Posts Made By: Philip Godfrey

I believe that is a retaining ring on the baffle tube. It is probably very easy to fix.

Remove the screws on the corrector assembly at the front of the scope, take the black ring off and look for a white mark on the corrector and front mount. It is important that you put it back just like it was. The mark on the corrector is small - about marker sized. Mine is in the lower right corner, your's may be located elsewhere.

Put the part that fell out back in and screw everything back together. You will need to collimate your scope before imaging again.


Hope that helped.


*edit* I just looked at mine - it doesn't appear that the ring goes on the front baffle - it could very well be placed behind the mirror. If you don't feel comfortable taking apart your scope then have someone who is more confident to do it.



Phil

Scott Bauman said:

What just happened to my scope. I had everything plugged in and ready to go. I turned on the power and there was a loud Poof and a spark coming from under the front cover. When I pulled the cover off thinking it was a burned fuse I found one of the small yellow "resisters?" was burned. The picture I attached show me pointing to the offending part with a probe.

Did I just lose my scope for good? Any idea what just happened?

I feel like I am going to throw up. Telescopes don't seem to be my things.
Scott

This is just so easy! There are 16 of these caps throughout the scope. One on each encoder motor board, two on the power panel, three on the hand controller and nine on the main board. They are ALL the same value. Replace with the same type 6.8uf 35v. I just replaced all mine yesterday.

To remove, heat up a soldering iron -- while it's warming up, get a magic marker and mark the location on the bottom of the board. Add just a bit of solder to the joint (old solder is a bit more difficult to remove) and get either a solder sucker or copper braid solder remover.

DO NOT heat the joint too long. A few seconds at a time, perhaps 5 or 7 is okay. If you heat it too much you'll lift the via from the board and you'll have to rework the area with wire to jumper between paths.

If the solder doesn't come all the way out of the hole, heat it up just a bit and whack the board on something to remove the solder.

Install the new part (OBSERVE POLARITY!!) the silk screen mask will indicate which side is which.

Trim the leads and reinstall the board.


If you are uncomfortable doing this, mail it to me and I'll have it back in the mail the same day at no charge. I've got quite a few of these caps left over...they cost me less than 10 cents each. I've been soldering since I was 6 and I'm rather good (I've had 30 years to practice!)



A photo of the cap I used is included.


Phil Godfrey
St. Louis, MO.

blow torch + time = success

It kills me to use the word "blow torch" when "telescope" is somewhere in the same sentence.

For those who are or were wondering how to do this, that's how.

It is necessary to heat the first inch back from the front and rear cell -- you may ruin paint, but if going to re-paint or powder coat, this is the only way. It's the same way you'd remove tripod legs from their cast mounts. Meade seems to love to glue things together.

You can hammer on it all day, but you'll break something. Just remove the optics and all plastic parts first!

I wouldn't want to piss Herb off. He has the power to remove my account and I like it here.


This site would be a pain for one person to manage. It's grown so much over the years and we probably hardly notice the little changes over time... Speaking of which -- look at the image I've included. It is a screen shot from October 29, 1996 when Astromart was in it's infantancy. It's vastly improved over these 13 years because of the continued support of it's members and the interest and drive of it's owners and moderators.


You can also look around http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://astromart.com to see the progress through the years.


Phil

I know it's nearly been a month since your post - but I will try to answer your questions. My posts are typically long - so bear with me as I cover your questions and a few others you might have down the road.

Power supply. Meade designed the electronics around an 18 volt DC supply (center pin positive). While it technically can work at 12 volts, it isn't recommended at all. Others will argue with me -- but in the end, don't do it.

Missing spreader. It is essential to have this when mounting the drive. 1) It stabilizes the tripod. 2) It limits the length of the thread which can enter the drive base.

The drive base is cast aluminum and each casting has different flaws and their own characteristics. Interestingly, as I've torn one drive base entirely apart during a rebuild -- I've found that the design is pure crap, in my opinion, of course. One small allen screw holds the entire OTA and fork on the drive base. This is threaded into the center cone where the bearings sit. While it does work and has worked for decades, it's not how I'd go about doing it.

3 allen screws. These were probably left over from a wedge. They serve no purpose whatsoever when mounted without the wedge.

DEC cable. Make sure it's a rollover cable and not straight through. A rollover cable is one that is wired 1-8, 2-7 etc...instead of 1-1, 2-2. What could be happening is you're shorting something out.


*Other known issues with the Classic LX200 line*


If for any reason, your scope just says "meade" when it is powered on - one of the biggest causes of this is the hall effect sensor. The sensor is glued to the R.A. housing and detects a pulse when a magnet embedded in the R.A. worm gear goes by. It's a very easy fix and it's super cheap. What's happening here is, during power on, the R.A. drive starts moving. The software on the main board is looking for this pulse as it provides a sort of "home detection". Without this pulse, the drive will just keep running slowly.


DEC issues, runaway - etc. Some DEC drives can just startup and never stop. This can be caused by a few things. 1) Faulty wire somewhere in the cable (either DEC cable or the actual cable that runs to the DEC motor board. 2) Broken IR LED lead. One of the two IR emitters or one of the two IR receivers leads has broken off the back of the die. It can be soldered back on if care is taken. 3) Encoder mask alignment. This can only be repaired by someone qualified - and I do know one guy who's great at it. Basically, if you decided to pull the DEC gearbox apart, chances are you shifted the position of the encoder mask. The alignment of this is critical for it to work properly. Repairs are typically well under the cost of a replacement part.



I've had my share of LX200's. I've owned 1 8", 1 10" and three 12". I will never buy a fork mounted OTA again. It is much better to just pull the OTA off and mount it on a equatorial drive. If you decided to go this route, removal of the OTA is easy.

If you have no plans to use or sell the fork once you're done...lay the telescope on some carpet, entirely stretched out, remove 4 of the allen bolts on the right side of the fork near the drive base, underneath the fork arm. Remove the three allen screws near the ota. This will free up one side. Now just remove the remaining three screws on the DEC side. If you want to sell the mount later, put a piece of masking tape along the seam between the drive base and fork arm. Cut where the division between the two parts are with a razor and make a few pen marks across the piece of tape. This will help the next person align the fork when putting an OTA on.


Feel free to contact me here if you have any questions. I don't check my messages very often, so there may be a delay in my response.


Best of luck!


Phil Godfrey
St. Louis, MO

Herb York said:

So... some of the smartest people on the planet should go to a waco left or waco right web site to discuss "important" things.

I see

Herb

Na, I just talk to myself about important things...it saves time and money. Money I can spend at your store which is the most "important" thing.