Still on alignment, at that outreach event someone somehow managed to pull the cord out of the handset right during the busiest time. Buggered if I know how
I redid the alignment process several times, but the mount wouldn't cooperate no matter what I did, switching it off between alignment processes. So I switched it off and let it be.
Next day I had a quick look at the cord & connections & things looked ok. I switched it on and did a dummy alignment run and things were promising but still off. Thought about doing a factory reset too.
Last night I set it up again with my Mak and a 7mm EP to work with a 3 star alignment.
Here's the intetesting part. 1st alignment failed, so I put the mount into park, BUT I didn't switch it off. Instead I repeated the alignment process a second time, this time alignment came up poor, but an improvement. Encouraged, i repeated the alignment process from park and without switching off the mount and the alignment was perfect!
So, I now see that if my Synscan chucks a wobbly, a fix can be had by repeating the alignment process from the park position but without switching off the mount between alignments. It may take three alignment sequences, but it took the frustration out of the mess. No factory reset either. I don't understand how the CPU reworked itself, but just have the CPU get its bearings again.
I have had alignment issues with the NEQ6 before and found it very frustrating especially when you add the pressure of trying to fulfill a session under the stars. I had no pressure on myself last night, and just tried something different. And it worked!
This has been a very frustrating but also very enlightening week with Synscan.
This may be old hat to some Synscan users, but it may come as a help to other people having trouble.
Alex.