You are in very good shape with a 2.2 hand controller and 4.6 motor control firmware (which I think is actually the latest version 4.06 since the 2.2 hand controller only shows two digits for the version). The main issue is that you will have the GPS rollover issue with version 2.2. However, it's pretty easy to work around that in several ways. First, you can just turn off GPS in the Menu, Utilities section and then enter time, date, and location manually before alignment. Or, with GPS on let the scope do its thing to find north and level the tube. At that point you have the time and location, but the date is wrong due to GPS rollover. You can next turn off GPS in Utilities and then hand enter the date although I think you are forced to enter the time again as well. After that you can let the scope do a GPS align.Herbys wrote: ↑Thu Jan 11, 2024 3:24 am Hi again! I checked my hand controller, and it reports I have a 2.2 controller version as well, with 4.6 motors.
When you say 2.2 is upgradable, you mean only by re-flashing the existing controller? Will that fix the gps rollover issue? Would I need a new GPS board as well?
Otherwise, can I buy a newer controller? E.g. a Nexstar+, which looks awfully similar to my original Nexstar but with a(n old) mini USB port? Would that give me the three -Star alignment algorithm?
Is there anything else I can upgrade to? Even the Nexstar+: looks a bit dated, with a two-line LCD display, so I wonder if Celestron has released anything newer that is still compatible with the motors on my Nexstar GPS.
Sorry about the many questions, I just want to make sure I don't mess up my beloved (if somewhat neglected) telescope.
You can update 2.2 to the newer hand controller version which is 4.22, but in order to do that you need to either find a version 4.xx hand controller (which can be updated by software) for sale at some place like eBay (Celestron no longer sells them) or open your hand controller, remove the two 4 mbit flash memory chips (they should be socketed in that controller), then either reprogram them to 4.22 or buy some new chips and program those to 4.22 (I found five of those chips for $9 on Amazon). I can later give more details how to do that if requested. However, I was mistaken about version 4.22. It does fix the GPS rollover issue so now you also have the correct date, but by then Celestron removed the GPS auto align feature (due to the lawsuit by Meade). So with 4.22 you need to use the newer alignment methods which some say are more accurate, but also take more time to do. Version 4.22 probably adds newer features as well, but I haven't researched that yet. Bottom line is if you want to keep GPS auto align you need to keep version 2.2 and suffer through entering the correct date.
I think your best choices are either stay where you are with the version 2.2 hand controller and 4.06 motor control firmware (which should still work great except for GPS rollover) or purchase a NexStar+ hand controller. There are reports at nexstarsite.com that some older NexStar GPS scopes will have error messages or slew delays with a NexStar+ but I'm guessing chances are you would be OK since you have more recent firmware in your scope. Mine seems to be working OK so far (only tested indoors since too much snow outside) and I have older motor control firmware than you. Also check the two values in the second line of the version which should be the serial board and GPS versions. Mine are both version 2.2 and I read you have a better chance of success with a NexStar+ with a 2.2 serial board vs. a version before 2.x.
If your scope works well with a NexStar+ then I think you are better off than upgrading your 2.2 controller to 4.22. NexStar+ is the latest controller, is still fully supported with updates (though there is a risk that support for old GPS scopes could get screwed up some day with a new update), has more memory and faster speed, more stars/features, and has a mini USB connection at the bottom for updates vs. the old fashioned serial port the older hand controllers have. But like version 4.22, while GPS rollover is fixed the NexStar+ does not support GPS align so you must use the new alignment methods. I'd suggest getting one on Amazon and if you see errors, you can return it. If you purchase a used one be careful because earlier versions of NexStar+ do not have the mini USB port and use serial instead. Also, nexstarsite.com says recent versions of NexStar+ firmware could brick your scope if you try using old Celestron MCupdate software to update your motor control firmware, but that shouldn't be an issue for you since you already have the latest version of motor control and I don't see Celestron ever releasing a new motor control version for a scope they no longer fully support.
