ETX-105 FEEDBACK Last updated: 24 June 2004

Subject:	First night's experience with ETX-105
Sent:	Monday, June 21, 2004 10:06:49
From:	James Eagle (jeagle@nps.edu)
I picked up my new ETX-105 from Scope City in San Francisco yesterday. 
At the store, I fired up the electronics (your suggestion ... thanks),
did an alignment, and inspected for broken stuff.   I was also checking
for loud drive noise.    All worked OK, but I discovered a broken
plastic foot on the field tripod and a broken zipper on the tripod
storage bag ... both of which were replaced by Scope City.  (The
manufacturing quality of the bag and the hard case I purchased were not
great ... both are flimsy.)  At home the setup and alignment went fine
except I managed to hit the AZ stop several times before I realized what
was going on.  And I installed the 45-deg image inverter and managed to
hit it on the base!  Hopefully that won't happen again.  And hopefully I
didn't do any damage!  Once aligned, I was rewarded with some great
views of Jupiter, M4, Dumbbell Nebula, and Alberio.  The seeing was not
great, and Epsilon Lyra would not split with the standard 26mm eyepiece.
Assuming the telescope survived it's first night with me, I'm looking
forward to some great observing.    Thanks for the great site!    Jim

Subject:	Re: ETX 105 Power Supply
Sent:	Saturday, June 5, 2004 13:14:49
From:	Jim Beston (james.beston@btinternet.com)
I managed to find a 12 V dc, 1.2A mains transformer which seems to work
quite satisfactorily with my 105. One problem I hadwas thatit's power
jack outlet was unfortunately, and in common with every othertransformer
I have, a 2.1 mm x 5.5mm plug. The connection to the ETX is a 2.5 x 5.5
mm socket. It is of course quite easy to get adaptors via various sourcs
on the internet, but like most people when I decide I want something,I
want it yesterday!

Since all of this week I've been lucky enough to be the only person in
south-east England suffering from one of the most debilitating forms of
influenza yet to visit the U.K., I have been unable till today to do
anything about it. To-day I felt much better, soa hunt round the local
"hardware" store revealed many power suppliesall of whichcome with every
adaptor known to man. For some inexplicable reason however, the
adaptorsare not sold seperately.After some searching (mostly in the
wallet)Ipurchased a variable dcsupply (1.5 to 12 V dc at 1.5 amp) for
14. (~ $20). The supply for this device is the car cigarette lighter.
How does this resolve the original problem which was to utilise mains
power? Well, by the use of a couple of mini plugs (non-reversible to
conserve the centre-pin +ve polarity) I candetach the cigarette
lighterplug andreplace it within the 12V dc 1.2A outlet supply frommy
mains transformer.

Appart from saving me about 20 compared with the Meade products. I had
the satisfaction of creating something useful and I can now use mains
supply in the garden at home and the car's 12V dc supplywhen I take the
ETX out.

My wife is complaining that the lights in one of our display cabinets
don't work any more (guess where I got the mini-plugs from) but I was
going to replace these lightsanyway!!

Kind regards

Jim

P.S. The 105 is working a treat since I backed of the worm-drive
securing nut 1/8 turn as reccommended by Dr Clay.Planets etc in
theeyepiece now stay there and no longer exhibit a frenzied form of St
Vitus' dance!

Subject:	FW: ETX-105/Electric Focuser
Sent:	Thursday, June 3, 2004 08:50:20
From:	Brian Crane (brian.crane1@ntlworld.com)
I e_mailed the Meade people in the UK on this subject - no good.

Has anyone in the US tried Meade on this - does anyone know if they
intend to do something about an electric focuser for the 105
specifically, and to address the generic problems with the #1244 and
#1247 that I keep reading about? I've had some great advice from some of
your readers/contributors on how to modify a #1244 to fit, but I take
the view that what I buy, especially at the price, ought to work
straight out of the box, & I don't want to compromise my warranty.

If we didn't have your site, I for one would have bought one, and there
probably would be an awful lot of broken scopes out there, including
mine!!

Thanks

Brian Crane

-----Original Message-----
From: Meade sales
Sent: 02 June 2004 15:49
To: Brian Crane
Subject: RE: ETX-105/Electric Focuser


Thanks for your Email,regret no  solution available at this time.

Regards BCF.

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Crane [mailto:brian.crane1@ntlworld.com]
Sent: 02 June 2004 14:13
To: Meade sales
Subject: ETX-105/Electric Focuser

Having read much gloom on the combination of ETX-105 and the #1244
Electric Focuser, do you have a timescale for when Meade (or someone
else) will produce a satisfactory solution to the problem?

Brian Crane

Subject:	ETX 105 Power supply
Sent:	Wednesday, June 2, 2004 12:46:03
From:	Jim Beston (james.beston@btinternet.com)
Although I've been using Ni MH batteries quite successfully with my
ETX105 they do , of course, run down at the most inopportune moments!

I have a number of plug in transformers that I've accumulated for
various devices and I was wondering if one of these might be O.K for my
ETX. The one I have in mind has a 12 V dc 1Amp output with a +ve center
pin.

What do you think?

Thanks

Jim

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