FYI re. synscan hand controllers

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

The hand controller on my HEQ5Pro died the other week.
And during the process of trying to get it going again, I thought I should try a firmware update. I upgraded the firmware on my SW goto dobbie while I was at it.
And then this light globe appeared above my head. I swear, I was almost blinded by it's light. LOL Seeing how they both use the same firmware, I thought, I might see if the Dobs hand controller will work on the HEQ5Pro. And surprise surprise it did.
I thought should share this with you all, just in case you are ever caught in the same situation.

[LewisM]

As far as I know, and I may be wrong, ALL Synscans are the same.

Cannot say the same about the iOptron controllers.

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

Was that the latest firmware 3.35 or something, Jeanette? I was going to go that for my Teletrack and the HEQ5Pro.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

That's right Andrew The update went very smoothly. Someone gave me a link to a Youtube clip showing exactly what to do as I was a bit nervous about doing it. Didn't want to end up with two dead controllers
.
Lewis, the Goto dobbie hand controller has a different size lead going into the mount and had Alt Az stamped on the front of it.
One would assume that an Alt Az controller wouldn't be able to control an EQ mount correctly.

[LewisM]

I don't think it matters JJJ - in the end, it's all a set of RA and Dec coordinates. So long as it gets there The motors will be given the ame commands, just the geometry of how they are arranged and what they push is different.

[Steffen]

I believe as of hand controller firmware version 3.something both EQ and Alt-Az mounts are supported by the same firmware.

EDIT – Found it:

A SynScan hand control with a firmware version 3.32 or later supports both an equatorial mount and an alt-azimuth mount. It is able to detect the model of the mount to which it connects and select the appropriate operation mode accordingly.

Cheers
Steffen.

[LewisM]

There we go! Thanks Steffen.

[Forgey (Paula)]

Thanks for the heads up