[sac-forum] Re: Looking for an ETX-90 Base

I don't have a base for you but I can share a story.  Meade service gets a real 
bad rap most of the time when I read reviews about them on-line but personally 
I got a great service from them when I had a similar experience with an ETX-60 
that I bought.  I got it for nothing else but to play with when my 10" dob's 
mirrors were getting a recoating at Spectrum Coatings which takes 30 days to 
turn-around.  Not wanting to have nothing at all to play with for that time, I 
convinced my wife to let me spend a couple bucks on Ebay for the little ETX-60. 
I found one on Ebay for under $100 including shipping, the seller said it 
worked great.  

I got it and from the get-go the thing wouldn't slew accurately at all, made 
terrible noises, and spit out "drive motor failure" error messages frequently.  
No help from the seller "Hey I told you the sale was 'as is'" is all I got 
there.  So I called Meade and they said I could send it in and they would go 
over the whole thing and get it up to speed for $75.  I figured nothing to lose 
there so I sent it in.  When Meade contacted me a few days after they received 
it they said that the base unit was fried.  And that because that model was no 
longer in production they were just going to send me a brand spankin new ETX-80 
at no extra charge, which they did.  So I received a brand new ETX-80 a week 
later that worked perfectly out of the box from the start and continues to work 
perfectly today.  I don't use it much, pretty much just take it out when I help 
the astronomy class on campus with labs and they need an extra scope, but it 
still works great about a year later. So, who knows, a call to Meade might be 
worth it just to see what they can do for you. 

David Hofland
Director, Student Services
College of Nursing and Health Sciences
Jacksonville State University
256.782.5276
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Spencer, Darrell 
  To: sac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 9:20 AM
  Subject: [sac-forum] Looking for an ETX-90 Base


  Sorry if this is inappropriate for this forum, but after picking up what I 
thought was a steal for an ETX-90AT, I find that the azimuth drive circuit is 
blown in the base.  Before going to either Meade (or eBay) I thought I'd ask if 
anyone has pulled the OTA from a base and would like to sell that base.  Needs 
to interface to Autostar #497 - and have working drive circuits.

   

  So, my grand notion of snagging a real grab-n-go (or grab-n-travel) at a 
rock-bottom price of $100 has suffered a bit of a setback.   I suspect I'm 
still doing OK as the optics, tripod and 497 are probably worth what I've got 
into it, but . . .

   

  Thanks,

  Darrell Spencer

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