Once the alcohol has evaporated completely, place the keypad and board back in the frame, taking care to not trap the ribbon.

My contacts were dirty enough that it took about four tries on each button.

It may take several passes until you don’t get much dirt on the swab.

Wet some swabs with alcohol and gently rub the black buttons.

Now tackle the rubber buttons themselves.

Notice how dirty the S13 and S11 contacts are to the left and right of the eraser:

You may see the contacts brighten a little if the contacts are really dirty.

Be careful with the small white LED between each set of contacts.

Use light pressure and only a few wipes.

Use the eraser to gently clean the button contacts.

Handle it only on the edges to prevent damage to the board from static and skin oils.

Remove the board from the frame and keypad, then flip it over.

You can gently clean the contacts with a swab and alcohol, but don’t rub and don’t clean for very long.

Examine the contacts on the cable for damage and dirt.

The cable should slide freely out of the connector.

To remove the ribbon cable, gently lift the tabs towards the display, which will release the cable.

The one on this board isn’t damaged by pulling it apart and in fact, it fell apart as I was reassembling the unit, but some versions will break and become unusable.

The connector is also rather delicate and can be pulled apart if you use too much force.Handle the ribbon only by the edge so the oils of your skin don’t touch the ink. These cables are very thin, with contacts made of conductive ink that can be damaged easily.Before you work on it, here are a few warnings. The next step is to remove the delicate ribbon cable.Take care to not lose the red window at the top of the controller and be sure the board stays in the front of the controller.

Remove the screws on the back of the controller.These instructions are for the Autostar I but will generally apply to most hand controllers with rubber buttons.A set of small screw drivers to open the case.Since the primary failed and the supply dried up, I needed to work on the spare to get it working. The older models are failing (as all electronics will eventually) and Meade is currently out of stock thanks to a supply issue. There is one problem with Autostars and they are rare and expensive these days. The other makes have caught up, but since I have several Meade scopes, I guess I’ll stick with them. I like the Autostars because they have features that (at the time) were not found on competing lines of telescopes. My telescope is a Meade ETX-125 using an Autostar I controller.

Meade autostar 2 controller