blackdragon72

Does anyone know if FeatherTouch HSM motor is bipolar and unipolar, and the inputout of RJ45?

I'm,afraid not. The AAF2 project was my first foray into ASCOM.

I managed to get my two channel focuser driver up. It is (including visual studio project) available here:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/arduinodualchannelascomfocuser/?source=navbar

It uses one Arduino Nano to control two focusers. The protocol is based on Moonlite, and the main difference is that TempComp is handled by Arduino, not the driver (which I believe Moonlite does).

I have not tested it fully since I have only one telescope, on which one channel focuser works fine.

You should be able to connect the focuser via Moonlite driver directly, but my driver supports more commands than Moonlite so it wont talk to Moonlite focuser (it could be done by removing those additional commands).

Dave,

I am thinking to support 2nd focuser with Arduino, but I am stuck with ASCOM driver, do you have any experience with ASCOM local server?

I posted a question on ASCOM group but did not receive any reply.

I have a moonlight for my sn. Could you adjust the tension a little?

I tightened thumb screw, it did not solve the problem. I am not sure if tightening set screws will help or not.

I don't have the same setup, but I opted to use a NEMA 17 12v/200 step stepper from the off - over engineering, maybe, but it's been a fun project, and gives very precise control via the fine focus knob, which is good for my Hyperstar setup due to the very narrow CFZ.

This certainly doesn't lack torque.

I think I did not make myself clear.

My motor has enough torque to turn fine focus knob, it is the knob which fails to rack focuser in, I guess it just can not handle the load.

I need to find another motor to work with coarse focus knob - the current one does not have enough torque.

I confirmed with manual focus that coarse focus knob can rack in/out without any issue.

My UNO board and motor shield work perfectly with stepper with motor. But one problem: my motor can not drive coarse focus knob of moonlite CFL focuser (it is quiet stiff), so I hook it to fine focus knob. However my imaging setup is slightly heavier than what it can handle so it does not rack in when the telescope points up. It forces me back to coarse knob.

Question is that: is there anyone using CFL moonlite focuser? And what motor do you use to drive coarse focus knob? I need to know so that I can get motor with enough torque.

No its not supported in the driver.

To support this feature, does the driver need to read temperature periodically and adjust focus accordingly?

There is a 4k7 pullup on my circuit diagram on SF http://sourceforge.net/p/arduinoascomfocuser/wiki/Schematic/attachment/AAF2_V2.2_crop.png. The schematic in the wiki section is the latest version.

I was referring to MOSFET in the first digram (Figure 4). I am not sure if it is needed in our design, from datasheet it seems that it might be required. Since UNO has extra 5V connector pin, I just use Figure 5.

When I connect the focuser in Nebulosity and FocusMax, both grey out temp.compensation option. FocusMax says Temp.compensation available=False. Is it supposed to be supported?

When I looked at DS18B20 datasheet, looks like it either needs a pull up, or needs to connect pin3 to VDD. I am using external VDD which works fine.

Thanks for all suggestions.

I am still waiting for my board and motor. Once I receive and get them working, I will order coupler/pulley.

Does anyone know if this pulley will work?

http://www.robotdigg.com/product/116/2gt-pulley-40-teeth-5mm-bore

I want to get 40 teeth and 16 teeth to get 2.5 reducer, which will give me 1000 steps, fine enough to be used with corse focuser. 

I wanted to get 3.3x5mm coupler for fine focuser but I could not find any. Is there such coupler on the market?

Good morning

You need to create the directories c:\trace\AAF2 by hand in your c driver and rerun to test.

Thanks! It is working now.

It is part of the .net runtime - do you have the .net v4 framework installed?

I do, but somehow this file is missing. I think I have 4.5.1, now I will see if I can upgrade to 4.5.2.

Just got UNO board today and try to test the sketch. I could upload 2.2 nano sketch and my modified UNO sketch, but both failed when I open ASCOM driver.

What could be the reason?

Ok, when I run ASCOM diagnostics, it says mscoree.dll not found. Is this file part of installation package? I am using win8.1.

Just got UNO board today and try to test the sketch. I could upload 2.2 nano sketch and my modified UNO sketch, but both failed when I open ASCOM driver.

What could be the reason?

Yeah, it's a powered hub. I've got the Atik and serial to USB cable from the mount also connected. I tried it without the other devices connected.

I tried a bunch of different combination to see if I could narrow down the fault and recorded them in the table below. For each combination, only the focuser USB device was connected and it was uplugged before testing. I recorded the voltage across the Nano +5v and GND pins for info.

I know very little about electronics so really don't know what the table is telling me, but all I need to know to make it work is to make sure the power is plugged into the hub and turned off before attaching the USB cable to the laptop!

table.png

I am using this. I usually have auto guide, ccd and usb-serial connected to the hub. It never gives me any issue with external power.

http://www.amazon.com/Port-Compact-Black-USB-2-0/dp/B000T9S4CI/ref=sr_1_2/183-2930130-3956353?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1413086575&sr=1-2&keywords=startech+usb+hub

Sounds interesting. I have no experience of Macs. What client program do you plan to use and how will it interface to the arduino?

I dont know much about it either. Nebulosity support microtouch focuser in max osx (and of course many more focusers in Win), I hope they will add auto focus function in their future release.

Don't forget the advantage in the pulley system. Mine is 4:1, so 1 revolution of the coarse focus knob = 256 steps. You could easily make it 5:1, 320 steps.

When I made mine I had doubts on whether the motor's steps were fine enough but it was so cheap I figured it would be worth a go and maybe upgrade later. As it turns out it is more than adequate, I doubt that the movement would be quantifiable if it was much finer.

http://www.astrodon.com/Orphan/parfocal_and_critical_focus_zone/

Based on above experiment, step size is definitely critical for the imaging system, that is why I am more concern about step size. I also plan to use the same system for a much faster scope, which demands even finer step.

By 'app' do you mean the sketch, client program or driver? Any focuser client that uses ascom should work with my focuser if you use my driver.. The device-dependant coding is in the driver. If you want to use the driver of another focuser you will need to find out what the comms protocol/commands are and rewrite the arduino sketch to work with it. I designed my own protocol in this case because I wanted to learn about both parts. I believe someone on SGL has made an arduino-based focuser that uses the Moonlight protocol & driver but I can't remember who it was.

Yes. I was thinking if it can be used under mac osx. I plan to  migrate everything to mac, for me the only thing mac osx does not support is ASCOM.

Yes it works fine. As the arduino site says if you are using the serial port in your program you need to make sure you put a short delay in your program before doing any comms. You will only ever use the focuser on Windows so its not an issue for that.

Good. I thought the board will be reset every time there is a COM communication, eg, every time ASCOM driver is sending a command to the motor. I am thinking if it is possible to mimic another motorized focuser so that we can reuse the app.

Not in normal use as it is on Windows. Ascom is windows-only software. I have noticed it when using the nano on Linux for other projects but you just get a few random characters then it settles down.

so it is still working properly?

I've only got that standard stock focuser for my 200p, I've noticed most here seem to be using dual speed.

I'm aiming it would be best to use this in the dual speed focuser?

You can calculate critical focus zone with this link.

http://www.wilmslowastro.com/software/formulae.htm

My scope is ~150um, so I have to go with 400 steps (40um/step) if I have to use coarse knob.

In essence, yes, correct - as long as you accept the same commands from the driver, and return the expected return codes, then it won't see any difference: my implementation uses an Adafruit motor shield to provide micro stepping control.

It should *run* okay on an uno (I'm using an uno clone), but a "universal" sketch would be difficult due to the number of possible hardware variations - your motor board is different to mine, are both different to Dave's (IIRC).

You should need minimal changes as you outlined above to implement your own clockwise & anti-clockwise routines, using step(1) and step(-1).

Ask here if you have any problems...

Are you facing any issue with auto reset, as mentioned here?

http://arduino.cc/en/Main/arduinoBoardUno

There ought to be some way (eg, device ID or similar) to tell.

I did not mean to ask for support for every system, but for nano and uno only, since these 2 seem the most popular choices. I am thinking that once we have a working version for Uno, we could use the tool to patch the new changes from Nano sketch to Uno so we can release both together.