Mount for Meade Lx50 10"

Hi All,

I'm staritng to have some trouble with the electronics on my Meade Lx50 10" sct. I'm on the Yahoo user group for the scope so there's lots of feed back there(9primarily from the states where EVERY thing is cheaper!) and the way forward basically is to put it on a new mount when I eventually get the cash.
The losmandy is way out of my price range and I've been advised the Orion Atlas is a good cheaper alternative(a guy stateside has offered to machine up the bracket to marry the two should I choose that one).

Any other recommendations would be greatly appreciated.....

Thanks

Mark

I'm staritng to have some trouble with the electronics on my Meade Lx50 10" sct. I'm on the Yahoo user group for the scope so there's lots of feed back there(9primarily from the states where EVERY thing is cheaper!) and the way forward basically is to put it on a new mount when I eventually get the cash.Mark

Hi Mark,

Before you go off buying a new mount, there are a couple of things you should check. Have you opened the hand controller and checked the leads going in through the rubber grommet. I had trouble with a loose connection just inside the grommet which caused intermittent power problems and had to resolder one of the wires. However, that fault should not cause a runaway situation, i.e. as if it were in overdrive.

It's possible that an internal wire inside the scope base is pinched with the insulation pierced by a metal pin as happened to this LX50 - seems quite like the problems you're experiencing:
www.atm-workshop.com/pdfs/MeadeMak.pdf

Hope you sort it out.

Gordon

Mark,

You could also phone Telescope House in London (formerly B C & F) who supplied the Meade scopes to AI at the time we both got our LX50s and ask to speak to one of its repair technicians. It may be a problem with a simple solution and probably not too expensive to ship back for attention. If it's happened to your scope, you can be fairly sure it's happened to someone else's in the intervening years and they know about it.

Gordon

Hi Gordon,

I'll try those connections to keep me going in the short term. I know the lx50 electronics are not up to any serious attempt at ccd imaging if I want to do auto guiding ,so in the long term I'll probably get a mount as the optics are fine and it'd be cheaper than buying a whole new scope.

Thanks Gordon

Mark