One of the most annoying things about the ETX125 is that Meade no longer makes an electric focuser for it. JMI makes one for it, but IMO, it's just too expensive. My solution to this problem is to buy the Meade #1244 electric focuser for the ETX90 or ETX105 (which costs between $30 to $50 on ebay) and cannibalize its parts to make a new focuser for the ETX125.
I took all the parts of the #1244 sans case, made a new case and installed it on my ETX125. See the results in the photo below. Everything fits and now I have a professional looking focuser for my ETX125.
In the above photo,
- (a) shows the arrangement of the gears and circuit board that have been cannibalized from the #1244 and installed in their new case.
- (b) shows the focuser installed on my ETX125. One improvement that I have made is that the control cable now comes out in the direction towards the user rather than in the opposite direction.
- focuser_case The stl file that can be sent to a 3D printer or to Shapeways for manufacture is found here.
- focuser_source The source code written in Openscad is found here.
- howto My instructions for assembling the focuser.
- pics Image files for this repository.
- bom the spreadsheet that shows parts needed and the cost for building one focuser.
All the documentation and pictures that I have here is copyright 2016 C.Y. Tan and released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
The case design is copyright 2016 C.Y. Tan and released under the CERN Open Hardware License v1.2
All software is released under GPLv3.