aatdalton

I never got into it. Just paid for and use SharpCap Pro. And highly, highly, recommend it.

SOLVED! Well, it was the cable. Got a new USBtoEQ6 cable from shoestring astronomy in the mail today, installed fresh drivers (for like the 5th time), plugged it in, everything happy. Woo hoo!

Random question: When you power on an Orion Atlas (or equivalent) with the direct cabling connected, no HC, does the mount make any noise? Like will it start tracking at all until given a command by the software? Mine makes no noise at all unless the hand controller initializes. It doesn't begin tracking at that initialization point but it does seem to make a whir noise?

By the way, the cable is labeled as RoHS TTL232R-5V-WR

So I've tried all the tests I can, but don't have the means with me to build a loop for the TX/RX harness. Problems with living in bush Alaska... Still no dice. At this point I'm waiting for a new direct cable from Shoestring Astronomy. That should certainly isolate out the cable and drivers situation. Not super excited to surrender and buy something but I sure would like the mount to work. What still gets me is that I don't understand why the mount DID work perfectly a few times.

So regardless of which of the 3 USB ports I plug it into on my laptop (Windows 7 64bit), it always shows up as the same COM Port. That sounds good?

Thanks! Will try these steps out as best I can.

Right, this is post-search. The drop down selection starts at COM1, I hit the search button, it spends 2 seconds or so on COM1, COM7, then shows COM16 and the Not Found message. COM16 is just the last port it checks. It doesn't seem to connect if manually match the COM port number from device manager either.

Sure, here's device manager: Driver details: COM settings: How device appears under Devices and printers: Repeat error message from EQMOD Setup: And bonus Toolbox COM test: Thanks for helping me out so far.

So I changed the COM to COM4 and EQMOD pauses on COM4 now but then moves on and doesn't find it.

Hi all, hoping to find a once and for all solution to this issue. Essentially I'm having trouble getting my Windows 7 PC to talk to my Atlas EQ-G/ HEQ6. I found this similar topic and am having essentially the same issues: When I plug in my USB EQ Direct cable that came with my mount (looks possibly home made?) I get the badump noise in Windows and see the USB device showing up as "USB Serial Port (COM3)" in device manager. I have unistalled all other hidden COM ports too. When I plug into the mount, nothing happens. When I run EQMOD setup through the toolbox, with a fresh unconfigured .ini file, I set things to 2000 timeout, retry 2, baud 9600 and search. It seems to pause on COM3 but then always shows a red "Not Found." Where it's interesting is I have had this work correctly with the same setup two times before, including last night. Plugged the cable in and it just worked. No idea why it works sometimes. Nothing different. I've tried uninstalling FTDI drivers and reinstalling but that doesn't fix it. Tried restarting Windows, no luck. What is left for me to test at this point? Thanks for any help!

Sounds like I'll have to give it a go and report back once it's dark enough up here to do so. See you in a month or so!

I was working on getting plate solving up and running with APT the other day and noticed ASPS has a tool called "Fast Polar Alignment (beta)." Has anyone used this tool before or know how it works? I can't seem to find any documentation on it.

Here's a link to what appears to be exactly the same rings that came with my guidescope: https://www.ebay.com/itm/SVBONY-SV116-Guiding-Scope-Tube-Ring-Kit-Mounted-Adjustable-of-Range-43-70mm-NEW/312627196203?hash=item48ca08712b:g:NjAAAOSw6PtcwCrf

They actually came with the scope. Purchased it new from some direct China seller off eBay. Surprisingly good quality. Originally they were mounted on a mini-dovetail bar like that would fit into a finder shoe bracket.