 16 a couple years back, $80 if I remember right. I also think that buried in one of those menus is a soft limit setting that will stop the scope from banging a camera for instance when going too far north, or south.

Mine is a 2005 model if any of this helps,
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Re: Meade 16" acting flaky

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Post by Ben Cartwright SASS »


We have the soft limit set when the scope is parallel to the ground so it doesn't bang the mount. but it will slooh north until the EP goes through the fork

Ours is about the same vintage
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Re: Meade 16" acting flaky

#4

Post by pakarinen »


"[...] screw up the electronics"? How exactly is that supposed to happen?
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Re: Meade 16" acting flaky

#5

Post by Ben Cartwright SASS »


pakarinen wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 1:30 pm "[...] screw up the electronics"? How exactly is that supposed to happen?
I was just saying what was yelled at me when I went to swap controllers. I went back later when the person wasn't around and did it anyway and it picked up the software version from the 16 which is different than our 12
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Free advice is seldom cheap

"Sometimes having is not so pleasing as wanting, it's not logical but it is true"
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Canon DSLR's R7, R6II, 5D, 7D2, 90D 21 lenses incl. 100-400L mk ii, 70-200L mk iii f/2.8, RF600/11
Lunt LS50 DS, LS80 DS, Lunt 102ED, Stellarvue SV80 APO, Orion ST80, 127 MAK, Skywatcher Evostar 120ED, 102 MAK, Celestron 8" Edge HD, 102AZ
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Re: Meade 16" acting flaky

#6

Post by Lady Fraktor »


Can you check for continuity of the cable in different positions? Maybe one of the wire connections is getting worn.
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Re: Meade 16" acting flaky

#7

Post by andy brown »


Lady Fraktor wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 7:53 pm Can you check for continuity of the cable in different positions? Maybe one of the wire connections is getting worn.
Or corroded contacts maybe?
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