Arduino Ascom focuser Mark2

[tekkydave]

Hi Dave,

Got all the bits now so will make a start today, as an Arduino virgin it will be interesting, on your photo you appear to have jumpers on the pins at the opposite end to the USB plug, are they serving any purpose or just insulating the pins ?

Dave

As Mick has suggested I snipped all the pins off the nano to allow it to fit in the small box I used. It is also soldered to a piece of veroboard and the excess pins snipped off. This was so I could use the pcb mounting slots in the box. If you do this make sure you break the veroboard tracks to avoid connecting pins on one side of the nano to the pins opposite.

[Davey-T]

Dowloaded IDE, got all the bits plugged into each other and got red/green flashing LED on Arduino, got no "found new hardware message" but it said it was installing a USB device, but no name, didn't ask for driver and in device manager it's got something called CH340 on COM Port 3, no mention of  Arduino is this it ?

Dave

Running Win 8.1

Edited October 2, 2014 by Davey-T

[Davey-T]

Done a quick test sketch to flash LED which compiles OK and runs, doesn't work and gives error "avrdude: stk500-getsync ():not in sync: resp=0x00

Anyone know what this means ?

Dave

Got it working now,  had the wrong board selected under the "tools" drop down menu.

I'd forgotten what fun it was checking all the punctuation in lines of code   

Edited October 2, 2014 by Davey-T

[tekkydave]

Done a quick test sketch to flash LED which compiles OK and runs, doesn't work and gives error "avrdude: stk500-getsync ():not in sync: resp=0x00

Anyone know what this means ?

Dave

Got it working now,  had the wrong board selected under the "tools" drop down menu.

I'd forgotten what fun it was checking all the punctuation in lines of code   

Don't ya just love those semi-colons

[tekkydave]

I have uploaded release 2.2.0 to the SF Site http://sourceforge.net/projects/arduinoascomfocuser/

This implements the Temperature sensor functionality.

A big thanks to russellhq who worked out all the details for me. I have worked most of the code supplied into my project with minor mods.

I will update the circuit diagram on the SF site with the DS18B20 connection details asap but it basically follows the diagram that russellhq posted;

Don't worry if you don't want to fit the temperature sensor - the focuser will continue to work but will return a temperature of 0C to any applications that try to read it. I have added a simple temperature readout to the FocusAAF2 test utility - it should report the temperature 10s after connecting to the focuser and then every 10s until you disconnect.

I don't have any client programs that display the temperature except BYEOS but that seems to have gone a bit flaky on me at the moment.

As ever I would appreciate any feedback.

[russellhq]

Good work Dave!

You can use Focusmax to read the temperature, it's free.

http://www.focusmax.org/downloads.html

Obviously though, unless you have Maxim DL or CCDsoft, then you can't use it for actually focusing.

[Mick J]

Thanks again Dave,  I have a waterproof DS18B20 that I have added the resistor and some cables,  been playing with the example sketch and Russell's code,  had to uninstall AAF2 v2.1.3 before I was allowed to install v2.2.   Flashed the sketch on the nano and now know it's 22 degrees in the lounge, more if I pop the probe under my tongue  -  aah science......

At the moment just have the probe on the nano, need to joint it all up and add another hole in the plastic box.

I also don't have any other software to view the temperature, may try Focusmax over the weekend (was looking at v3 the other day).  Would it be worth giving Ivo a nudge ? (I could do that)  would be nice to see the temperature in APT at the very least, not sure I begin to understand what's required regarding auto focus including temp change.

[tekkydave]

Thanks again Dave,  I have a waterproof DS18B20 that I have added the resistor and some cables,  been playing with the example sketch and Russell's code,  had to uninstall AAF2 v2.1.3 before I was allowed to install v2.2.   Flashed the sketch on the nano and now know it's 22 degrees in the lounge, more if I pop the probe under my tongue  -  aah science......

At the moment just have the probe on the nano, need to joint it all up and add another hole in the plastic box.

I also don't have any other software to view the temperature, may try Focusmax over the weekend (was looking at v3 the other day).  Would it be worth giving Ivo a nudge ? (I could do that)  would be nice to see the temperature in APT at the very least, not sure I begin to understand what's required regarding auto focus including temp change.

Glad you got it installed so quickly. I'm still waiting for the temperature probe I ordered from China. I am planning to put a standard 1-wire RJ11 connector in my focuser case to connect it all up.

[Davey-T]

Spent the evening beating Win 8.1 into submission and finally got it working nearly, just getting this error message now, do I need to download a different sketch ?

Dave

[Mick J]

There is a new sketch containing the temperature stuff,  you seem to be starting a zero not position 1000.

Do you have the DS18B20 ?

Just run AAF2 v2.2 - just the focuser, not connected in the probe yet, get much the same as yourself after a couple of seconds.

[Mick J]

Sorry - scrub that   

I had not flashed the new sketch onto the nano in my focuser assembly     I have been playing with a second nano with the DS18B20 probe attached 

So with the new sketch............  and without the DS18B20.  ooops   

[tekkydave]

Phew, you had me worried then.

[Mick J]

In 200 posts time I may come back and edit all this out and make my posts look spot on    but I guess between the 2 posts we have an answer.

Would it be possible for the Arduino to sort it's own com port ?   I find I have to check and choose every time, com3, com4, com5 etc - windows I suppose.

[Mick J]

Phew, you had me worried then.

Sorry Dave,  playing around on the win7 64bit lappy thinking will have to update the 32bit netbook and forgetting the focuser assembly.......... will shove it all together over the weekend.

[Davey-T]

Spent the evening beating Win 8.1 into submission and finally got it working nearly, just getting this error message now, do I need to download a different sketch ?

Dave

Screenshot (1).png

So what's the answer ?

Don't have temp' sensor

Dave

Edited October 3, 2014 by Davey-T

[tekkydave]

In 200 posts time I may come back and edit all this out and make my posts look spot on    but I guess between the 2 posts we have an answer.

Would it be possible for the Arduino to sort it's own com port ?   I find I have to check and choose every time, com3, com4, com5 etc - windows I suppose.

You can only edit each post for a limited time after posting it I'm afraid. Not sure what the answer to the com port issue is.

[tekkydave]

So what's the answer ?

Don't have temp' sensor

Dave

It will work with or without the temp sensor attached. Make sure you have uninstalled the old version of AAF2 before downloading and installing V2.2 from sourceforge. Also make sure you upload latest arduino sketch to the nano.

[tekkydave]

Spent the evening beating Win 8.1 into submission and finally got it working nearly, just getting this error message now, do I need to download a different sketch ?

Dave

Screenshot (1).png

I have just reproduced the above problem by running the latest driver & FocusAAF2 applications (V2.2) but with the older (V2.1.3) sketch on the nano. Putting the V2.3 sketch on the nano cures the problem.

For some reason my numbering schemes between the Driver & Arduino sketch have got out of step. From now on they will be numbered the same to avoid confusion.

[Davey-T]

Thanks Dave, will try tomorrow.

Hard to download as it keeps getting jumped on by M'Soft Security and Norton Security, have to fight them off to download 

Dave

Edited October 3, 2014 by Davey-T

[iwannabswiss]

I had the older version working just fine.  I followed the directions and deleted everything then started to attempt to upload the latest version, I got the AAF2 programs on.   The issue I'm running into is trying to upload the sketch to my nano without the temp sensor.  Any spot that has the temp in it gives me an error the only way to bypass it is to add the //.

[iwannabswiss]

Here's an example

[Mick J]

I feel I should keep out of this one....... but the only thing I can think of - have you got the One Wire & Dallas Temperature libraries installed, these are needed for the temperature stuff.

[tekkydave]

I think the problem is that the libraries required for the 1-wire and and Temperature sensor have not been installed on your PC. This will cause the error you are getting. If you can upload without compiling it will work but I don't think the arduino software will let you do that. I'll post some instructions on downloading and installing the libraries or look here http://arduino.cc/en/Guide/Libraries

The libraries you need are:

OneWire https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_libs_OneWire.html

DallasTemperature http://milesburton.com/Main_Page?title=Dallas_Temperature_Control_Library

I hope those are the correct links. Ill do some better instructions later and also include the required libraries on the SF site with the rest of the project files. Thanks for spotting that - I hadn't considered the fact that you have to compile the sketch in order to just upload it to the nano.

[tekkydave]

I feel I should keep out of this one....... but the only thing I can think of - have you got the One Wire & Dallas Temperature libraries installed, these are needed for the temperature stuff.

Thanks Mick. I was thinking the library code will be compiled into the sketch but it is only source code. The end user will need to install the libraries. Shame we can't distribute a pre-compiled binary of the sketch.

Are the links in my previous post correct?

[Mick J]

Thanks Mick. I was thinking the library code will be compiled into the sketch but it is only source code. The end user will need to install the libraries. Shame we can't distribute a pre-compiled binary of the sketch.

Are the links in my previous post correct?

They are the same libraries I have installed.