Grierson

Well another broken driver and a lot of heat I've finally got the screws out although I've managed to leave the shank of one of them still in the focuser when the head parted company. Looks as if I will still have to resort to drilling it out if and when I use the focuser again. I couldn't find 'P-B Blaster' Dave although my local Halfords suggested WD-40. At Gus' suggestion I had tried that last night with no luck. I was half expecting the focuser to be a tight fit to the 'scope tube but in fact it came away without difficulty. Again many thanks for all the helpful comments. - John

Many thanks everyone for taking the trouble to respond. I actually shattered the end of my ph2 100mm driver as the wife held the 'scope and I tried turning the screw. I did manage to get one screw out before that happened but now I'll have to get down to B&Q to get another driver. The screw head took some of the metallic paint off my lovely telescope in the process. I will have another go at the other two screws tomorrow taking on board your suggestions. I'm not at the drilling stage yet Billy but thanks for the offer - John

Good evening gentlemen and ladies. I wonder if anyone has replaced the focuser on SW 80ED DS Pro? I am currently faced with the task but the three Philips? headed screws securing the telescope tube to the focuser body are proving impossible to shift. I am currently at the stage of deciding to drill them out! but for obvious reasons I am reluctant to do so. Has anyone come against the same or similar issue and managed to resolve it? Any thoughts no matter how daft would be appreciated. - John

Thanks Wim I'll have a look - John

Thank you Gina. I can indeed connect to the mount with the listing running and I can take pictures although I have not yet found how to slew the 'scope! Unfortunately there is nothing in the tutorial that tells a simpleton like me how the listing is set running again when the system is rebooted/powered up. I assume there is a way this can happen without the need to re-input the string in Part 7. I thought I had got EQMod working nicely under Windows. EKos is going to be a whole new ball game! - John

When I SSH into pi@raspberrypi and copy indiserver -m 100 -vv indi-asi_ccd indi_asi_wheel indi_equmod_telescope into the command line as per Part 7 'Testing' a listing takes place and then 'hangs'. The listing does not end with the pi@raspberrypi $ command prompt. The only way I can close down is by typing 'sudo shut down .... ' directly in to the command line using the a keyboard and monitor plugged directly into the Pi ie. not using the main computer terminal. I would guess that this version of INDI is the latest one and not the one used for the tutorial. Is this likely to make a difference Gina? So near and yet so far!

Thank you Gina. I missed the Mint bit when copied the tutorial to paper. I've spent the afternoon building a Mint machine and have just finished Part 6 of your tutorial. - John

Thank you Gina. I should have asked how do you get to the GUI not the Desktop as my Pi boots into text mode and when I sign in it simply goes to the command line. Nevertheless I'm sure I will work it out as even my pea sized brain can read without the need of large yellow arrows!

Question from a Linux newbie to Gina or any other member who is following Gina's tutorial. I've got to Part 5. Para 2 reads '....... and view the Desktop' How do you get to the Desktop. I've entered a variety of code culled from internet searches without success. Thanks - John

March. It's in Sainsbury's so I would guess most other places. - John

Digressing briefly. For those who don't take Astronomy Now they had a lengthy article on the 'scope and some improvement that can be made. I'm not sure if the 'Tune Up' makes sense as I do not have a 130PDS but for those who do it might be worth a look. - John

Thanks for the input Sonny. In the light of Louise's and your own comments I have come to the conclusion that the problem lies with the USB porting on the laptop. I have tried to find updated USB drivers but it would appear that the ones that are currently installed are the most up to date. I have also tried connecting through a hub but without success. I don't have an externally powered hub to try but this may be a possibility for the future although investing in one to find that there is still an issue may not be a good idea. I have a 'home brew' desktop machine which, as with the little notebook, will allow the camera to connect with PHD2 with no problem. - John

I have been fighting the temptation of replacing the Toupcam with the QHY5 which seems to be one of the de facto guiding cameras and it would be a direct replacement using the existing adapter on my finder/guider. However common sense prevails and I WILL sort the issue with the Toupcam - one day! - John

Thanks for the response Louise. I have tried all the usb ports and changed the lead to no avail. I've been out to buy a flash drive which I will use with my little s/h Levono 100S for the time being. Why it PHD should work perfectly with that and not its' big brother I don't know but I'm approaching the point of loosing the will to live so I going to leave it alone for now. Best wishes to you and yours for Christmas - John

I guess that, in the light of no further suggestions, I have a unique problem. Just one shot in the dark before I give up on the thought of using this laptop. I wonder if anyone is running PHD2 on a Lenovo 300-151SK 80Q7 i5 ? I am coming to the conclusion that the machine does not like PHD or the Toupcam camera or a combination of both having deleted the driver and PHD2 and reloaded both without success.

Thanks, the camera does work withSharpCap and I've replaced the driver. One fact that I missed from the previous post is that the notebook is a 32bit Windows machine whereas the laptop is 64bit. I have not got the knowledge to know if that would make a difference. - John

I have run PHD2 on my little Lenovo 100s for some time without problems running under W10. The notebook is short on memory which can not me increased and it struggles to deal with a large number of subs taken with SGPro. I decided to use the families Lenovo laptop, a middle of the road i5 machine not lacking in memory, however, running PHD2 on it I continually get the dialogue: 'After 20.0 sec the camera has not completed a 1.0 sec exposure so it has been disconnected to prevent other problems. If you think the hardware is working correctly you can increase the time out period ...................................' Increasing the time out period makes no difference. All the Advanced Settings are the same between the two compters. I wonder if there are any PHD gurus on the forum who may be able to offer any suggestions. Many thanks - John