Tuesday, August 24, 2010

fix Erich's motor

Repaired Erich's Skywatcher declination motor jack.

I found a nearly equivalent 6-pin, 4-conductor RJ-11 jack at Sayal Electronics in Mississauga. It is slightly taller than the original.

Desoldered and removed the 2 broken pins from the PCB. Vacuumed the board. Cut the outside pins from the base of the new plug. Cut the plastic mounting pins, as they did not match the PCB holes. Slotted the new jack into the board and soldered 'er up.

Erich had provided the hand controller for testing. Fired it up at 8x. It worked.

So, overall, a quick repair. It still cries out for a redesign. But that would require a re-think and some time and effort. Not surprisingly, I found that others over at Cloudy Nights have been thinkin' the same thing.

In the meantime, this needs to be glued to the board...

Phoned Erich to arrange a drop-off.

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