Bruce:

I did take the gear box apart finally and found that the metal gear has
indeed separated from the plastic gear. You would not notice this unless you
took it apart. I wonder how many people have paid a ton of money for
shipping to send their scope back to Meade for "service" only to have a half
cents worth of glue applied to the gears to "fix" this incredibly cheaply
constructed gizmo.

I called Meade and asked for technical assistance and a guy there told me
that Meade no longer will ship replacement gears or other dec parts. He
recommended that I not try to fix anything myself and suggested that for a
mere 200 bucks, I could send it to Meade to glue up the gears again. I asked
him for advice on what Meade uses to glue the gears together and he kinda
hedged around and finally suggested some kind of plastic glue would
"probably work". My question is; what kind of glue has been successfully
used to repair these gears? I know that the encoder alignment will be the
next hurdle, but I gotta get the gear fixed first.

Thanx!

Ron

> Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 10:20:23 -0400
> Subject: mapug-digest V1 #3263
>
>> Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 01:06:38 -0400
>> Subject: mapug-digest V1 #3260
>>
>> Ron,
>>
>> Regrettably, it sounds as if the gear has separated. The gear that meshes
>> with the motor gear is actually two gears on the same shaft. One is the nylon
>> one (30 tooth gear) that meshes with the motor and is attached to a 9 tooth
>> metal gear that then meshes with the plastic gear that's on the Dec hand
>> knob. Both sets of these gears are pressed together so that they are
>> effectively a cluster gear.
>>
>> The good news is, if you're very careful and lucky, you can open the gearbox
>> up and press the two gears back together. (I've done that before.) The bad
>> news is, if you AREN'T lucky, you'll have a problem with having the mask over
>> the sensors come popping off and you'll have a heck of a time getting it back
>> into place properly.
>>
>> The woman at Meade is...... um.... mentally challenged? <G> That repair..
>> the Dec and RA motors, main board, control panel and hand control, is their
>> $200 dollar swap out repair and NOT the $500 fix-it-all that they have.
>>
>> I hope this helps a bit in letting you know what's what.
>>
>> Bruce Johnston
>
>
> Bruce:
>
> Thanks a lot. I was absolutely frustrated with this because there is no sign
> of any problem with the gears. Is there any way that the gears can be
> pressed together again without taking apart the gear box. I am a dentist and
> have access to many small tools that work well in small places. Does the
> metal gear slide on the shaft towards the plastic one or does the plastic
> gear slide laterally onto the metal gear. In other words, which gear moves
> on the shaft? And if the gears are pressed together again, what holds them
> in place? Epoxy?
>
> Thanks a big bunch for your time and consideration.

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