My control box made a frazzle sound and I smelt burning inside. The light still works and the autostar works, but no movement in the motor.
I'm shattered as I only bought the mount recently and there is no way I can't buy a new one. I suppose the question is........is it kaput..do I need to scrap it to the bin and out the scope away for god knows how long. Could it be just a burnt chip...can I buy a new control box....is there life on mars? I'm devastated
Andrew
I'm pretty sure the hand control is fine......it's more the computer control panel that everything plugs into.
I'll be pulling the box off the mount when I get home to check the circuit board to see what has been fried. I have no idea about electronics.
If it is fried I hope I can send it somewhere to get it fixed, or perhaps buy a replacement computer control panel.
I've just spent a couple of weeks setting the mount up and I got the goto pretty close.....now this has happened and it's like a kick in the guts.
Most likely the transistors or IC's in the output stage are burned.
As suggested earlier, contact the vendor. I am pretty sure it can be repaired, as long as the processor still works OK (and this seems to be the case with yours).
If not, then contact North Group from Nainjing (manufacturer, contact person is Gilman - it is ~200US$ to replace the whole controller and motors).
See here: http://northgroup.en.made-in-china.c...ope-Mount.html
Talk to Bintel about it. They may be able to fix it. They have lots of no how and contacts.
Meade boards have lots of 10uf 25v tantalums that seem to blow from time to time causing the familiar burnt noise and smell. This often fuses the track which causes the shut down. The fused track can be bypassed after the capacitor is changed.
So, you fried something (tantalum caps or transistors) when reversing polarity?
It would be a good idea to place the diode in series to prevent situations like this (it can happen to anyone, BTW..)
lxd 55 control box burnt
