malc-c

Did find this which suggest using the WDM driver inbuilt to windows... Couldn't confirm it works as I suffered the second driver state failure whilst the camera was connected and I tried setting the resolution !

The 205 was gifted to me as part of a synscan board repair.... maybe this was why ?  For now I'll stick with my old but trusty QHY5

6 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

Didn't check that. What was odd was that other than SC, no other app even saw the camera being connected. 

And then mid post windows crashed into a recovery mode stating the device failed in power up - restarting !

6 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

Didn't check that. What was odd was that other than SC, no other app even saw the camera being connected. 

Well you got further than I did !

Camera was connected and no errors shown in device manager

1 hour ago, Adam J said:

it's not the camera as such if it's working in sharp cap. Just the other platforms have not gotten support fully sorted out yet or it's a driver issue. I would give it a couple of months before assuming it's going to be an issue. Problem with being an early adopter. 

According to SVBony's website their cameras have native support in PHD2, and on the PHD2 website the current version of 2.6.11 states  "Updated camera support: Svbony, Touptek, ZWO ASI"  - This version was released February 2022.....  Would have thought 18 months would have been enough time to have ironed out any bugs.

I have just installed PHD2 on the PC as I too have a SV205 camera.  The camera installed on windows 10 with out the need of additional drivers.  Running PHD2 for the first time I went through the wizard, selecting SVBony Camera from the list of supported cameras.  I was then asked if the camera was connected and PHD2 would then obtain the pixel size etc. I confirmed it was... I was then presented with a pop up stating that PHD2 could not connect to the camera, but could manually add in the pixel size etc later.

However, when selecting the camera it fails

No error in device manager - 

At present I don't have any other software to try with this camera, and this is my main PC rather than the one in the observatory.   But this does indeed confirm that despite that 18 months since announcing SVBony camera's were supported in PHD2, this particular camera isn't.

1 hour ago, blinky said:

16" centre and T&G Shiplap - right, thats what I was wondering, will do mine the same

Here's an image of the floor supported by hangers off the dwarf wall

Then the framing was started

William, thank you for an excellent description.

As others have already mentioned, get rid of the ST4 cable, connect the camera directly to the PC via USB, and use the USB socket on the synscan unit to connect the mount to your computer (you may need to download the driver from Synta's website.  Once installed set the connection speed of the VCP to 115200).

From my experience calibration needs to be done with a star that is close to the intersection of the local meridian with the celestial equator as that is the point where there is the greatest angular movement.  Set up pulse guiding in the section of EQMOD of the same name by placing ticks in both RA and DEC rate check boxes and set the sliders to x0.9.  

Hope that helps

Browsing a site that sells scientific gear, mostly surplus from universities I came across this listing

CELESTRON G8N Telescope and Firstscope 70 EQ

£150 inc VAT...

I went all in and built mine close to building standards... DPM in a dwarf wall from which 6" x 2" softwood but treated joists were laid, with 50mm insulation under the warm room.  Everything above the floor was made from studwork, keeping to 16" centers.  The frame work was clad in a quality T&G shiplap, and is treated to an annual application of a decent fence / shed preserve.  I dismantled the scope as I was intending to move this summer and I inspected the underside whilst pulling cables back and the joists are as good as they were the day they were installed over 12 years ago.

5 hours ago, WilliamAstro said:

I use PHD2 with ASCOM installed, I polar align the mount via polar scope, The mount is connected via USB3 to my laptop using the motor.

Still doesn't explain in detail how things are connected.  Is the guide camera connected to the PC via USB or are you using the ST4 port ?  You need to give a more detailed reply so people can fully understand your configuration and also what your work flow was (did you run the assistant utility to calibrate PHD2 first ?)

I googled your mount and searched for any tutorials and found this  - Hope that helps

You need to provide details on how you have set this up.  How are the mount and computer connected, and the software (NINA, EQmod, GSS ??).  How you do your polar alignment would also help.  This should allow people to diagnose whats going on and how best to calibrate and start guiding

I've used 3DPrint to produce some items and was happy with them.  They have a minimum order value of £50, which for me was OK as the items were small, so I got 20 off (servo motor mount for model railway point control).

The two screens will have the same 16 chr x 2 row spec, but the COG (chip on display) inside them will be different.   This is evident by the increased pin count on the connector on the later handset.  There is a very good chance placing the LCD from the older handset could result in the newer working LCD being damaged, or the older LCD damaging the newer PCB as pins on the LCD header could be shorted.  This is assuming the flex cables are the same width and the older flex cable will fit 

I don't think the screens are the same - The connector in the top image has far more pins on the flex cable than the low, which has just 16 on a 1mm pitch.  Whilst they may be physically the same size, the controllers will be different.

Regretfully the screens are custom for Synta handsets.  I had one donated to the exchange program, it works just fine but the screen was damaged - finding replacements  has resulted in dead ends.   

Not sure what the trend is but so far I've had three EQ6 boards donated to the cause... 🤔

The latest contribution was sent by @bottletopburly . This was an old board as it used 2 x 16F73's rather than 16F886's, and had a different fault compared to most of those discussed in this thread.  The DEC axis worked perfectly fine, however the RA was very jerky on the spooling up and down but would sound sweet on full slew speed.  It would also only run in one direction regardless what direction the mount was instructed to move.  The board had already been worked on as a jumper wire to one of the A3959SLBT drivers, but worryingly there were a cluster of via's missing close to the same chip.  These boards are four layer and looking at the two outer sides it's quite possible that these were blind so connected to an internal layer rather then through to the bottom layer.  I tried replacing both drivers on the RA, which made no difference, and as the PIC controllers were running an old 1.06v of firmware and lacked the bootloader the firmware couldn't be updated.  So this board was used as a donor board with all 3959's and some of the regulators being removed.

Even though this board was beyond repair it was still fun, and gave me more practice at replacing surface mounted components.  

My thanks to all those SGL members who have donated their old non working boards to the cause.  The two EQ6 boards that have already been repaired are now ready to find new homes should anyone need them....

Well there is a lesson to be learnt on both sides. I was on the assumption that the firmware was up to date... I should have asked at the beginning if you had done that rather than take it for granted.

I guess the moral of this story is you should always carry a spare G-String with you 😁

What you are experiencing seems to be a common issue with NINA having connection issues.  You could also try Green Swamp Server as an alternative to EQMOD and see if you get the same connection issues with NINA, or if last nights experience of running for hours without a dropped connection.  One other possible cause that one or two SGL member discovered is when using some astro cameras as they basically hogged the USB bandwidth whilst capturing which resulted in the mount not being able to report back to EQMOD / GSS when it polled the mount.  Once the planetarium software passes on the instruction to slew to target and the mount has completed the slew and acquired the target, there is very little traffic between EQMOD / GSS and the mount, but it only needs one transmission to be lost and it seems game over with the dreaded lost connection / mount not responding messages 

How many times can you drop a telescope !!

On 25/05/2023 at 14:37, Dave1 said:

I already I have the EQ Power control box by Astro Gadget. Which if connected to a pc uses EQMOD/Ascom. But use SynScan and Sky Safari Pro from mobile, since it has built in WiFi. So not reinventing the wheel, so to speak. EQMOD Ascom is older than Onstep.

 For SynScan to connect to my control box via WiFi. I need to update the firmware in the control box first via PC. I have a firmware file, which is a hex file. But for some reason it won't write/install itself to the control box. It might be something I'm doing or not doing? Which is why I asked for help.

HEX files are loaded in two ways.  The first is programming the controller ( PIC microcontroller, ARM based processor, AVR etc) directly.  This requires a small bit of hardware which connects to the PC, with its outputs connected to certain pins on the processor, normally via a header pin.  The hardware supplies high voltage (typically 12v) to one pin and power to Vcc and Vdd.  This then places the processor in programming mode.  The last two wires connect to the Data and Clock lines on the processor.  Once programming software has detected the processor you can then  load the HWX file and click write on the PC software to "burn " it to the chip.  The second way depends on how the processor was originally programmed.  If programmed with a small bit of code called a bootloader then you can use the same connection that is used to control the mount and a small application to upload the HEX file.  Most modern goto mounts tend to have bootloaders coded into them form the factory to allow the end user to update the mounts firmware through a small app.   From my limited research it seem that the EQ Astro uses both a 18F series PIC micro and a large ATMEL Mega - Why I have no idea as most Synscan units have two 16F series PICs, one for each axis.  The fact it uses EQMOD suggest that it uses the SYNTA protocol but has pre-programmed settings for various mounts it's designed to work with. 

Maybe contact the manufactures to ask what's needed and if the file you have can be uploaded via the bootloader.  My gut feeling is that you are going to need a programmer and program the MCUs directly.

Once windows assigns a com port for a device it normally reserves that for the next time it's connected, so you shouldn't need to do all the checking.  Suggested workflow:

• connect the mount to the computer using a standard USB  A-B cable as the mount has the USB to TTL serial convertor built in.  You will only need to set up the baud rate the very first time the mount is connected.
• rather than make a manual connection by launching toolbox, launch EQMOD from within an application such as  Cartes du Ciel or NINA.  So you are only launching on instance of EQMOD

With the driver issue.  When MS was developing  windows 7  it wanted to install as many manufactures drivers as possible under a licencing agreement.  Prolific for whatever reason were excluded so form then on you had to locate and download the driver, with the most common being the 2303 chipset.  I've attached a 64bit version of the 2303 driver that I've used for a USB to serial convertor cable on my old D400 (shutter release cable).  It works fine on my observatory PC which is running windows 10.

I can't comment on any supplied cable  with the mount as I don't know what gets supplied.  Generally any synta mount / synscan box that has a USB type B port only needs a standard run of the mill USB cable - nothing special.  If using that then you will need a 2303 driver as the boards used in these versions of synscan used an ARM based processor and have the 2303 chipset built in, or at least the first generation did.  If they have changed to FTDI chipsets then this will be installed automatically, but device manage will report its using an FTDI driver.

PL2303_64bit_Installer.zip

Just to clarify a few things:

EQMOD & GSS - If using a EQDIR cable plugged in where the handset normally connects to then the resulting COM port needs to be set to 9600.  If your mount is using the latest revision of motor boards and you are using a USB B-A cable, then the Prolific chipset driver needs to be installed and the resulting COM port set to 115200.  All other port settings can be left as default.

The error message is not really helpful (why don't programmers explain the issues in less techy speak) - but my guess is it's not a com port issue, they tend to be time out errors when the application isn't able to get a response to the initial commands to interrogate the control board's firmware.   What is your normal workflow?  - In the past there have been issues where people open EQMOD via the EQASCOM folder, and then having selected the EQMOD HEQ5/6 option form the drop down menu in the other applications such as  CDC / NINA a second instance of EQMOD is launched and this conflicts with the one already running and "hogging" the com port.

Can't comment on the wi-fi option as I've never needed to use that form of connection.

10 hours ago, jif001 said:

It seems to be mentioned a lot in a Green Swamp Server forum. I think the author has a presence there.

Could well be.. Andrew has been known to be behind a lot of  the work on deciphering the workings of these mounts. 

4 hours ago, jif001 said:

Thanks very much for that. Do you know of any documentation explaining its use? 

 

I don't have anymore than the standalone exe.  I can't recall how I come by it.  I recall a link on a  forum which discussed reverse engineering the boards..  I I can find that I'll post the details 

With the mount connected and powered up, run the attached program.  Select the com port and then connect - It sends native commands (as if being a terminal) to the motor board which will provide you with the values set in the firmware

SyntaTester.zip

Interesting, that this discussion happens at a timely event - that being the 200th successful landing of Space X's Falcon booster