tekkydave

Today I finally got round to attaching the control box to the cork mounting block. This will be a temporary mounting method until I come up with a better mounting method.

Rear view showing mounting holes with M4 screws recessed inside

Front view. A hole has been made in the side of the case to allow the USB connector to plug into the nano.

All assembled into case. Its a bit tight. The nano is soldered onto a piece of veroboard to allow easy mounting into the case slots. The battery compartment is a tad tight but it just squeezes in. There is a piece of card to prevent it shorting any of the nano pins. I probably could have done with a slightly larger case but it was hard to find one with the correct dimensions.

Mounted on scope. The size of the cork block was made just right so the toothed belt has sufficient tension but is not so tight it can't be removed.

That more or less completes the hardware side of the project. I still need to do more work on the driver but that's for another day.

I have just released V2.1.1 to the sourceforge site https://sourceforge.net/projects/arduinoascomfocuser/

The Installer and Arduino sketch are in the Files section (https://sourceforge.net/projects/arduinoascomfocuser/files/Mark2/Software/V2.1.1/)

Hopefully this fixes the issue with the Ascom driver not being registered on installation.

As far as I can see the problem was due to the property ComVisible not being set to true in AssemblyInfo.cs

That may mean more to a hardened Ascom developer but changing it worked for me

It works ok on my Dev box but any feedback will be appreciated.

Not sure. There is a 64-bit regsrv64 but I think the drivers are always 32-bit. Maybe someone with more Ascom knowledge will step in.

Is the dll definitely installed in the directory you have specified and Ascom platform 6.1 installed? Apart from that it may be a Windows 8.1 'thing'. I have only tested on Win 7 32-bit.

Version 2.1.0 uploaded to Sourceforge site https://sourceforge.net/projects/arduinoascomfocuser/

Main change is to the FocusAAF2 test utility. Buttons now show the number of steps up/down they action and a bit of colour added.

I still can't get it to auto-register the driver COM object. I think I'll create one using the Installer Generator that Ascom provice with the developer tools and ditch the VS setup project. Watch this space.

Thanks Baffa. The Ascom driver works but I haven't got the installer working 100% yet. See previous post on workround to register the driver manually.

I have a temporary workround to manually register the driver:

You need to open a windows command window as administrator.

The only way I have found to do this is click the Start button then in the 'Search Programs and Files' box type:

cmd

now hit Ctrl-Shift-Enter instead of Enter.

In the command box type:

cd C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319  (the driver needs the .net v4 framework)

regasm "C:\Program Files (x86)\AAF2\AAF2\ASCOM.AAF2.Focuser.dll"  (or wherever the driver was installed. It should be here if you didn't change the location when you installed it)

You should get something like this:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319>regasm "C:\Program Files (x86)\AAF2\AAF2\ASCOM.AAF2.Focuser.dll"

Microsoft .NET Framework Assembly Registration Utility version 4.0.30319.17929

for Microsoft .NET Framework version 4.0.30319.17929

Copyright © Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

Types registered successfully

I'll look into a way of getting the installer to do this step correctly. Let me know how you get on.

Dave

I  have also discovered that if you run the installer as Administrator it registers the driver correctly so it must be a privileges thing.

Nice idea. I like the sneaky advert.

I have a temporary workround to manually register the driver:

You need to open a windows command window as administrator.

The only way I have found to do this is click the Start button then in the 'Search Programs and Files' box type:

cmd

now hit Ctrl-Shift-Enter instead of Enter.

In the command box type:

cd C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319  (the driver needs the .net v4 framework)

regasm "C:\Program Files (x86)\AAF2\AAF2\ASCOM.AAF2.Focuser.dll"  (or wherever the driver was installed. It should be here if you didn't change the location when you installed it)

You should get something like this:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319>regasm "C:\Program Files (x86)\AAF2\AAF2\ASCOM.AAF2.Focuser.dll"
Microsoft .NET Framework Assembly Registration Utility version 4.0.30319.17929
for Microsoft .NET Framework version 4.0.30319.17929
Copyright © Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

Types registered successfully

I'll look into a way of getting the installer to do this step correctly. Let me know how you get on.

Dave

Its something to do with the driver not being registered by the installer. Its difficult to test on the pc you are developing on as Visual Studio auto-registers the driver when you build it.

Not sure why the driver is not registered. I'll have to investigate but it may take a while. I'll have to build a clean windows 7 vm to test with.

As you have probably noticed I'm new to developing on windows and also ascom. There may be a way of manually registering the dll.

Bah! My Arduino has not been delivered yet, no fun for me this weekend.

What components are you using to build your focuser. Sounds a bit different to mine.

I've ordered my parts, I should hopefully have it up and running next weekend.

Thanks again!

Good luck. I hope my instructions etc are good enough to follow. It would be good to know if the driver installer works for you.

Also, if you haven't already it is worth looking at the Ascom website http://ascom-standards.org/ to understand how it works and how it uses the drivers. Every Ascom-compliant program puts up a 'chooser' dialog where you pick the driver. You also have to click a button in the chooser to select the port the device is connected to. On my PC the arduino always seems to be on COM5 but it could be different on yours.

I have now created an installer and put that with the associated arduino sketch in a release folder on the SF project site:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/arduinoascomfocuser/files/Mark2/Software/V2.0.0/

This requires the Ascom platform 6.1 to be installed first.

It will install:

- The Ascom driver for the focuser. This is a windows COM object which should be registered by the installer.

- A command-line test program, AAF2Test that just reports the focuser version (#V command) from the arduino.

- A GUI client program, FocusAAF2 that allows full control of the focuser. This is also a work in progress.

I have only tested the installer on my PC so I hope it works for other people.

I also apologise for the naff shortcut icons which I created in about 3 minutes - more work needed there I think.

I would like to build an installer for my driver so users can install & register the driver on a windows PC along with the test client programs without needing Visual Studio. I need to work out how to do that. I think VS has some tools to generate installers for a solution so that will be my next job.

Sounds interesting Gina.  I assume when you say 'auto' that you mean it will focus the scope itself using feedback from a camera. Do you plan to make it Ascom-compliant or stand-alone. I can think of a couple of scenarios here:

1. Completely stand-alone system using a micro-controller that connects to a camera and motor.

2. An Ascom client program running on a PC that uses Ascom drivers to connect to the focuser and camera. The Focuser and Camera will both need Ascom drivers. Depending on the camera used the driver may already exist. The focuser driver will probably need to be a custom one like the one I have written

Feel free to use & abuse my code

Thank you Dave   I've downloaded the files.  Looks great - nice presentation   And thank you for the acknowledgement

I'd forgotten I'd put that in the sketch until I was uploading it. I think it was an arduino project of yours that inspired me to have a go myself. I think some of the stepper code might be 'borrowed' from your project

Updates to the sourceforge project wiki page:

• Schematic
• Communication Protocol Details

https://sourceforge.net/p/arduinoascomfocuser/wiki/Home/

The line to change to use different pins is:

const int motorPins[4] = {7,8,9,10}; // Declare pins to drive motor control board

The numbers refer to the digital output port number not the physical pins on the nano.

Sent from my Samsung G4S using Tapatalk.

For anyone chomping at the bit, soldering iron in hand here is a sketch to show how to connect the stepper motor control board to the nano. This will work with the sketch I have posted on the sourceforge site. If you want to use different pins on the nano you can simply change the pins defined in the sketch.

Rather than a 3D printer (using a commercial "shop" seems to work out at about 10p per cm³ ) what I've started using are HDPE kitchen chopping boards as a raw material. These come in nice convenient flat sheets of various thicknesses and are easily workable with hand tools and can also be heated, if you're careful, and molded into rough-ish shapes.

The only drawback so far is that I haven't found an adhesive that sticks them reliably, so thickness needs to be added by mechanical attachment: screws, etc.

Great idea. Im still finding cork crumbs all over my office after making the cork block. It is extremely light though but may not stand up to wear and tear. [emoji2]

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Thank you very much, I'm off shopping.

If you dont want to solder directly to the nano pins you may need some 0.1" crimp connectors and a crimp tool. [emoji2]

Sent from my Samsung G4S using Tapatalk.

Parts list has been added to the wiki on the sourceforge page.

https://sourceforge.net/p/arduinoascomfocuser/wiki/Home/

Next job is get a decent schematic. I had one drawn for the Mk1 focuser using gEda on Linux. When I went to look at it again some of the annotations (pin numbers, signal names etc) had disappeared. Hopefully I will get it done at the weekend.

I did join the yahoo group but couldn't figure their focuser out. I wanted to do my own mainly as a learning opportunity to get to grips with both the Arduino and Ascom.