Jack,

The individual optical fibers are not mission critical, and breaking one or ten of them will not disable any important aspect of the keypad. While it is good to be careful, you would not notice if a few strands snapped when using the illuminated buttons. In addition, you can simply pop the little rubber caps off of the LED lights and move the fiber bundles freely. They have a full 180 degree range of motion. If you don’t pop the rubber caps off of the LEDs, you would end up having to weave the battery wires through two bundles of optical fibers; a task I wouldn’t wish on anybody.  

As the technician that works on keypad repairs every week, I used to be very very careful. Eventually I learned that they are less delicate than I thought. These days I can fly through the repairs much faster, and still have yet to break a fiber optic by accident. The most important part is to make sure that the rubber caps get back onto the LED bulbs securely.  

I hope this helps with the next time.

Liam Plybon

George,

I just wish a little more thought had gone into the design and engineering of the keypad.  Placing the battery and its connection to the PCB below all those optical fibers should have been avoided.  As a 40+ year mechanical engineer, I have seen many situations where I wish the engineer who designed systems was forced to work on them afterwards.  Like having to remove valve covers to replace spark plugs on a motor.  Or having to remove the transmission to get at the starter mounted next to the torque converter. 

I was worried the whole time I was working on the simple battery replacement that I would damage one of those fine optical fibers.  And then when I went to close up the keypad, the optical fibers would not lay flat and kept trying to get between the case and one of the red plastic standoffs.  I ended up getting a piece of cardboard about the size of an emery board, laying it over the optical fibers to hold them down, placing the cover over the 6 screws, starting to tighten them and then slowly sliding the cardboard out from the case. 

At least next time, I will know what to expect.

Yours truly,

Jack

Jack Huerkamp

Jack's Astro Accessories, LLC

38388 Pine Street

Pearl River, LA 70452-5192

985-445-5063

mallincamusa@...

www.mallincamusa.com

30.37N  89.76W

All of us get lost in the darkness.
Dreamers learn to steer by the stars.

………………………………….Neil Peart

Jack,

I’m pleased that it worked out well.   Enjoy!

George,

I guess I got lucky!  I received the replacement battery and, using the instruction downloaded from the AP website, I was able to access the battery.  I did manage to disconnect the old one, fish the wires under the fiber optics and get it plugged in.  Then when trying to secure the battery in its holder, I noticed that the connector had dislodged.  I figure that there wasno battery power for over 30 seconds, but when I got the keypad back together and tried it, it appears that the Messier and NGC databases were not lost.

I connected the mount to SkyTools, did a slew to the Sun and that was fine.  Then I used the keypad to go to M33 and then NGC 7814.  In each case the crosshairs moved onto the targets on the atlas, so it appears that all is fine with the keypad. 

I will know for sure the next time I get to use the mount.  Once the keypad battery issue was accomplished, I started removing all the scopes from the mount to tackle the regreasing of the RA and Dec gearboxes – another long overdo maintenance issue.

Yours truly,

Jack

Jack Huerkamp

Jack's Astro Accessories, LLC

38388 Pine Street

Pearl River, LA 70452-5192

985-445-5063

mallincamusa@...

www.mallincamusa.com

30.37N  89.76W

All of us get lost in the darkness.
Dreamers learn to steer by the stars.

………………………………….Neil Peart

Jeff,

You should be good for 20 to 30 seconds…no rush, but I wouldn’t go get a cup of coffee while changing the battery.   <G>

Regards,

George

George Whitney

Astro-Physics, Inc.

Phone:  815-222-6538 (direct line)

Phone:  815-282-1513 (office)

Email:  george@...