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I had a few problems with the lx200 8-inch classic (runaway dec & fried mother board) so I decided to upgrade to a LX-200 GPS 10 inch. I thought the transition between the 8-inch & 10-inch would be simple but as usual it involved some major problems.
The first thing was the roll-off shed which was about 6 inches to low as it was built to accommodate the smaller scope. I simply laid the shed on its back, removed the wheels and bolted two 4 by 4 bits of wood to the bottom the reattached the wheels and lifted the shed upright again. This quick fix works well as it made the shed sturdier but it weights a ton now and is quite hard to push.
Next was the wedge, which was designed for the 8-inch (Meade standard wedge) and just not up to the weight of the10-inch. I purchased a mega wedge from BC & F, which is an excellent piece of gear. I recommenced it highly.
The rails for the ETX and balance weights needed to be lengthened to allow for the longer scope. The screw holes around the end of the new scope are a little different to the 8-inch and this allowed me to move the spotting scope to the right hand side, which allowed me to mount the ETX on the left side. This altered the balance of the scope making it heavy on the left side. This is great news as it allows a slight weight on the R.A. gearing which makes the tracking much smoother.
The new scope has two separate serial ports, so I had to get the soldering gun out and separate the two serial wires leads I used on the old scope. I also used the soldering gun to attach a new LED to the illuminated eyepiece as the old one blew when I accidentally plugged it into the 12volt port situated directly below the reticule port. TIP turn off the power to this port if not needed in the utilities menu. It saves a lot of trouble in the long run.
I thought I would have to by new software to operate the scope but ACP & Sky Map Pro will do all the major operations I need to do, although ACP is not designed to operate the GPS models.
LX-200 GPS 10 inch
CONS
It has a
12-volt power supply. I have a power pack to run it from mains electricity
without having to buy the expensive Meade power pack. It is also simple to run
it from a car battery.- It can be
run from internal batteries.
- GPS
- It is
less noisy than the classic lx-200 classic.
- It has
upgradeable software that can be downloaded from the Internet.
PROS
- Internal
batteries do not last long and it can work out very expensive.
- Because
the software can be upgraded easily, I do not think they put as much work into
the program as they should. I have not loaded one new upgrade into the scope
without the new version having at leased one bug in it.
- It is
heavy.
I would recommend the GPS over the classic despite the soft ware bugs that will sort themselves out in time.
There are many sites on the net that give the specification of this scope so I will not bore you with the details. Try meades home page for a start.
This document maintained by
pete.cox@zetnet.co.uk.
Material
Copyright © 2000 Pete