Synscan Hand Controller

[stevenc77]

I have just tried to update my synscan hand controller firmware and now all of a sudden the controller will not even turn on. During the installation of the new firmware version the process stopped and since then nothing. I've heard something about damaging the computer in the hand controller. What is going on here????????????????

[jinxsta]

Hi Stevenc77, how did you try to update the firmware via serial port or usb to serial cable adapter as some of the adapters are a problem. I had trouble at first on both my laptop and home pc with adapter but on another machine with the adapter it worked fine. home pc running xp with with sp2 and the machine it worked on had xp sp3 if I remember correctly and the laptop had vista premium which has since been given the flick and xp put on, and I downloaded the latest uploader and 3.22 synscan firmware.

[stevenc77]

I connected via the usb adapter, and the synscan hand controller is saying update v1.3 when I press 0 and 8 at startup . When I plug into the HEQ5 Pro mount the hand controller does not even register. I have only now just become aware of version 1,2 and 3 of these controllers. I just went to the latest update and tried to install that, not knowing about other versions (where in the manual was that????). I tried the lo setting but it still says that the transfer to the hand controller will take some time, but eventually fails. Is there a way I can just reset the hand controller to a factory setting and forget about all this. Please help, I am dying to get my scope out this weekend as I had a ball last night with it! Steve.

[jinxsta]

There is a factory settings in the start up menu after you plug in power and go through initial startup its under setup mode - enter - and then the triangle keys on the botton will cycle through the menus to factory settings. thats the only thing I have seen.
The uploader and firmware I used was from here http://www.skywatchertelescope.net/s...1=1&class2=101
my hand controller did the same thing till I found a computer it was happy with.

[westsiderailway]

I upgraded my Hand Controller with my desktop , the usb-serial did not need a driver as the desktop is running Vista Ultimate, upgraded without a problem.

Not sure about this , but, i think you may need to go through the versions, as my "HC" was allready on version #3.

Tried using the converter on my laptop, running XPsp3 and it needed a driver, which i had to hunt around for.

[Starman73]

Hello,

I have an EQ6 Pro mount and it has the v3.12 firmware I think, if I want to update it, do I have to go through all of the updates, or can I just jump to the latest one?

I havent updated it yet because I have been to worried about blowing up the hand controller, I am a little unsure if I can use to power supply I have to power the mount on the hand controller alone. I am not very good when it comes to electronics so I got a little confused when the manual starts talking about milliamps to run the handcontroller verses 2 amps to run the mount, I think thats what it says, going from memory at the moment and thats like a sieve.

Thanks for your help, and I am hoping that my desktop running XP with a genuine serial port will work just fine with the data transfer and that I won't need the advice that has already been given out.

Paul