"COM port in use" with ASCOM LX200 driver

[jarbi]

Hi,

I would like to help a friend of mine to cure a strange problem. He is trying to control his LX200 mount via Boxdorfer, and it even works with the LX200 Ascom driver within Skytools ( slewing, Goto etc ).

The problem begins when he would like to start guiding with PHD Guiding. When trying to connect to the mount from PHD via ASCOM ( using ASCOM 6 platform ), he gets a message that the COM-port is already in use.

I am getting confused here, since I thought ASCOM would behave as a hub to share the COM-port between the two applications.

We have tested it also other way around: first connecting the mount to PHD ( worked ), then connecting to Skytools - failed with the same error message.

I would be grateful if someone could shed light on this. In my setup I never have such an issue sharing the connection to my EQ6 mount via ASCOM 6 with EQMOD ( I also use PHD and Skytools ). My only idea is that the LX200 ASCOM driver is not up to the job and uses the COM-port exclusively somehow .

Clear skies,

Janos

[chrisshillito]

ASCOM driverd don't generally behave as a hub (EQMOD is special in that regard)- but ASOCM does provide a hub application called POTH (which appears as a telescope driver from the ASCOM chooser). Run up POH and have it connect to the LX200 ASCOM driver. Then have skytools, PHD etc. connect to the POTH hub.

Chris.

[jarbi]

ASCOM driverd don't generally behave as a hub (EQMOD is special in that regard)- but ASOCM does provide a hub application called POTH (which appears as a telescope driver from the ASCOM chooser). Run up POH and have it connect to the LX200 ASCOM driver. Then have skytools, PHD etc. connect to the POTH hub.

Chris.

Thanks Chris, We have tried that already - same result. But anyway, POTH should be obsolete in Ascom 5 and above AFAIK.

cheers,

Janos

[Chris Rowland]

POTH isn't obsolete in ASCOM 5 or 6. If a driver doesn't support multiple connections then POTH or one of the other hubs will be needed if you want to connect multiple applications.

Chris