Power Supply

[AndrewJ]

Gday Johnno

The old "batteries and duration" is a perennial question with Meade scopes and their advertising blurb.
You can even run an RCX with C cells ( and it has a built in Dewheater )
Guess how long they last.

The fact they have "internal" batteries helps sell scopes based on their "portability", but most people ditch them within a few tries ( if they are doing any duration of observing ) and get a jumpstart battery instead.
A 7.5AHr battery will keep an ETX going for a long time
and is easily recharged
8 rechargeables in an ETX only put out about 10V,
so unless you buy fresh AAs each time ( not cheap ),
your performance drops.

Anyway, for all things ETX, i suggest you go here
http://www.weasner.com/etx/menu.html
if you havent already.
Best resource on the web re Meade ETXs.

Andrew

PS When Nightsky gets more hooked, and wants to stay out all night,
the 2.5A unit will allow him to run a small dewstrap on the ETX as well
( which you cant do with internal batteries )

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

Hey Nightsky!

This power supply of yours is causing a bit of fun!

I tried rechargeables initially and they were rubbish - I never realised that they only ran at 1.2v each, so I was only getting 9.6v out of 8 of the little suckers!

Hope you're getting the hang of the goto,

AJ

[johnno]

Hi Andrew,

You are quite right,Thats why I mentioned "you can take that with a grain of salt"

Most advertising,I have ever seen,tends to "overstate",the REAL,specs a little,
OK a LOT

I hope Nightsky,does get a suitable power supply,I am sure he will enjoy his scope a great deal more.

All the Best.
Regards.
John

[nightsky]

I bought the power supply from Jaycar as recommend by Andrew as that one suited my needs as stated previously in this forum, I started to use it tonight Wed and it didn't work I tried everything I could think off to get the power going, then I give up, was not getting anywhere fast, so I sent Andrew a private msg asking for help,as he had the same scope as me EXT 125 and he set me straight on what to do, I had only one of the power leads from the scope connected to the power adapter , plus I had the polarity wrong. So I just wanted to thank everyone for there input, I'm all set for viewing the sky again after a 10 year break Thanks again for your help everyone. The saga has now ended
Clear skies

[RAJAH235]

That's good news. Now can we please close this thread or just let it die..... L...... Are you dead yet? ....

[nightsky]

Originally Posted by RAJAH235

That's good news. Now can we please close this thread or just let it die..... L...... Are you dead yet? ....

YES IF IT PLEASES YOU WHATEVER, BUT IT MAY HELP SOMEONE ELSE IN THE FUTURE, BESIDE I DON'T KNOW HOW TO CLOSE A THREAD, AND WHILE YOUR AT IT CLOSE THE "BUYING A NEW TELESCOPE" AS WELL, WHATEVER TURNS!! YOU ON. JUST CURIOUS, ARE YOU IN CHARGE OF THREADS!!

[casstony]

Nightsky, I think Rajah's post was meant to be a friendly gibe, though it's very easy to misinterpret the written word. You should fearlessly post any question you have. There are many lurkers here and someone is sure to benefit from the thread.
-Tony

[cjmarsh81]

Originally Posted by casstony

You should fearlessly post any question you have. There are many lurkers here and someone is sure to benefit from the thread.
-Tony

Agreed.

[Dennis]

Yep - I've learned a lot from the very knowledgeable folks on IIS who answered Nightsky’s original question, but then also went further to share their broader knowledge – thanks guys, much appreciated.

Cheers

Dennis

[RAJAH235]

Nightsky, there was no offence meant, sorry if I did 'word it wrongly'.
I do not have the ability to 'close a thread', I was just hoping that the saga had finally ended.
I'm glad that so many got something out of it tho.
L.