Dear Kevin, this another quasi-horror story depicting Meade's QA. What gets
me is that, though I am sure the people at Meade monitor the info flow of
this Forum, they do not seem to do much about it. That they have laid off
20% of their workforce to me it indicates they need to cut expenses
somewhere and a long career in business has taught me that QA is where CEOs
start pruning. Surely not in manufacturing because that's the life blood of
the company. I tell you in all truth.... had I known about Meade what I know
now, I would have not touched their product with a ten foot pole.
All this notwithstanding, I did open my 10" just like you did, but mine was
clean as a whistle inside. No filing or loose components. Thanks to God.
Best of Luck. Ettore
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2001 9:56 AM
Subject: [M]: R/A Drive (Partial) Disassembly


> Today I finally took the plunge and removed the baseplate from my R/A
drive.
> I know to many of you this is no big deal, but I'm what Gary Larson once
> described as "mechanically declined". So I did this with great trepidation
> and only after re-reading Doc G's and others' comments several times.
> Between all the posts about metal chips and an occasional sound of
something
> rattling around inside the base, I decided it was now or never.
>
> As soon as I removed the baseplate, the mystery of the rattling sound was
> solved, as a rather large allen-head bolt plopped out from the innards.
This
> bolt is about 1/2 inch long. I have no clue where it belongs. Maybe it was
> left in there during manufacturing, or maybe it worked its way loose from
> somewhere else inside the base that I couldn't see. I looked and looked
for
> anything that looked like where a missing bolt might belong - nothing.
>
> I found one rather large metal chip (2 mm?) in the grease on the bull gear
> near the worm. Managed to get it out with my pinky finger, couldn't find
any
> others.
>
> Then I removed the main circuit board. At this point, my extreme fear of
> destroying my precious 10" LX-200 got the better of me, so after taking a
> good look around, I decided to stop and put everything back together. I
> didn't see any more chips or anything else out of the ordinary. So, I put
> everything back together (minus the "extra" bolt). Put it on the tripod,
> powered it up, and by some miracle it still works!
>
> One other thing - when I got the superwedge and first tried to attach the
> base to the wedge, I could only get two of the three attachment bolts into
> the base. After a lot of head scratching, I finally figured out that Meade
> had only tapped two of the holes in the base. The solution was simple - I
> just had a local machine shop tap the last hole for me. But between that
and
> the "extra" bolt floating around inside the base, one has to wonder about
> Meade's quality control.
>
> Did I see a post the other day that Meade's CEO said they just laid off
20%
> of their Irvine work force? I wonder how much that will improve Meade's
> quality control? I guess if they got rid of the deadwood, it might help.
>
> Anyone else had any similar experiences with "extra" parts inside, missing
> threads, etc?
>
> Clear skies,
> Kevin Wigell
>
>
>

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