Meade 200LX GPS. Electronic RA movement VERY slow, but scope moves under GOTO at normal speed and does track. What is the problem and what is the fix?

SOURCE: Meade LX200 10" - RA Gears slip when mounted on wedge (Milburn)

The problem is the addition of the 80mm telescope to the assembly. The telescope is now out of balance, and places extra weight off-center as the position chages. Too great an off-balance will cause the main gears to 'jump' the worm teeth. The solution is to restore balance by adding counter weights as needed. Loosten the axis locks (carefully) and see which direction it wants to move. To balance my LX, I used a small bag with lead buckshot to determine how much weight was needed and where to achieve balance. Then I added fixed weights to the mount. Once this is done, the scope should track correctly.scopestuff.com has balance kits at reasonable prices.

SOURCE: My great Meade LX6 10

My scope sat in a basement for years and when I started it up I got an error the same as you discribe. Through sear luck I found it to be a bad connection where the encoder wire pluged into the battery box.

SOURCE: right ascesion slow motion control knob loose, does not work

The RA knob has a setscrew that fixes it to the shaft. Just need to find the correct size and tighten.

SOURCE: Meade Quartz Controller Model 784

You can send me an e-mail and I will try to help you as I have the very same Quartz Controller on my 20 year old 10" scope.

[email protected]

PS I am looking for a back up 784 controller for my scope.

SOURCE: Meade LX200 10" SC Telescope

You have a standard lx200 problem. If you transported your scope a lot with the drives "locked" it damages the RA and DEC drives. If you keep using it, the motors burn out and start drawing too much current. This sometimes blows the motor driver chips on the motherboard which are getting very rare.

The burned out tantalum caps can be replaced with better aluminum electrolytics very cheaply. If the ones in your Autostar burned out, they often burn up the ribbon cable. Also, they often take out U11, a 74LS14 chip on the motherboard. Also a cheap repair. You should take the Autostar apart. If they are burned up, it will be obvious. If your ribbon cable survived, you should replace the caps with aluminum electrolytics. I believe they are 6.8 uf.

So, if you can work an ohmmeter, measure the resistance of the two drive motors with the plugs unplugged. If it is about 14 ohms they are ok. If they are about 3 or 4 ohms, they are toast. Check the worm drives for end play. If there is just a little, you can adjust them. The battery jack on the control panel often breaks the solder joints on the board, causing one of the problems you describe. You can check that and replace/resolder as necessary. The on/off switch often fails and gets intermittent. These are also cheap and can be replaced. I don't repair these for a living but I repair a few of them for friends in the club. These are pretty common problems.