rwg

Hi Robin, i'm using an adaptor from RVO to plug into one of my USB ports, when i checked my device manager i did click on the box for updates, after a few seconds it said "drivers for this device are already up to date". However it does say in the box which i do not understand:

This device cannot start. (Code 10)

A device which does not exist was specified.

Sounds likely you have a 'Prolific' chipset adaptor - they decided to pull support for their old devices in Windows 8 (unforgivable in my opinion). You have to download and older version of the drivers and install those to make it work.

http://superuser.com/questions/544485/this-device-cannot-start-code-10-gigaware-usb-serial-adapter

Robin

Does your PC have a real COM (serial) port, or are you using a USB<->Serial adaptor? If you are plugging into a USB port on the computer then it's definitely the latter. Anyway, if it's a USB<->Serial adaptor check that the drivers are installed - sounds like Windows isn't finding your serial port at all, and until you fix that no amount of tinkering in ASCOM is going to help.

cheers,

Robin

What sort of trace do you get if you turn the guiding output off? Does the RA drift off rapidly in that case? (that would tie in with your suggestion of tracking at the wrong rate and PHD working hard to try to fix the problem). If it doesn't drift when guiding is switched off then I'd almost suspect that the mount was ignoring the guide pulses, excep then how could it calibrate successfully.

Try changing things around - for instance use the ST4 cable for guiding (and if you are ST4 guiding already, try pulse guiding via ASCOM). Possibly try EQMOD (getting an EQDirect cable).

cheers,

Robin

Hi Themos,

Ah, yes, if you're relying on jpeg date/time stamps then you are most likely stuffed with regard to accuracy. In my mind I was thinking more like AstroTortilla which can grab images itself (from APT for instance) and talks to EQASCOM. In that case you have the date/time and location available and could even automate the whole measurement procedure.

cheers,

Robin

Hi Themos,

maybe jumping in here without knowing what I'm talking about, but if you have plate solved the two images *and* you know the location and time of the images, can't you calculate which direction is horizontal/vertical in each image?

cheers,

Robin

Glad you've got it sorted now!

I know what caused the crash when you tried the movement dialog too - I was trying to set the slider to the current value for the wheel speed, but the slider only goes from 5 to 10, so if the value was out of that range it wasn't happy Better get fixing that...

cheers,

Robin

Ok,

so that ties in with the wheel not spinning - as part of the setup it rotates until it detects the #1 filter position and then centers on that. After a while it gives up if it hasn't detected any positions go past.

Worth checking the wires to the motor - I had one snap off just above the PCB (this was after I had replaced the PCB and re-soldered myself, so probably just that my soldering whas shoddy).

Also do the firmware update as 2.1.7 is quite old - mine is on 3.2.7. It's just possible that some config option has got to an odd value and an upgrade might fix it (in particular the wheel can have the movement speed lowered using the 'S' command - In the ASCOM driver I limit the minimum value to 5 (50%), but the raw command will go lower - too low and the wheel doesn't move at all).

cheers,

Robin

Oh no!

Does the wheel spit out any text over the serial port (either at 9600 8N1 or 115200 8N1) as it powers up? If it's reporting an error it might just be that it's a soft fail that can be fixed by tweaking the parameters or re-flashing the firmware.

cheers,

Robin

Having had a bit of a dig through the bits box, I seem to have 3 spare V1 PCBs for Xagyl wheels. One I am fairly sure I have killed, one seems fine and the third can very likely be brought back to working order with a touch of soldering. I also have one of the Xagyl USB/serial cables spare too. I can't see that I've got any future need for these, so I'm happy to pass them on as spares to anyone who can use them. As James mentioned, the PCB transplant operation is very simple - just de-solder the motor connections from the old PCB and solder to the new.

cheers

Robin

I have one of the very early Xagyl wheels which appears to no longer work. I've been told by the manufacturer to try uploading the latest firmware from their website, but this just points to a text file with a long string of letters and numbers on it. I guess this is the firmware. It gives one no idea how to load it or what the risks are if you get it wrong.

The ASCOM driver contains a firmware update function that you need to point at this file. Having developed the firmware update functionality - and therefore 'updated' my wheel many times - I can say there is no real risk as long as you don't do anything silly like unplug the wheel while an update is in progress. Even then, the wheel firmware is in two blocks, a bootloader (which does the updating) and the main firmware. If the update fails then the wheel won't operate normally, but the bootloader will still be there to allow you to retry the update.

If you have a very early wheel it is likely that you have the version with the special USB-serial cable. If this cable has failed then obviously a firmware update will do no good, similarly if the microprocessor on the PCB has failed completely then there will be nothing for either the driver or the firmware update to talk to. If the wheel moves or twitches when plugged in, that's a good sign that the microprocessor (I think it's a PIC of some sort) is working. If it doesn't move but responds to the serial port then it may just be a motor wire come loose.

Do feel free to PM me with more details of the symptoms of your broken wheel and I will do my best to help work out what is going wrong.

Robin

No serial number on my 525, but it's a bit of a frankenwheel - the case is a prototype and the PCB and motor have been updated at least once, maybe twice. It's quite likely that my V2 PCB is a very early pre-production one and that real production ones all have a serial number.

cheers,

Robin

You don't fancy just sending 'I0' (get hardware ID) then 'I1' (get firmware version) at 9600N8 and seeing if you get a valid response to each. That's how I detect a wheel on a particular port in the ASCOM driver.

cheers,

Robin

ps. my 5125 wheel is V2 PCB, so can't give you a specific on whether the V3 is different.

Ok, found the 2" wheel, which has ID

FTDIBUS\VID_0403+PID_6015+DA00BT4MA\0000

so the VID and PID are the same, but this one has a serial number too by the look of things.

Still haven't located the cable, sadly it looks like any other USB cable except the plug is about 1cm longer, so it hides very well!

cheers,

Robin
 

Hi James,

I write the ASCOM drivers for the xagyl wheels, so have some inside information

There are probably several different VID/PID combinations as the wheels have gone through different revisions - the very early ones had a special USB like cable that had the USB/serial built in - can't find that cable at the moment, but will try to dig it out.

My 525 wheel with latest PCB has this ID :  FTDIBUS\COMPORT&VID_0403&PID_6015

I have a 2" wheel around the place somewhere - will look this out too.

cheers,

Robin

Yes, James is right. I talked to Sam at ZWO about this - the USB 2 cameras have an onboard buffer of only 4Kb - if this fills up because the PC does not fetch data quickly enough then you get a dropped frame. The USB3 camera has a 48Kb onboard buffer, so they are much more tolerant of PCs where the USB chipset is a bit iffy. I also got >30fps on USB2 with the USB3 version of the camera - about 33 if I remember correctly.

Not sure why your 'stable' value has changed from 80 to 40%, but if you are getting the same maximum frame rate as before then no harm done I guess. You could try putting SharpCap, the driver and Firecapture back to their old versions (one at a time) to see if you can work out which one it is causes the difference, but I suspect it's not really worth the effort.

cheers,

Robin

Might be of interest to some of you - SharpCap 1.0.12 with SPC900 support is now released - details over on the SharpCap thread in the Observing Discussion forum.

Robin

I have 1 instance of Sharpcap running a 900 and another instance of Sharpcap running an 880.

<chomp>

Edit, the 880 instance allows me to change contrast etc etc via sharpcap whereas the 900 needs the cameras dialogue box open to do it.

The SPC900 drivers are evil and don't implement the functionality that I use in SharpCap to take control of the settings. I have *just* worked out how alter the settings using a different, much lower level approach. With a bit of luck I should have an updated version for the SPC900 out sometime next week.

Robin

Edit : I have three of these cams now - at some point I will see if there are any problems with using more than one at a time with SharpCap.

Hi Robin, thanks for that - it's at home and i'm at work, so will do that later. I have 1.0.11, and just get the Windows "application crashed, do you want to send information to Microsoft" box come up.

I'm wondering if maybe it's because my Netbook has a built-in webcam too. If I select that, then Sharpcap works fine - but is taking pictures of me at the keyboard . it's only when I switch to the flashed SPC900NC that it crashes. If I don't click ok/cancel (or whatever the options are on the 'report to microsoft' box, I forget) then some activity continues in the Sharpcap window.

Proper problem report to come later.

Ohh, that's interesting. That means it's crashing somewhere inside the Philips driver code, rather than in my code - SharpCap may be telling it to do something stupid.

I'll get back to you by PM later with some instructions on how to capture a crash dump and send it to me. Might be tomorrow as I'm busy today.

cheers,

Robin

Talking about capture software, tried Sharpcap but it just crashes for me when I select the flashed webcam (Netbook running XP), but Craterlet works ok. Anyone else having issues with Sharpcap?

First check you have the latest version of SharpCap (1.0.11) - older versions have been causing problems for some people. If that doesn't help, send me a PM with any info about the crash (particularly the info that comes up in the crash dialog) and I'll see if I can work out what is going wrong. I'm still working on getting SharpCap to support controlling these cams properly (all the controls available in the right panel) and I'm on the track of getting it to work, but still some way to go.

cheers,

Robin

Got my two £6 880's this morning, they can go with my £30 one....- cant wait to have a play with them.

Having to build an XP machine just to flash them!!unless anyone has tried flashing on the XP Vm in 7???

I think I will watch the forums a little more before trying the LX mod!

Yep, flashing worked fine for me from an XP VM running in Win7. Just for those waiting for the post, I ordered mine from Morgan on Friday morning and they arrived this morning.

Robin

Another thumbs up for Rother Valley Optics...

Bought an eyepiece in their shop just after easter and didn't get around to trying it out until a couple of weeks later. Unfortunately there was a manufacturing defect in the coatings leading to a dark splodge in the field of view in use. Dropped them an email explaining the situation and they emailed back promptly saying I could post it back and that they would get a replacement in the post the same day. They were as good as their word - I posted the eyepiece to them on wednesday and the replacement was with me on friday.

I'll also add that I dealt with Adam when I was in the shop and for the return and he was most helpful both times.

Robin