HEQ5 Mount, EQMOD and gamepad

[swag72]

I have had issues in the past where everything has worked fine with the HEQ5, EQMOD and gamepad setup and then stuff has stopped working. Regardless of what I pressed on the gamepad, it would only appear to issue one pulse at a time (or whatever it's called) and I won't get constant movement.

In my previous thread, where I suspected it was the shoestring cable, Chris suggested that the gamepad may have been issuing stop commands. So I unplugged it and everything controlled from the EQMOD interface fine.

So, does this mean the gamepad is broken? Of is there some setting on it that I may have inadvertantly pressed so that it issues these stop commands?

The gamepad is a wired 'Trust' brand if that helps.

[Bizibilder]

I always initialise and calibrate my gamepad as the first task when EQMOD starts up.

[Spikey]

I always initialise and calibrate my gamepad as the first task when EQMOD starts up.

I also try to do this as I keep the gamepad wired up by the mount. Many times I've walked to it and stomped back again to init the gamepad.

I use a wired pad, I swap it round USB ports occassionally. I've found it's fairly dynamic allowing un-plugging and plugging back in again without loss of function. I don't think theres that much to go wrong with them Sara but they can be a bit temperamental.

[swag72]

Maybe I'll swap the USB port and see if that makes a difference. Odd that as soon as I unplugged it I could slew the scope using the EQMOD interface, but when it was connected it did it one commend at a time.

[Bizibilder]

EQMOD can be sensitive to what is plugged into where - I make a point of always using exactly the same set-up every time. This has helped keeping the whole set-up stable as I had problems to start with when I wasn't quite so careful.

[swag72]

It's all in an obs, so nothing gets changed from night to night. USB's stay in the same place. I did change the USB port for the gamepad and without warning the mount slewed round to the weights up position when I pressed a button.

I think I'll have to try a new gamepad. You just can't cope without them.

[Ant]

EQMOD can be sensitive to what is plugged into where - I make a point of always using exactly the same set-up every time. This has helped keeping the whole set-up stable as I had problems to start with when I wasn't quite so careful.

It's nothing like as bad with Win7. You can pretty much plug anything in anywhere...! With XP you had to install the drivers all over again if you changed ports (untill such time as you had installed them on every usb )

The only exception to the above is the EQDIR module that I have - this I plug in FIRST. SteveL explained it to me, it's to do with the Visual Basic only having access to the first 16 (I think) com ports.

I found that if I didn't plug it in last I'd end up with EQDIR module sitting up in the PORT20's.

I used a wired controller for a little while - eventually the lead started to get dodgy and it stopped working - maybe it was the freezing temperatures that didn't help.

I use a wireless third party PS3 controller now. The advantage is that it turns itself off after a little while and you don't accidentally touch it while guiding. Or in my case put your jumper on it at SGL6 and wonder why your mount is doing strange things.

Cheers

Ant

[Merlin66]

I, like Sara, have everything set up and connected in the observatory....so there are no issues with changing USB port (I have everything labelled anyway)

After some initial scares with a wireless gamepad, I went to a cheap wired version.

99.9% of the time it works 100%....

However occasionally I'll be holding it - no buttons pressed - and the mount suddenly takes off! I use the emergency stop....park/ unpark and life goes on. I have no idea what the problem maybe.....

[Bizibilder]

Gremlins!!

[Spikey]

It's nothing like as bad with Win7. You can pretty much plug anything in anywhere...! With XP you had to install the drivers all over again if you changed ports (untill such time as you had installed them on every usb )

The only exception to the above is the EQDIR module that I have - this I plug in FIRST. SteveL explained it to me, it's to do with the Visual Basic only having access to the first 16 (I think) com ports.

I found that if I didn't plug it in last I'd end up with EQDIR module sitting up in the PORT20's.

I used a wired controller for a little while - eventually the lead started to get dodgy and it stopped working - maybe it was the freezing temperatures that didn't help.

I use a wireless third party PS3 controller now. The advantage is that it turns itself off after a little while and you don't accidentally touch it while guiding. Or in my case put your jumper on it at SGL6 and wonder why your mount is doing strange things.

Cheers

Ant

Thats true, VB uses mscomm and can only see ports 1-16.

The com ports can go a lot higher but I know a fix to reset them all in Windows 7. I'll dig out my imaging laptop (not used it for a while !) and find the text file I wrote to remind myself and jot the stages down, it's very useful to keep. Tends to happen when plugging things in & out a lot.

[Black Knight]

Or in my case put your jumper on it at SGL6 and wonder why your mount is doing strange things.

Cheers

Ant

Lol! . I use a wireless 360 gamepad with the PC dongle thingy. It works OK most of the time, but after it goes to sleep I have to re-initialise it in EQMod to get it to work again. No biggie, just a bit of an annoyance really. The biggest problem with the 360 gamepad is the rubbish DPad. It's very easy to think you are pressing "slew east", and find out that actually you are slewing north east ... or something ...

[Reggie]

For serial comms, in general, if you have an ftdi based device, it *will* remember it's comm port, other ttl usb to serial devices may need an eeprom fitted before they'll remember their comm port. If you have many serial devices, then you should get them all up and running together and decide which ports are associated with which devices, set them to appropriate com port numbers via device manager and make sure the non-ftdi based units are plugged back into the same holes that they were originally installed in, this will stop windows enumerating com ports in the 20s When you come to change the com ports, you can ignore the (in use) tag, they're probably not in use (unless you know of course that they are) but have been allocated by the system at some point, just make sure that your com ports are all unique and com16 or under and you shouldn't have problems

Hope that helps with the serial.

As for eqmod and the gamepad, not sure what's going on there, I would suggest looking through the key assignments that you've got setup for the pad in eqmod! Failing that, join the eqmod yahoogroup and ask the questions on there, you never know it might be a bug that chris can get sorted out!

Regards,

Reggie.