I've run into a problem in the past which can give rise to the "slop" in the
RA drive problem you mentioned below. I was seeing jittering in my
guidestar images and finally tracked it to the RA drive. Pulling the
baseplate off and examining the RA drive revealed that the spring-loaded
pivot which keeps the motor drive gear firmly engaged to the gear on the
fork mount was sticking and thereby keeping the teeth from meshing
completely.

Mike
http://www.concentric.net/~richmann/


> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Thursday, November 19, 1998 7:18 PM
> Subject: Re: [M]: 12"LX200 with T-Point
>
>
> Ric,
>
> Thanks for sending me a "checklist". Of the items that you
> mentioned, my
> drift alignment is "right on the money". My PEC training is suspect
> however.I have tried rocking the fork arms in RA and there is
> about 5mm of
> "play". Do you think it is a loose worm/drive wheel, or a
> loose locking
> mechanism, or has the lubrication worked itself from the gears or a
> combination of all three? Meade is asking $200 to fix it and
> another $200 to
> upgrade the drive to today's standards (new EPROM and HPP).
> As I said my
> LX200 was one of the originals and does not have HPP but I'm
> not certain I
> need it because I use TheSKY exclusively for pointing which
> essentially does
> the same thing as HPP by synching on a star when I slew to a different
> region of the sky near an object I'm trying to locate. I have
> heard from
> someone that some "older" EPROMS are not compatible with TheSKY. $200
> doesn't sound too bad to fix the problem (if they actually
> CAN fix it!) but
> I'm reluctant because I'm not convinced they will and I'm not
> too thrilled
> about being without a scope for weeks maybe months (from my
> experiences with
> Meade). I've followed MAPUG "threads" in the past about which
> grease to use
> and how to go about tightening up the RA drive train but it
> was some time
> ago. I remember you, Doc G, and others discussing this but
> can't remember
> the details. I suppose I could read the MAPUG "archives" or
> could you be a
> good samaritan and tell me how to get into the RA drive
> train, which screw
> to tweak, and what kind of grease to use and any other
> pertinent info I
> should look for? I would be forever grateful (not because I'm
> cheap, but
> because it might get fixed sooner).
>
> Thanks,
> Steve Stefanik

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