SOURCE: Manual For Telestar By Meade
Here are all of Meade's manuals ----
http://www.meade.com/manuals/index.html
SOURCE: Cannot power up my Meade LX200
Check to make sure there are no bad connections under the swith itself. My Celestron C8 mount has similar problems and if I mess with the switch it will power up.
SOURCE: Meade LX200 drive system keeps spinning
The older Lx200's go into tracking mode when turned on if they are not recieving a signal from the handbox. It does this on purpose so you can use the telescope without the handbox and still track sky objects. If it is still doing this with the handbox plugged in then you have a bad chip in the electronics and Meade is notorious for not having parts for their older telescopes. Don't send it in to them to repair. It will cost you a fortune to mail back and forth and they still can't repair most electronic problems with their older scopes(from my personal experience).
SOURCE: Estimated support Meade: my problem is that I
Meade will not sell you a corrector plate. The scope must be returned to Meade. Call their customer service line here-
http://www.meade.com/support/index.html
The shipping will be very expensive along with the repair. Possibly taking it to a local Meade dealer may be more economical??
SOURCE: Meade LX200 10" SC Telescope
You have a standard lx200 problem. If you transported your scope a lot with the drives "locked" it damages the RA and DEC drives. If you keep using it, the motors burn out and start drawing too much current. This sometimes blows the motor driver chips on the motherboard which are getting very rare.
The burned out tantalum caps can be replaced with better aluminum electrolytics very cheaply. If the ones in your Autostar burned out, they often burn up the ribbon cable. Also, they often take out U11, a 74LS14 chip on the motherboard. Also a cheap repair. You should take the Autostar apart. If they are burned up, it will be obvious. If your ribbon cable survived, you should replace the caps with aluminum electrolytics. I believe they are 6.8 uf.
So, if you can work an ohmmeter, measure the resistance of the two drive motors with the plugs unplugged. If it is about 14 ohms they are ok. If they are about 3 or 4 ohms, they are toast. Check the worm drives for end play. If there is just a little, you can adjust them. The battery jack on the control panel often breaks the solder joints on the board, causing one of the problems you describe. You can check that and replace/resolder as necessary. The on/off switch often fails and gets intermittent. These are also cheap and can be replaced. I don't repair these for a living but I repair a few of them for friends in the club. These are pretty common problems.
212 views
Usually answered in minutes!
×