Grant Fribbens

I cannot see any damage to the board that I removed. I always use the same PSU and cables. I have to admit I did try the firmware update knowing that I had already got a spare motherboard but did not expect to have to use it! I would now like to get the one I have had to remove working again so that I have a backup just in case but am definitely not going to update the one that is currently working.

The port comes up as COM5 and is at 115200 speed. I was communicating with the mount directly via the USB port and read that its firmware was 3.07. The issue is that the firmware upgrade failed but the software said that if I power cycle the mount I can retry. I did as it said and the serial port shows under device manager but the motor controller no longer communicate at all for the firmware loader 1.78, not even to the hand controller.  I tried via the hand controller but that has not worked and even though I would try flashing the hand controller with Synscan Relay 4.2 but that could not communicate with the MC board either. I have now put 4.39.21 onto the hand controller and left that. Thankfully I have a spare motherboard for the EQ6-R and have installed that and this has MC 3.09 installed and that is running fine, which means I am not missing out on the only clear night in a month. I now need to see if anyone else knows how I can get this broken board fixed.

I have been looking at the firmware releases on the Sky Watcher website and liked the idea of updating my EQ6-R Pro to 3.23 which has some new features like satellite tracking. I was confident as I have done this with the same PC and cables before with my AZ-GTI and have no issues updating the Hand controller which never gets used anyway.

So I fired up the MC Firmware loader 1.78 and checked my controller version which was 3.7. So I browsed for the new firmware file and clicked Update. The update failed and it suggested to power cycle the mount and try again. Well now all I get is an error message saying "Can not connect to motor controller". I have tried everything and notice that the hand controller when connected now just states "CAUTION Both axis... No response!". So I suspect that my mount is now bricked as it will not allow me to upload any firmware new or old. Has anyone else had this and if so how did they fix it? I am presuming new motherboard 🙁

I purchased a Beelink U59 and it came with Windows 11 Pro pre installed. I installed all my usual ASCOM 6.6, NINA, APT, Sharpcap, ZWO Drivers, Pegasus Drivers, RisingCam drivers, GSS Server, Stellarium, ASI Studio, ASTAP and have not had any issues.

I watched the videos from Cuiv and Astrobloke but on my AZ GTI I also noticed that there are some m3 1.5mm hex grub screws near where the spring pulls on the worm mechanism. What I noticed is that mine had backed out a lot allowing the worm gear to move very far away. I have done these grub screws up so there is a very minimal play on the worm gear if there is some eccentricity in the main gears and this has removed most of the backlash. The idea is that this will allow it to move if needed but only a very small amount. I suppose that is why Synta/Sky Watcher put them in there. This I think is a half way house between Cuiv's complete locking up of the worm gear vs Astrobloke's keeping the original spring mechanism.

Once you have your tripod setup level and then add the Star Adventurer to the level tripod. You should be able to use the two smaller horizontal adjustment knobs to move everything left or right, and then larger latitude knob to adjust the angle up and down, this maybe tight if the latitude adjustment handle is still tightened down. The arrow on the latitude scale should be around 51 for rough polar alignment which would mean that the arrow should point just below the second graduation after the 45 degree mark. For some unknown reason Sky Watcher use 3 degrees for each small mark. See https://blog.martinbelan.com/2020/06/25/how-to-polar-align-a-sky-watcher-star-adventurer-for-astrophotography/ as well as 

Hope that helps.

He also has a good website with all the details on as well https://www.astropills.com/azgti/sky-watcher-az-gti-vs-star-adventurer-pro-2i-which-is-better

Here is my image that I captured of the Leo Triplet on the AZ GTI the other night

2 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

Very nice set up there. 👍What scope and camera do you have on your AzGti? 

Thanks, I have the William Optics ZS61 fitted with the FLAT 61A, ZWO ASI EAF (new version no 12v) and an Altair 26C camera

I purchased my AZ GTI quite a while ago but have had some failed attempts so far. I have got an 12mm to 8mm thread adapter so I can fit the StarAdventurer counterweight shaft in and also got some EQ3 weights and 3d printed a small reducer so they fit on the SA counterweight shaft. The GTI is on a William Optics wedge and I got the 3/8" Skywatcher tripod to go with it to make sure it was nice and sturdy.

I finally got it out again last week and was trying to get my Raspberry Pi 4 working again and I tried it with Astroberry, IdigoSky and then StellarMate OS but with each of these I found something else would crash and not be reliable enough.

So I bit the bullet and got a Beelink U59 Mini PC and set it up in exactly the same way as my XCY X31 Mini PC on my EQ6-R mount with the following software:-

ASCOM 6.6

Altair camera drivers latest

ZWO Camera Drivers latest

ZWO ASCOM drivers for EF and EFW

N.I.N.A 2 beta 55

GS Server 1.0.4.1

ASTAP with h17 DB

PHD2 2.6.11

Stellarium

This did not take too long and did it before it got dark and after polar aligning I was then able just to use the setup exactly the same way without any crashing which was great. After my initial test night I was not entirely happy with the tracking performance or the stiffness in RA and DEC that made it so hard to balance so I did the same strip down and rebuild as Astrobloke did and it made it so much better!

Here are my Mono and RGB setups imaging the Leo triplet near M66!

The EQ6-R requires the baud rate to be 115200 not 9600. I used to use EQMOD but now use GS Server . You may also need to make sure that the Prolific USB drivers are installed if you are using windows so that the EQ6-R is seen as a serial COM port. I would recommend using N.I.N.A with the Three Point Polar Alignment plugin which makes polar alignment super easy. It controls the mount so you do not have to manually move it and it takes three images which it then plate solves to calculate the polar alignment error. Then you can adjust the latitude and azimuth bolts to get the polar alignment down in real time. The great thing about this is that you do not need to be able to see Polaris, so if it is obstructed you can do your polar alignment in a different part of the sky and it will be able to still polar align perfectly. You can also do this with Sharpcap with a £12 license and it has a great polar alignment function which can take images via the guide scope but this does need to be able to see Polaris to work, and you have to move the mount yourself.

If you use N.I.N.A then you would not have to use the handset at all, my handset has never been connected to the mount since I have had it!, as N.I.N.A can plate solve using ASTAP when slewing to a new target and then it will plate solve and re-slew until the target is centred. Once the target is centred then the mount would be sent a command which set the mount to tracking mode which would then be moving the mount at sidereal speed in the same way that your StarAdventurer would when you turn the dial to the star position.

PHD2 is usually used to see how far the mount has moved and to make any corrections and these corrections can be sent via PHD2 directly to the mount rather than using an ST-4 cable between the guide camera and EQ6-R.

I hope this helps a bit but is maybe quite a lot to take in. If you are unsure about anything I have mentioned then please feel free to ask and I will help

I know that when I tried plate solving on Polaris and syncing with EQMOD I had no end of problems and think that you would with KStars as well. I ended up starting with Astroberry but could never get the camera connections stable until I installed INDIGO Sky which also allowed me to control it via APT. I have my Raspberry Pi 4 setup on a second rig with an AZGTI and will be trying it all again later this week.

Hello and welcome. Hope you enjoy your astrophotography journey 😀

I wanted everything to run on my Raspberry Pi 4 with Astroberry but have to admit after many hours of trying I gave up as it was just not reliable enough and kept missing clear skies due to issues, so I went down the Mini PC route with Windows 10 and I am so glad I did. One of the biggest initial pulls was being able to use Sharpcap Pro for polar alignment but I use NINA and now with the Three Point Polar Alignment tool I am getting some great results and it just works how I want it to. I now have a second rig which I am still going to try and get my Pi 4 working with  

There has been issues with frame breaking in the ASI120 series of cameras and I would probably make sure that you are using the version of firmware from the ZWO website https://download.astronomy-imaging-camera.com/download/usb-camera-windows/?wpdmdl=258.

I know that APT and NINA have the native driver built in but I always make sure that the Windows USB driver that gets loaded when the camera is plugged in is the same version as the camera drivers I have actually installed, especially as the Altair installer does not update this driver automatically and have to go to device manager under windows and then update the driver but point it at C:\Program Files\AltairAstro\AltairCapture\drivers and allow windows to search the subfolders.

Sometimes if this is not the case then I find APT and or NINA native does not work as I expect as Windows loads this USB driver when the camera is connected whether ASCOM is being used or not.

23 minutes ago, scotty38 said:

I'm using GS Server instead of EQMOD now and that obviously has the 3D view embedded if you fancied another option..... I think I had an issue with Darks Customs too so may revisit it now you've said that.

Should have mentioned that I already use GS Server after initially using EQMOD but I really enjoy the way GS Server can do PPEC on my EQ6-R so easily. EQMOD it seemed much harder than it should have been. I thought it might be nice to have a 3d view of the scope on the main NINA screen but I woke up to find that the mount had not parked overnight due to a crash because of this plugin. I did not like the plugin as I could not resize the scope image to my liking with the way I have NINA layed out 

I really wanted everything to be controlled by RPi and INDI when I started out but have to admit I found that I got too many issues and most of those related to stability that I just went with a mini PC strapped to the mount. I initially used APT but when NINA Autofocus was so much better than APT's version I made the switch and have never looked back. I have always used ASTAP as main and blind solver with the H17 database. NINA just makes things so much easier and I have now started mono imaging and with Patriot Astro You tube videos regarding the NINA Imaging templates getting this setup has been as breeze. Flats as you say are so much easier and I just love the Three Point Polar align plugin as this makes sure the polar alignment is as good as it can get and does not even need to see Polaris! The only problems that I have had recently was a crash in NINA which was caused by the Scope 3D View plugin but I have just removed that for now and I tried to save time with the Dark Customs filter offset calculator which you must let it do 2 or more iterations otherwise it fails, otherwise everything else is good.

I use the COOWOO USB heaters and have never had any issue with them. I have a dewcontrol db04 on my RC scope but I did notice if I did not supply that with separate power then I could hear the PWM whine through the camera which I was not happy with so just put a separate supply on it and everything was fine.

That is the joys of Brexit and then pandemic making cost of transport, especially the cost of container shipping rocket!

Hi,

    This will work with the HEQ5 https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-mount-accessories/lynx-astro-ftdi-eqdir-usb-adapter-for-sky-watcher-eq5-pro-heq5-syntrek-pro-az-eq5-gt-az-eq6-gt-and-eq8-mounts.html

  I am a cheapskate and I just cut an ethernet cable and soldered this to a FTDI232R board which is much cheaper but you need to be able to solder and to be confident that you do not end up getting 12v in the wrong place! Patriot Astro has a good video about doing this on YouTube here 

Good luck with whatever you choose and above all Clear Skies!

I found that some of the Mini PC's did not have enough USB sockets even though the price gets quite high so the XCY series tend to win with between 6 - 8 USB ports 4 of which are USB 3 and the price is very good too! I use the USB hub on the camera for low speed communications such as EAF or EFW and GuideScope but like to have direct master connection between the main camera and mount. I prefer not to have to add more USB hubs. I also use some of the slower non USB 3 hubs for USB powered heating bands which work really well so reducing the need for dew heater controller and even more cables.

I use an XCY X31 mini PC (i5) from Banggood, much cheaper than a NUC. I would avoid Intel Celeron / Atom and go for i3 and above. This is loaded up with Windows 10, ASCOM 6.5, PHD2 (latest), Sharpcap (mainly for polar alignment but now use the 3 point polar alignment plugin in NINA), APT, NINA (Nightly), ASTAP, Green swamp server. I just run a remote desktop connection to the mini pc which is attached using velcro to my EQ6-R pro mount and then I can automate everything from the warmth of my lounge. I really like Raspberry Pi and did not want to use Windows but even I had to admit the best software available is Windows only. I have tried Astroberry but always found that I had to replace the Indi with Indigo Sky to get it to do what I wanted. Then the issue is that NINA does not communicate using Indi so cannot use it and found that KStars/EKOS crashed quite a lot. If APT and NINA could work under Linux with Native drivers that would be great but I cannot see it happening.

I see regular posts from them on Facebook and have purchased from them in the past without any issues. But I expect like most Astro shops they are inundated with requests for equipment, but there is a lack of stock everywhere.

Excellent starting image. You are on embarking on a very exciting journey and I have been there starting with Milky way shots, moving to a star tracker and now I have an EQ6-R and GT-81 for widefield and a GSO RC8 for smaller DSO and Galaxies.