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Subject: Re: your mail
From: Krishnan@aol.com
Reply To: mapug@shore.net
Date: Sat Oct 29 13:57:14 1994

I agree. $600 is extremely excessive for

- 1 Keypad - 1 (small) motherboard (size of a PC add-on card, not many expensive chips as far as I can see) - Firmware with expanded library.

I dare speculate the Cost of Manufacturing is under $100.

Please consider this: The "street" value of the older lx-200 is somewhere around $1200 to $1400. The "upgrade" essentially costs 50% of the value of the scope itself! This is ridiculous.

Let's look at it another way: A new Meade 2080B (which I believe is optically comparable to LX-200) goes for about $1600 street, the LX-200 for about $2500. For the $900, you get better fork mount, DC servo motor instead of AC synchronous motor on RA (with PEC and smartdrive), Additional DC servo motor for the Dec (with Dec drift control), and all the electronics.

Thus the cost of the electronics that can be attributed to a NEW LX-200 is certainly less than $600.

And, conventionally, an "upgrade" costs something like 50% of getting something new.

Enough said, I just wish they would drop the price to a reasonable range (which IMHO is under $300).

-Kal.