Celestron Firmware Manager Updated?

[dolbs]

I recently pruchased a Celestron CGE pro as an upgrade to my CGE mount which did a great job. What I liked was the all star polar alignment feature of the CGE. Can you imagine that after all these years Celestron still don't consider the southern hemisphere and consequently the all star alignment on the CGE Pro fails. Celestron says they aware of the problem and maybe they have fixed it as the other night I tried to ungrade the firmware using the latest - hmm that's not correct, the CFM available from the web. When ran it it updated itself to a new version not yet available on the web. Unfortunately my PC usb/serial port adapter has lost its driver so I couldn't connect.
Has anyone received an update as well and if so have the fixed the bugs?

thanks
John

[dolbs]

I just tried to use the updated CFM which subsequently crashed my han controller saying that packag was corrupt. Now I have an error of Bootloader Package error:040 Recommend you don't use this version of CFM at the moment. Ive contacted Celestron by email, awaiting a solution

[Rod771]

Hi John

Re CFM, I recommend you join the Team Celestron beta testing forum. You will receive a quicker response there and usually from their firmware engineer himself.

http://teamcelestron.com (http://teamcelestron.com/index.php)

Your right about their apparent lack of regard for the southern hemisphere. I have raised two issues with them in the past.

One - A lack of compatibility of their OAG and .x7 HD focal reducer, an issue which would affect there sales globally. The problem was dealt swiftly with Celestron releasing a new adapter to the market.

Two - The southern All star polar alignment error. I reported the error on the 28th April 2013 via the Team celestron forum and via their normal support. The bug has still not been fixed. Many other frustrated Nextar + HC users from other countries have chimed into my thread on Team Celestron but after 14 months we have recently been advised to write a formal letter of complaint to Celestrons head office. It seems Celestron managers dont regard the issue as high priority and keep the firmware engineer on projects that safeguard their sales in "other parts of the world"

It's only the Nexstar + hand control that is effected. The older Legacy hand control will work. Others have demanded the older HC from retailers which work.

Cheers

Rod

[dolbs]

Rod

Thanks for the advice. I just sold my olf CGE which had a working all star alignment function. It worked okay but was difficult to adjust the mount. This was one driving reason why I bought the CGE Pro. Apparently you can use the all star function if you boot from Nexremote, but that raises its own issues as it is not easy to align using Nexremote, but once up and runningit's okay. Will join the Team celestron now.

Thanks for the info

John