Mirror lock down on 8" GPS LX200

How far to the right and left should the knob turn before you know it is locked down? Can you see when the electronic focus is working (moving in and out) Nothing seems to focus correctly until I focus manually.
Any help would be appreciated!

Anthony,
Concerning the focus lock: Turning the focus lock to the right until it stops, unlocks it. Turn it to the right until you feel a positive stop. I suppose you could force it to keep turning, (which would damage it) but you should feel a definite stop. To lock the focus you turn it to the left until you feel an increase in friction. There is no definite stop on locking, just a gradual increase in resistance to turning. The number of turns to the left required to lock varies GREATLY from scope to scope. Some scopes require 5 turns; some require 10 to 20 turns to lock. Meade quality control and the variation in tolerances from scope to scope vary widely. Any how, you will not feel a definite stop as you do in the unlocking mode. Do not over tighten the lock or it WILL break or bend the mechanism and a trip back to Meade will be required. Unless you are imaging you do not need to use the focus lock and since inadvertently focusing with the lock on can damage the focusing mechanism I strongly advise against using the lock on a routine basis. Practically none of the above information is in the manual.

The electronic focus travel is only ½ inch, so you must coarse focus manually, and then fine focus electrically. As you activate the electric focuser you will see the tube at the rear of the focuser move in and out slowly, unless it is bottomed out in one direction or the other. If you don’t see any movement then try the other direction. Once you see movement then run it in that direction until it stops. Then run it in the opposite direction for about ¼ inch and stop so it will be in the middle of its operation range. Now you are set up to coarse focus manually and then fine focus electrically. Some of the above information is in the manual.

Anthony, I strongly advise you join the Yahoo, Meade LX200GPS forum. The Meade instruction manual sucks. Not only is it poorly written it is just plain lacking basic need to know LX200GPS specific information. The old Classic LX200 manual is several orders of magnitude better. Apparently Meade is thinking every one that buys a LX200GPS is upgrading ???? from a classic LX200, or maybe they just screwed up and wrote a lousy manual for the GPS model. Personaly I think they were in a big hurry. Who knows? At any rate you need to join the Yahoo group. You can thank your lucky stars that the Yahoo LX200GPS group is one of the best groups going, with some really experienced hands and apparently lots of time to help out the poor schmucks that find themselves Beta testing Meade’s new scope.

If you got a good working scope you will really enjoy it.

By the way all of the above information is just my opinion and is worth every cent that it cost you ;o)

Have fun!

Bob Lautner