LX200 GPS 14" Meade

[eagleclaw (Stephen)]

Hi Guy's
I was wondering how do you update the LX200, and what type of usb cable do i need to do the updating.
Regards
Steve Taylor.

[AndrewJ]

Gday Steve

The LX200s use serial comms ( rs232 ), not USB.
If you dont have a real serial port, you will need to get a USB to serial converter. The actual cable used to do the update is supplied by Meade ( as a 507 cable kit ), but you can easily make your own for about $5.
After that, you need a program that can do the updates.
Meade supply their ASU utility,
but a better ( and also free ) option is to use the StarPatch program.
http://www.stargps.ca/downloads.htm
This application is faster and more robust at getting and holding the comms port when doing updates. It also has better error checking.
If you wish to apply patches ( that fix known bugs and add enhancements ) then you really should use StarPatch anyway.
The latest rom files and patches can be downloaded from the StarPatch site, or from the files section of the Yahoo forum that specialises in the LX200s.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LX200GPS/

Lots of other LX200 specific info is in the files section of that site, so it is always worth a read.

Andrew

[PeterM]

Andrew, does updating to your latest release effect the drive training, have often wondered, if not then its time to update mine. Last done 2009. Also with the scope being parked will that need to be redone.
Thanks

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

The update was a must for mine - the Meade rom was full of bugs and the scope a dog to use. I notice there is a new version since my last update, I must give it a go...

[AndrewJ]

Gday Peter

Andrew, does updating to your latest release effect the drive training, have often wondered, if not then its time to update mine.

If you use StarPatch, then no, all drive training, PEC, location data etc is retained.
To add to that, if you dont want to patch the firmware, you can always save/write down the train values before updating ( just in case ). After updating, if the data did get corrupted, then you can always re edit the data using my PEC editor.
If you load the patch ( with the peek section at least ) then all your old/historical data can be retrieved at any time, and then you dont need to write it down.
My latest app also has a new section to do advanced drive training if reqd, but you must have the peek patch loaded for that to work.

Last done 2009. Also with the scope being parked will that need to be redone

.

As a firmware update puts you into download mode, your alignment will be destroyed. You would need to do a clean align after updating and then repark.

Andrew