ASCOMPAD Issue with Filterwheel

[MG1]

I thought I'd give ASCOMPAD V2.0 a try last night, but I seem to have gotten myself into a feedback loop that is causing me problems.

I'm using a SX USB filter wheel and although I've installed the latest ASCOM drivers it seemed to time out after a short while and now I get the attached pop-up alert:

Exception: Communications Error - , error - 0

Module: SxFw - Position read Property Failed

Method: get_Position

Trouble is....I hit okay and it just keeps popping up.

When I close ASCOMPAD and start again, it's still doing the same!

Even after a complete shut down and re-boot!

It's probably one for super Chris ....but if anyone else has any suggestions please chip in. I'd also be interested to hear if anyone has generally had issues with the SX USB filterwheel. I'm begining to think I may have a lemon

One other thought/ bit of feedback on V2.0 is that fiterwheel pull down menu seems to be greyed out...maybe that will help identify the issue? I can assign a gamepad button to change filters, but I can't change on screen ?!? If possible I'd rather just change filters on screen, as I'm kinda running out of buttons on the pad! Maybe there's a way to assign keyboard shortcuts as well as GP buttons?

Just a thought.

Cheers

Michael

[chrisshillito]

Hi Michael,

To me that looks like a bug in the SX USB ASCOM driver rather than ASCOMPAD. The underlying problem seems to be one of establishing communications with the focuser itself - this is causing an exception (perhaps the virtual comms port has changed or is already in use etc) that the deriver code isn't handling.

Is there any way to run the SX USB driver standalone? If so does that work OK?

As far as ASCOMPAD's filter position dropdown is concerned it is enabled once a successful connection is made to the driver and disabled on disconnection or connection failure. Given the error message you are getting I'm assuming the latter.

Chris.

[MG1]

Thank you Chris, I feared it was probably an issue with the SX driver as I have similar issues with their stand alone app. I was sort of hoping that by using the ASCOm drivers I would find a solution, but I have a horrid feeling that I'm going to end up looking for a different solution...or holding back on my adventures into Narrowband.

I've dropped Terry at SX an email and hope hear back...will post any thoughts/ solutions.

Thanks anyway,

Michael

[Chris85]

HI Michael,

Sorry to dig out an old thread, but did you ever solve this problem with your SX wheel? I've recently bought one myself and am also getting the same error messages, and it's getting to the point where I'm going to smash the wheel to a million pieces... Like you I've emailed Terry, but he doesn't seem to know or seem that terribly bothered by it. What concerns me is that you've brought this to his attention all those years ago, and it looks like nothing has been done about it. 

Cheers!

Chris