de-forking a Meade LX200 12″ ACF

[Ken Whight]

I am thinking of mounting my 2008 vintage Meade LX200 12″ ACF on a modern harmonic drive mount e.g. Warpastron WD-20. Has anybody done something similar and is there any advice “out there” about the wisdom and process of doing this?
Regards
Ken Whight

[Peter Carson]

Hi Ken,
Several years ago, I de-forked a 10″ LX200, attached a long Losmandy plate using Losmandy saddle fixings, and used it on a Losmandy G11 mount. That was easy to do and performed much better than the Meade fork mount. I even sold the redundant Meade fork mount for spares as it was no longer functioning.

I’ve no experience of a Warpastron harmonic mount apart from saying you need to be very careful about balance, not because of the mount’s function but because it could fall over due to off-axis loading. I would suggest that most mounts should not be loaded more than 50% of the manufacturer’s max load figures for good, smooth operation.

Good luck
Peter Carson

[Martin Mobberley]

Hi Ken,

Many years ago I de-forked a 12″ LX200 SCT (1997 model). My solution was a bodge, but it did work, but was only stable enough for planetary imaging/visual work.
My solution was complicated by my desire to fit the system into an existing shed which was really too narrow for such a setup..
The main issue was the sheer weight of the 12″ tube (as heavy as a C14) and the lack of a dovetail…
I would NOT recommend my solution for long exposure imaging, but I did write it up for the Journal….

https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/2009JBAA..119..183M/0000183.000.html

Martin
PS, for some reason the link, as pasted, stops at ‘2009JBAA’ so the rest has to be typed in manually! But it was in JBAA volume 119,4, p183-187.
I have just created a Tiny URL instead…. https://tinyurl.com/yfh4xhdj

• This reply was modified 1 day, 18 hours ago by Martin Mobberley.

[Callum Wingrove]

I’ve recently deforked a Meade 8″ LX10 which is now sitting on my HEQ5 pro for planetary observation. Will see if the HEQ5 can handle it for some DSO imaging (I got a reasonable M13 when it was on the fork though that was painful in terms of tracking). If not will put it on my AM5. The main issue with harmonic drives and these larger scopes is not necessarily the weight per se but the torque and moment arm. This is why counterweights are necessary above a certain weight, not to balance the scope but to stop the gears slipping. You will see that under claims for the weight the adverts will often state something about x cm from the RA axis and these distances can be difficult for larger aperture scopes to fit within. I suspect that it should be possible for visual and planetary though (I’ve seen people using C11s on a bog standard AM5).

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