Meade LX-80 How much is too much?Posted By Gary Flowers |
Hello all,
I pre ordered an LX-80 mount from OPT in CA. last November. I finally received it on September 4th 2012! I was excited as it arrived in great shape cosmetically. However I soon realized it had issues. First off the Declination circle ( Glued on somehow) was off when set to "0" degrees in the home postion for EQ mode. I would say by eyeing it closely, it was maybe 2.5-3 degrees off from being parallel to the mount:-(......not good... Anyhow, I took it out for a test drive having set it up correctly for EQ mode the next night. The goto was OK for a first time alignment. However, at one point, the new Audio star controller went black, the flickered off and on again for a few seconds. Very strange. It worked for another two objects at witch point it stopped on an object and would not slew out of that position no matter what other object I selected and hit GoTo. After which point I packed it up for the night as I was getting frustrated and the weather wasn't great. The next day I decided to train the drives per the instructions in the manual. However, when I went to set the mount in Alt/AZ home position, the marker for alt/az when in the home position was off also by about 5 degrees! At that point I called Meade and was hung up on! Twice mind you, before I could arrange shipping back to Meade and return of the mount. Well I got my replacement LX-80 mount from meade today. Guess what, the tripod box arrived bent in on the side, when I opened the outer box the inner box was bent in also. I heard also as I carried the tripod box in a rolling and rattling going on inside. Yep, the tripod spreader locking nut was loose inside the box, and being aluminum, it rolled up and down the tripod legs causing faint scratches on the new shinny legs. Also my supposedly new mount head, although shipped in a different box, came with a significant number of marks and one 1/4" scratch right on the left front of the mount near the LX-80 logo! To top it off checking both axis's it seems that this mount is off in both declination again ( Same amount) and also it has the same degree of error in the AZ home position. I haven't tested it outside yet, but I'm angry at this point and need some calm advice as to what I should do. Am I expecting too much as far as quality from Meade? Shouldn't a new mount appear new and not all scratched up? Oh did I mention it also has a bit of rust on the counterweight bar where it was marred in the black finish in two, granted smalish areas. So what say you, it was too late today to call Meade about it. Should I suck it up in the price range and hope it works well electronically? Or should I call Meade tomorrow and try for mount number 3? Any advice would help. Thanks.....New to Meade and not liking the experience so far....
Gary
I pre ordered an LX-80 mount from OPT in CA. last November. I finally received it on September 4th 2012! I was excited as it arrived in great shape cosmetically. However I soon realized it had issues. First off the Declination circle ( Glued on somehow) was off when set to "0" degrees in the home postion for EQ mode. I would say by eyeing it closely, it was maybe 2.5-3 degrees off from being parallel to the mount:-(......not good... Anyhow, I took it out for a test drive having set it up correctly for EQ mode the next night. The goto was OK for a first time alignment. However, at one point, the new Audio star controller went black, the flickered off and on again for a few seconds. Very strange. It worked for another two objects at witch point it stopped on an object and would not slew out of that position no matter what other object I selected and hit GoTo. After which point I packed it up for the night as I was getting frustrated and the weather wasn't great. The next day I decided to train the drives per the instructions in the manual. However, when I went to set the mount in Alt/AZ home position, the marker for alt/az when in the home position was off also by about 5 degrees! At that point I called Meade and was hung up on! Twice mind you, before I could arrange shipping back to Meade and return of the mount. Well I got my replacement LX-80 mount from meade today. Guess what, the tripod box arrived bent in on the side, when I opened the outer box the inner box was bent in also. I heard also as I carried the tripod box in a rolling and rattling going on inside. Yep, the tripod spreader locking nut was loose inside the box, and being aluminum, it rolled up and down the tripod legs causing faint scratches on the new shinny legs. Also my supposedly new mount head, although shipped in a different box, came with a significant number of marks and one 1/4" scratch right on the left front of the mount near the LX-80 logo! To top it off checking both axis's it seems that this mount is off in both declination again ( Same amount) and also it has the same degree of error in the AZ home position. I haven't tested it outside yet, but I'm angry at this point and need some calm advice as to what I should do. Am I expecting too much as far as quality from Meade? Shouldn't a new mount appear new and not all scratched up? Oh did I mention it also has a bit of rust on the counterweight bar where it was marred in the black finish in two, granted smalish areas. So what say you, it was too late today to call Meade about it. Should I suck it up in the price range and hope it works well electronically? Or should I call Meade tomorrow and try for mount number 3? Any advice would help. Thanks.....New to Meade and not liking the experience so far....
Gary
