SPC900 LXmod yesyes style ;-)

[Andyfx]

Re comment by Snifftheglove.

The Serial to USB cable I linked to is indeed Windows 7 compatible. The review on Amazon must have been put there by a complete numpty, as my one works perfectly, and is recognised by Windows 7 without faffing around with driver disks!

If you require screenshots of my device manager to confirm I am happy to do this and can also photograph the circuit board.

[yesyes]

Hope you found the link to the prolific cable useful.

Yes, thanks for that. I do still have 8 or so of the other PL2303 based one. Will consider the one on Amazon if and when I run out.. ;-)

[Andyfx]

Some photos of the Serial to USB converter. The chip says PL2303HX.

[SniffTheGlove]

Re comment by Snifftheglove.

The Serial to USB cable I linked to is indeed Windows 7 compatible. The review on Amazon must have been put there by a complete numpty, as my one works perfectly, and is recognised by Windows 7 without faffing around with driver disks!

If you require screenshots of my device manager to confirm I am happy to do this and can also photograph the circuit board.

Sorry to have upset you AndyFX. I was only going by what what the customer reviewers (22 of them) said (failure to work on 64bit) as Amazon do not actually quote any specifications.

AndyFX, it would be interesting to know what the driver is you are using on your Win7 64bit as if you never needed to use a driver disk it would certainly help me locate a better driver than the one I had to download.

If you look at the version info for the proflific ser2pl64.sys file and confirm what the build number is being used would also help me out as I am having to use an older Proflic driver to get mine to work but if yours is later then I know I can look for a later version that will definitely work on my systems.

My version is 3.4.25.218 built on 07/10/2011

Thanks

[SniffTheGlove]

The switch works the other way around. Closed is normal mode and open is LX mode.

The static sounds like there might be a problem with GND not being properly connected somewhere...

Thanks for that YesYes, at least I now know

I am in the middle of breadboarding another SPC up to test I can actually do it all as my eyes are dim and my hands shake a little and doing that Q3 solder bit is tricky, well at least to me. So breading it will at least make it eaiser to test each part of the circuit out and there will be no shorts on the soldering.

[Andyfx]

No worries, perhaps the vendor was stocking a slightly different type at one time or another and still listing as the same item....

Anyways, I'm using Windows 7 (64 bit) also and this runs without a hitch so hope this helps others. I must admit I don't recall installing any software, but hey with my memory who knows lol!

[SniffTheGlove]

No worries, perhaps the vendor was stocking a slightly different type at one time or another and still listing as the same item....

Anyways, I'm using Windows 7 (64 bit) also and this runs without a hitch so hope this helps others. I must admit I don't recall installing any software, but hey with my memory who knows lol!

Thanks for that.

Now a little update after breadboarding it all together.

With the switch closed (I just connected the wires together to simulate the switch) I get a perfect picture, I can select normal mode and also LX mode. In LX mode I can control the the exposure and see the results on the screen and Sharpcap is able to save the files as PNG OK

If I open (discount the leads) then I get an image that fades to black and then has multicoloured static with no image. Connect the leads and crystal picture is back.

I think I need to look somewhere else on the circuit as in reality the PNG are more exposed than the normal images but are still really to dark, with an exposure of 4 seconds it should be very bright in my darkened garage.

Something is not right but I shall play at it longer to sort it out.

[yesyes]

Something is not right but I shall play at it longer to sort it out.

Just to make sure, have you configured the LX settings correctly in SharpCap? These are the settings you need to use:

Exposure control : RTS (not inverted)

AmpOff control : DTR (not inverted)

Shutter control : none

[SniffTheGlove]

Just to make sure, have you configured the LX settings correctly in SharpCap? These are the settings you need to use:

Exposure control : RTS (not inverted)

AmpOff control : DTR (not inverted)

Shutter control : none

Thanks YesYes, I had these set as I watched a youtube video by Dion of Astsoshed

[SniffTheGlove]

It turns out I had made a mistake, the same mistake 3 times in a row, when first soldering the circuit and then breading it up and I had the wrong connection off one of the transistor base pins.

I put my glasses on and put it all out onto a large bread board this time and it all works perfectly in LX and normal, no interference and the cam was able to read some writing on the other side of the garage in near darkness. Now to just copy the breadboard onto a vero, then do my others. Thanks to YesYes for the help.

[Andyfx]

Anyone have an idea of the best place to plumb in the cooling fan, also what voltage fan should be used, 5v perhaps?

[DIYASTRO]

Andyfx,

I placed my fans (5volt) at the rear of the camera so that it blows cool air onto the camera boards. The 5 volt taken from the usb supply.

You will see pics of my cameras on this thread some way back on Page 8, page 10 /11 and page 15. I tried to use Chris's brilliant idea to the full and incorporate other bits to the cameras using the 4/7 port usb to serial converters etc.

Let us know how you get on!

Regards

Boyd

[Andyfx]

Thanks DIYASTRO thats what i thought but wanted to check, im just about to take a look at the pages you mentioned.

Cheers

[Andyfx]

Superb work DIYASTRO, am liking the layout of your mod.

[yesyes]

Yes, a 5V fan would work well. I've also tried a 12V fan connected to the 5V from USB but that didn't work well. The idea was to keep the revolutions down to avoid noise (and there's not too much heat to take away). But the 12V fan barely even started rotating.

Replaced with a 5V fan connected to the USB power and that works fine. I did choose to suck the air out at the back of the camera, not blow it in. I was a bit worried that it might blow into the draw tube. Although, the nosepiece screwed into that plastic ring around the sensor should be pretty air tight.

[yesyes]

It turns out I had made a mistake, the same mistake 3 times in a row, when first soldering the circuit and then breading it up and I had the wrong connection off one of the transistor base pins.

I put my glasses on and put it all out onto a large bread board this time and it all works perfectly in LX and normal, no interference and the cam was able to read some writing on the other side of the garage in near darkness. Now to just copy the breadboard onto a vero, then do my others. Thanks to YesYes for the help.

Glad you got it working, Sean. ;-)

[Andyfx]

Thanks yesyes, the parts are on order so will have to play around at the end of the week and see how I want to mount it all up in the abs box and stuff. Will post some pics when I'm all done though.

[SniffTheGlove]

Glad you got it working, Sean. ;-)

Thanks, half way through the vero board now.

With reference to the fan, my idea was to incorporate 2 small 5v fans (same as my Arduino motorised focuser), one at the bottom of the case to draw cooler air in and one at the top (on the side to avoid anything drop into the case) to suck the warmer air out.

If you have an airtight case and one single fan then you will not get much air movement as you will either create negative/positive air pressure unless you drill some vent holes to aid air movement.

I did look at using a Peltier but it just draws way to much amperage plus you would need to remove the sensor from the PCB to get the best cooling effect and my eyes/hands are not good enough with the soldering of the fine connections to the sensor.

Maplins do a good range of 5v fans

5v fan : Maplin Electronics

In my focuser I used the 17x17x8 and it works well to cool the EasyDriver chipset.

[DIYASTRO]

Sean,

You dont have to remove the sensor from the spc900nc or the 880 if you use a 'cold finger' arrangement.

I have a camera with peltier fitted that I build some year or so ago and did manage to fit a brass block on a plate (finger) to sit behind the sensor. I also fitted a small heat sink to the proccessing chip using the same idea.

This camera was to be modded using the cmos 4066 chip on a seperate circuit board but although I built the board never completed the mod for long exposure. With the BETTER Yes Yes style I may 'revisit' this project and complete for long exp.

I would post some pics of the camera in this brilliant thread but am reluctant to do so since it has not got the mod done yet. Perhaps if Chris reads this he may give the ok to do so and you will be able to see what I mean!

Regards

Boyd

[yesyes]

of course. go ahead. I'm interested too ..

[DIYASTRO]

Chris,

Thanks, I will find it and take a few pics to post in an hour or so.

Regards

Boyd

[Gina]

I plan to see if I can add cold finger cooling too. I have already done the LX mod on one of my SPC900NCs.

[DIYASTRO]

Ok, I have taken some pics and posting them just now but have to go out for appointment so explanations will have to come latter this evening, but hopefully you will see what I meant.

Regards

Boyd

P.S. It may be easier if anyone interested could ask questions rather than me ramble on about it!

[SniffTheGlove]

I have finished my first one, I made the initial mistake again when doing the veroboard but and got static then noticed the error of my ways, One of the leads was shorting out across a solder joint, anyway all fixed and camera runs great in both modes. See a pic below.

Now on to mod my 3 others. Again thanks to all especially YesYes who without this thread making it look easy I would not have tried this but glad I did as I will have 4 LX cams instead of 4 normal exposure ones.

[Andyfx]

Completed my veroboard circuit earlier, just waiting on the usb hub now! Thanks for posting so much info everyone.