LX200 help wanted

Help!

I have asked our local dealer to talk to his Meade contacts, but maybe this forum will be faster...

The issue is that the keypad (or internal computer) on a 16" LX200 now fails to finish booting. All keypad LEDs flash four times and then the word "Meade" appears in the display. The LED on the right side (by ALT) stays on. It stays like this. I tried this keypad on a 10" LX200 and everything worked fine. So it looks like something in the mount itself. (?) I checked the internal fuse and the small battery inside the base panel. (The battery still had voltage, but was it enough? Could that be the problem?)

Maybe or maybe not relevant - last week the power brick went out. No output voltage. It is really dead, so I ordered another (18V, 2A). Along the way, (because I had one) I tried a 12V battery pack (I later found out it was really putting out ~11V) and got that "Meade" startup freeze. So I used an 18V "brick" from the 10" scope because it showed the same specs (2A). It worked great, but for only one night. Now the power appears to be still working (puts out 18 volts and works fine on the 10" scope and makes lights come on for the 16"). But now I get that funny "Meade" message on the 16" when I try to start it.

Has anyone ever seen anything like this? Does anyone have any thoughts on other things to try? I don't want to really think about having to send this thing in to Meade for repairs. Please help!

Thanks,
Charlie

I am sure I have been researching this issue more than most of you and I wanted to report success.

I searched the www and found several reports of the same symptoms, but all were slightly different solutions found. I will summarize the problems found by others as "something loose inside". So my fix could be characterized by "selected jiggling", which some of you would rightly find somewhat disconcerting. I disconnected most of the cables to the main internal board. Cleaned what I could reach. (The "mother board" in the base is appallingly insecure by design!) Put everything back together and "flexed" the main cable going from the control panel to the mother board. My guess is this last bit of flexing fixed the immediate problem. Only time will tell. Thanks for thinking about the problem if you did any of that.

Charlie