[pmrid (Peter)]

The Gods can be pretty perverse can't they. I've been getting set to do some imaging of the major conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter on 21 December. Part of that involved buying a QHYCCD PoleMaster, then a ZWO ASI290MC cam then did a strip and regrease of the mount and then, to cap it all off, bought a Rowan Astronomy belt mod kit for it. You'd reckon that ought to make a flaming good portable rig to do some planetary imaging. Right? Yes. I thought so too.

I finished doing the strip and grease and installing the belt mod kit today and was horrified to receive a Synscan message that went through the usual opening screen then told me rather cryptically "Both axes, no response". Well blow me down. What an anticlimax.

I did the usual stuff; tried another handset, tried another power supply and then another power source. I even tried my Synscan WiFi dongle/device. Nope. The handset repeated the same message and the WiFi unit was not found by my IPad. So now I have this really slick, smooth and super sexy HEQ5Pro that I can't use.

Anyone had similar? Better still, anyone found a simple solution that doesn't involve spending good money experimenting and trying to find what will or won't work? A new MB I hear you say! Well, OK but strewth there must be a way to identify if that's actually the problem. And then, find out how I managed to break it in the first place.

Peter