A snagged cable and a >>pop!<< sound, and my faithful Starlock was no more. What I've done about it since.
I'm going through the most amazing time with my equipment lately. One not-so-recent hardware failure caused by a snagged cable has made me telescope my time to acquire insights (<--- see what I did there?) about polar alignment/POLAR ALIGN in the LX850, and of guiding using a dedicated guide scope and astro guide camera.
The failure was the unrepairable damage caused to the Starlock unit. One saving grace is I did not send the unit and the main board in the mount out to the manufacturer for troubleshooting. I kept my work local and did any self-help based on knowledgeable people on reliable astronomy boards. The manufacturer suddenly shuttered and I have read some do not have their equipment back. It turns out my Starlock cannot be fixed, but the main board to my mount is safe and sound, and it works as it should.
The real grace was being forced to use easy basics to improve on the built-in handbox-based polar alignment options, and being able to learn interesting new parameters involved in non-Starlock guiding. Starlock was doing all that in a good way, but perhaps without the end user ever learning what is going on or understanding what allowances are going uncorrected as Starlock makes its adjustments.
And not to diminish the great job Starlock was doing. The end results were very acceptable in my configuration. But now unrepairable and unreplaceable, other means must be employed, and in fact those other means help enlighten the end user.
Alan
