I always use the S50 with an external USB battery bank. My S50 battery level never drops below 100%, even when using the anti-dew heater, which here in Canada is a must, especially in the colder months of the year. I assume that keeping the S50 battery fully charged non-stop is not such a good idea and I plan to let it discharge at least once a month, hopefully this will extend its life.
In the 10 months or so I have been using the S50 I have never encountered a problem with a wrapped cord, although I remember seeing two or three turns on rare occasions. But for those contemplating a fixed mounting of the S50 and remote controlling it, this would soon become a major issue.
There are two easy fixes for this problem, one was just mentioned by Digital Don, a magnetic USB cable, which is a good idea but does not solve the case of a fixed remote S50, when there is nobody there to reconnect the cable. The other one could be very easily implemented by ZWO - add an azimuth turn counter, i. e. assume the cord is not wrapped as the S50 powers on, and chose between clockwise and counter-clock wise rotation based on the rotations accumulated already.
This is a very low hanging fruit and it would be trivial to implement by ZWO. In fact I have already seen the S50 taking the long way around when doing large azimuth turns but this is most likely done for backlash reasons, not to avoid USB cable wrapping.
Anyway, I second Don's suggestion, this should be very easy to implement and useful for many users.
