Buck's Drive Tune-Up
for 8", 10" and 12" Meade LX200 ACF or LX200R and newer 7", 8", 10" and 12" Meade  and LX200GPS

DO NOT BUY THIS UPGRADE if you own a 7", 8", 10" or 12" Meade LX200GPS manufactured BEFORE August 2005 - Your scope has plastic gears and need the Buck's Gears kit.   

This upgrade is intended for  scopes manufactured after August 2005 when Meade started using precision brass transfer gears in the drive train.   The upgrade is actually a Buck's Gears kit without the gears!  

About 40% of the of the improvement associated with Buck's Gears is due to the precision gears themselves.  And the newer scopes that Meade has been shipping with precision brass transfer gears (in place of plastic gears) have effected this same improvement.   The remaining 60% of the Buck's Gears kit improvement is what you achieve with Buck's Drive Tune-Up.

This tune-up kit further increases the precision of your drives through a series of adjustments that Meade's assembly line did not take the time to optimize or simply cannot make.  No one step will take your scope all the way to 1 or 2 arc-second tracking performance, but this tune-up is the largest single mechanical step that you can take in this direction.

Installation of this kit will:

1)  improve the drive precision in both RA and DEC drives, reducing or eliminating transfer gear backlash. 

 2) correct other misaligned drive components, improving drive precision and eliminating the chance of incurring drive damage due to this misalignment.

3) eliminate the tendency of the gears to loosen on their axle, due to use of a larger securing bolt capable of much higher locking torque.

4) - if installed before the scope sees much use - allow you to detect conditions where extended use will seriously damage the scope, rendering the drive/drives inaccurate.  We're always hearing back from folks who've discovered loose screws or stripped screws, extra pieces of metal floating around in the gear grease, gears that are only cogging (touching tip of tooth to tip of tooth) instead of meshing, drives that are misadjusted, etc.    

The kit consists of detailed step-by-step photo illustrated instructions for the declination and the azimuth drives, plus special gear grease, wrenches and parts to correct those scopes where the gears do not mesh closely but are only touching tooth tip to tooth tip in a cogging kind of action.

Buck Harley developed the first precision metal transfer gears and worked out most of the development problems strictly on his own for the good of the astronomical community.  He offered his gear design to PE Corp. with no compensation to himself simply because of our distribution ability and our experience with this type of a kit.  This Drive Tune-Up kit encompasses the tune up knowledge that Buck and Peterson Engineering picked up while developing the gears.

Although the instructions provided are crystal clear, this tune-up is slightly more complex than the installation of the EZ Focus kit or the EZ Clutch kit.  If you had trouble with either of our other kits, or if you consider yourself to be a klutz, please either do not buy this kit or arrange for someone else to perform the tune-up for you.

$39.99 plus postage


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User comment:

Yahoo LX200GPS user group message 103854: I have just installed Buck's Gears on my 12" LX200GPS. Going through the adjustment process with the installation and using PEMPro to set my backlash has worked wonders for my backlash problems. I believe that you can purchase just the adjustment instructions for the RA and DEC gears if you already have metal gears in your LX200R. I highly recommend CCDWare and PEMPro for tuning an LX200 (collimation, PEC, Backlash).

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Email:
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What do our customers say?

From Utah: I have enjoyed your products, and feel that they have made significant improvement to my scope.  In addition, they have greatly increased my comfort level in working with the scope, as so much of the mystery of the insides is revealed now.  Prior to working on my scope with your upgrades, it just had too much of the ‘magic box’ feel, and I was always worried about breaking something.  Being a ‘tinkerer’ by nature, your kits have added a completely different aspect to my enjoyment of the hobby.

If you have a concern regarding your Meade warrantee with the use of this kit, click here.

Peterson Engineering Corporation
Sky Division
405 New Meadow Road
Barrington, RI 02806

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