New Meade LX80 and LX800 scopes coming this year

[Fox]

Originally Posted by AndrewJ

Gday Fox
You assume correctly.

The 497 has 1MB of total memory for code, data and "user stuff"
64k of this is allocated for "user stuff" and the rest is full to the brim.
The 497EP/Audiostars have 2Mb of total memory
128k of this is allocated for "user stuff"
There actually is a lot of free space left in the 497EP but its not made available for user data.
Andrew

Thanks Andrew, that very helpful info for me. At least 128k is better than 64k. I enjoy writing my own tours using Astroplanner. It's sad isn't, in this day and age of gigabytes and terabytes, that the #497 is so far behind on memory, but I guess that's a legacy that the board design must be so old and they don't want to invest in making a new one. Fox

[Osirisra (Ken)]

Originally Posted by FlashDrive

I've been looking for some " larger " pics ... so as to try and get a " better " look at them.

Just want to share them. ... credit to the original posters.

Flash

Nice work Flash

There hasn't been any good shots of the LX80 mount...

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

Found these to share also.

credit to the original posters.

Flash

[AndrewJ]

Gday Fox

I enjoy writing my own tours using Astroplanner. It's sad isn't, in this day and age of gigabytes and terabytes, that the #497 is so far behind on memory, but I guess that's a legacy that the board design must be so old and they don't want to invest in making a new one.

Actually, the 497EP and Audiostars ARE totally new boards, with later generation CPUs and memory, gold flashed contacts and all SMT chippies. However, they are still designed to a price
( as they get sold with the cheapest Meade Dept store scopes )
and have to be backwards compatible with all the prev Meade scope models. They could have done a better job for sure, but they did a low cost code migration to the new CPUs hence all the old code limits have simply flowed over to the new Hbxs.
It would be possible to patch them to allow for more user space,
but you would need to send me a case of Grange for that
Also, if you do get a 497EP or Audiostar to get that extra bit of memory,
you will have to use my PEC editor to load the data
as the Meade ASU doesnt work with these new Hbxs.

Andrew

[GrampianStars (Rob)]

Originally Posted by TrevorW

An alternative and cheaper and possible better than the LX800

http://www.astronomy.hu/ENG/g53f_eng.html

Nice mount Mmmmmm...YES
about $ 10K Au delivered but....
LX800 around $7K delivered

[Harpspitfire]

i was looking over the meade site, and was reading about the warranties and repair service, i didnt like what i was reading, so when i upgrade, this LX80 isnt one of them