[Utah-astronomy] Backlash on Meade 125 ETX out of control

21 Jul 2009

      I have recently acquired a Meade ETX 125 circa 2007-2008 model with a 497 handbox. 

The scope has a weird, wild amount of backlash that makes it unuseable. When focusing on the Moon and using the az buttons, the scope will backlash correct a good az +25mins alt +20mins - making it basically unuseable because it takes forever to center anything.  

I have: 

   1) one star aligned; 
   2) reduced the az/alt percents (not the ratios) from 50% to 1%; and, 
   3) use the scope in alt/az mode. 

I have not: 
   1) Trained the drive motors. 

How should I approach correcting this? Where is the backlash option the handset?  On a Celestron, it's fairly straight forward. 

Any tips would be appreciated. 

- Canopus56