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  #21  
Old 27-09-2017, 07:37 AM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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Random question, will the handset accept invalid dates? (Months greater than 12) I have not got easy access to mine to check that. If it does, just to make sure, the handset is expecting dates in MM/DD/YYYY format not the more typical in Australia DD/MM/YYYY. I know if you forget and for instance put in 03/09/2017 for September 3rd instead if 09/03/2017 it accepts it and them proceeds to do unpredictable things as the date is out by six months.

I am just not sure if it will accept a date with the first two digits greater than 12 and convert it to something spurious then go off doing unpredictable things.

If you have been using Synscan handsets for some time you are probably well aware of that quirk, but after having mine sitting in the garage for a while I had forgotten and did it wrong first time out recently.
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  #22  
Old 27-09-2017, 02:06 PM
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Well aware of synscan being MM/DD/YYYY - and 25 isn’t a valid month anyway LOL... if it was wrong date it would compute a hopelessly wrong position for anything - Saturn included - and at one point out of disbelief was checking the altaz positions it showed on the handset with what SkySafari showed on my iPhone ... and they agreed.

Will try again tonight.
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  #23  
Old 27-09-2017, 04:02 PM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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I thought not, but had no chance to check on mine if you can input an invalid date and have to convert it into something spurious.

The only times I have had mine head off in unexpected directions have been after not using it for a while and autopilot plugging DD/MM/YYYY format dates into it on setup but the couple of times I have done it have been early in the month so have been a valid date in either format.
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  #24  
Old 27-09-2017, 07:18 PM
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Ah ok... it doesn't accept an invalid date (i.e. month >12 or day number > 28/29/30/31). if you try it just sticks to what it had before.
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  #25  
Old 28-09-2017, 06:48 PM
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JimsShed (Jim)
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You're doing everything right, so this has to be a DOA. Don't torture yourself and just ring Bintel to get it fixed or replaced.
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  #26  
Old 29-09-2017, 10:51 AM
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3 words: Return To Bintel
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  #27  
Old 06-10-2017, 04:13 PM
Wavytone
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Bintel are swapping it for a new (known good) one. Now there's service !
Something to be said for buying locally when it involves complex electronics.
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  #28  
Old 14-12-2017, 07:48 PM
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The Mekon (John Briggs)
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To keep this thread going......

Three nights ago I was aligning my EQ6. Using three star alignment the first attempt was successful, but ended up not putting the targets in the field of a 100x power eyepiece - they were not that far off but not good enough for me. No problems, this often happens as I never use a cross hair to align.
So I park the scope & try the alignment again - not sure what happened but it slewed towards the first alignment star Sirius and ended up around 15 degrees off! Same thing happened with the second alignment star - and so on. After a few attempts I gave up and reset the whole system. Still no joy - the scope was around 15 degrees out on it's initial slewing which is just crazy as my portable pier is always very close to the pole. Gave up and observed without GoTo.

Next night tried again. Exactly the same problem, despite correct day, time, position etc, initial slew was around 15 degrees out.

Sat down and thought for a while. Set scope to "Park." position. Then scrolled through to "show position" Lo and behold - position shown was at dec 74 degrees south when it should have read 90S when in "park." Tried to figure out how this had happened, and how to fix it.

Reset to Factory default - mount showed 90S in parked position. all fixed.

No idea what caused this error to creep in to the "park" position parameters - can anyone suggest a reason?
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  #29  
Old 14-12-2017, 08:44 PM
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If it becomes repeatable you have a fault, pure and simple.

I get the feeling that at the factory SW merely power up each mounts and press a few buttons to see if it slews in each direction, and that’s considered ok.

Clearly from my experience they do not check that a polar alignment actually work using known coordinates of reference stars at a known date and time, and that a GOTO does go to the correct position accurately for a defined object/date/time.

I’m also sceptical about the use of the “secondary encoders”; why would you ever disable them if they actually worked as advertised ? That there is a setting to disable them suggests a hardware issue, or a defect in the firmware that they never quite sorted out.
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  #30  
Old 15-12-2017, 05:04 AM
AndrewJ
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Gday Wavy
Quote:
I’m also sceptical about the use of the “secondary encoders”; why would you ever disable them if they actually worked as advertised ?
They are actually quite coarse ( ie only accurate to about 4-6 arcmins ) and arent designed to be the "real" definition of position, like in other encoder based mounts. They appear to be designed for people who want to simply declutch and rubberneck without losing alignment, vs do "accurate" pointing and tracking.
Horses for courses
Andrew
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  #31  
Old 15-12-2017, 05:54 AM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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I would agree with that (Using the secondary encoders to keep track of position through manual moves) but they seem to work very well at it.

On the nights I have bothered to do the alignment carefully (Mine is the Orion version and I mostly use it in Alt Az) I regularly declutch and manually point, it was one of my primary reasons for buying the mount. I have not picked up any notable loss of pointing or tracking precision over a night of doing so.
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  #32  
Old 15-12-2017, 08:06 AM
AndrewJ
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Gday Paul

Quote:
but they seem to work very well at it.
Until they get damaged or covered in grot :-)
The EQ8 encoders are very "environmentally" exposed and there are lots of reports of damage to them. Not so much the EQ5/6 versions
When not damaged, they work well for their purpose, but for users who use EQMod and want to know "exactly" where they are, it can be iffy, even with good encoders, as the encoders can arbitrarily change your current "reported" position during even std tracking, when the tolerances of the encoder output exceed the software limits.
I have lots and lots of evidence of that happening.

Andrew
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