Im so sorry to hear this issue about the lx90 ACFs.

I own a meade lx90 EMC, which i got in 2002. Since then it has been just short of a perfect telescope by all means.

I have NEVER heard any rattles coming from the telescope, despite having slammed it against a wall several times by accident.

I have NEVER needed to clean any of my optics, aside from a light dusting with an ear syringe.

I have never ever needed to colliminate the scope. Yes i know this might seem strange, but in all honesty i have never needed to. I have read almost all the collimination guides on the internet, and my star test at 400x or even 500x still looks like a perfect circle just as it did on day one.

I have NEVER updated the autostar software or firmware on the telescope. Heck i still didnt even buy the cable that connects autostar to a computer because why fix it if it aint broken? My year 2002 version autostar works near flawlessly in normal mode and i still havent even tried out the high precision mode.

GoTo capability is very nice, considering my telescope doesnt have any GPS, LNT, or any of that fancy stuff that the newer ones have.

All i have to do is type in the date, time, location is saved from previous observing date. I have a magnetic glass compass that i use to find true north, and i simply move the telescope down to 0 on the vertical axis. Hop over to 2 star alignment, and its all done....in under 1-2 minutes.

At first i was kinda jealous that the newer scopes have all this new LNT and gps technology, but after i realized that the difference in setup time is literally seconds - 1 minute apart, it makes no difference whatsoever.

Overall, aside from my own stupidity and noobness, the telescope is in perfect condition aside from a few scratches on the tripod legs, but who cares about that right?

My telescope was made in california before meade started doing all of its cost cutting on QA, customer service, and before they decided to move production to mexico.

I have heard that the move to mexico is what is causing all these problems.

Weasners lx90 site has all of these problems documented, but be prepared to get horrified, as he went through 3 scopes, 2 new ones and 1 supposedly fixed, and they all still had the vibration issues.