Lx90 problems

Hi

I was out observing with john Murphy on Friday night when my beloved lx90 started to misbehave.

It seemed to develope a mind of its own and wanted to slew off at random by a few degrees without warning and without anyone touching the Astro star.

Also it had a habit of stopping mid slew and not doing anything for a while. When it eventually beeped it was pointing way off the area it was ment to be sleewing to in the first place. In both cases allignment was lost.

As a last minute thought we had the idea of doing a factory reset and low and behold this seemed to cure the problem (I think).

I dont think it is a power problem as the battery reader on the lx90 read 100% but I suppose I cant rule it out. Could it relly just be a glitch in the software or could it be something.......more serious?

Any ideas welcome.

Hi,
Was the problem in both axis or just one?

Didn't you have a 2-star allignment problem on the previous Friday night with us after the KAS meeting too? It was going below the horizon a lot looking for Vega!

Hi

Yes but I think the previous Friday night problem may have been caused by a low battery Seannie.

I have since sent back the LNT module to BCF due to a faulty battery holder so I am operating for the moment without it. Dunno if this has anything to do with it.

Not sure if it was happening with both axis or single axis. After it beeped you could slew in both axis using autostar without any problem. It just seemed to get lost halfway to its allignment star.

It might be the drive encoders, it could a loose wire, it could be the logic board.
I would firstly make sure that all wiring is as good as possible, find the cable that attaches the dec drive to the main section, if this is loose, the dec drive can behave erratically, although runaway is more common when this happens.
If the scope is under warrenty then dont touch it and let BCF sort it out.

It might be the drive encoders, it could a loose wire, it could be the logic board.
I would firstly make sure that all wiring is as good as possible, find the cable that attaches the dec drive to the main section, if this is loose, the dec drive can behave erratically, although runaway is more common when this happens.
If the scope is under warrenty then dont touch it and let BCF sort it out.

Thats what I reckoned initially (loose internal connections), and then I remembered problems I'd had with my NexStar HC when I'd first got it. A factory Reset was recommended by many sites (even for a newly received HC). Dave has confirmed that since the Reset it has been behaving. I have offered to check the connections internally, but given that it's under warranty I would be reluctant to void the warranty. Dave you should inform Andy about the problems you've been having, and if they recur get the scope back to him