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AndrewJ
Thanks again for the feedback. I'm afraid its a bit frustrating trying to resolve this via Internet Forums, as I only get to have the odd play with the scope at my dad's place, then post my questions / responses , but when I get an answer, I'm kilometres away from the scope! Next time I'm over there, I'll see what happens if we apply some positive tension to both ends of the cable, to really force it against the contacts at each end.
The message on the handset display is "Motor fault", not "Motor unit fault", and it happens during initial boot-up, after the firmware message. (Sorry - I forgot to check the firmware version - I'll check this on my next trip.) It will apparently stay in this state (i.e. beeping and flashing "Motor fault") indefinitely, and it doesn't reboot itself, but pressing "Enter" once or twice will clear the error message and move on the the next screen, but there is no motor control.
The flex cable seems to fit properly - it clicks in solidly at both ends (like a telephone / WAN cable), and doesn't seem to break contact if you wiggle either end while holding the handset unit. Having said that, we have noticed that once or twice if we unplug it and plug it back in, then power up, the handset won't power up, so I am leaning more and more to a faulty cable or connectors.
Once we get the "Motor fault" and beeping, hitting "Enter" once or twice clears it, and it goes on to the Menu / Alignment screen, but trying to drive the scope manually using the arrow keys achieves nothing - I've tried pressing "9" (to get the fastest slew speed) and then using the arrow keys, but there is no sign of life in the drives at all.
As an experiment - I hooked up a length of WAN cable (which has the same type of plugs at each end), but the handset didn't power up at all. I assume the Meade cable uses a different pin-to-pin wiring arrangement than a WAN cable?
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