Synscan AZ with dead LCD and heading towards EQMOD

[gray]

Hi

joined at last to post ! Have been a reader of the forums in the past

Unearthing my 4 year old 100mm Skywatcher with AZ Goto for the Venus transit to find the SynScan LCD is dead. Backlight is on. The place I bought it wants over a 100 quid for a new Synscan. Running the scope of a car battery steady at 12.4Volt on load.

By carefully following the steps in manual, albeit stepping blind through Synscan setup with ESC and ENTER (i.e. entering no long/lat/time etc), I can get to a point where I can do manual slewing; but of course without a working LCD I can't run through setup properly and so cant goto or track, with any certainty.

No lose joints, cracks outside or inside the Synscan controller. Not looked in the mount but I guess no reason to with this fault.

In addition the dead LCD means cant safely reload Firmware as a last resort. I can't tell you the version obviously atm.

Have started mugging up on EQMOD, and its not clear if the AZ mount can be used with the RS232/TTL hack. Ttime is tight so need some tips, please.

So to my Qs

Q1. Anyone had this dead LCD problem and got the controller going again ?

Q2. If recover ...how ?

Q3. Anyone got a breakdown of the menu steps of Synscan in depth - I guess I have older Firmware circa 2007/8 ?

Q4. How to find out the firmware level with a dead LCD ?

If I decide to ditch the controller and go down the EQMOD route, seems that I will need to connect straight to the mount, because I cant do setup. I see that the EQDIRECT converter examples are for 9wayDtype/EQ6 and RJ45/EQ5.

Q5. Any one got the details on the pins on the AZ Goto TTL connections which has a RJ11 connector, for use with EQDIRECT ?

Q6. Any short cuts to getting the mount tracking with EQMOD and EQDIRECT ?

Q7. Any gotchas that mean - "dont bother trying that" ?

OK big post. Best to say which question you are having a crack at ! Hope some of you can help with this.

Thanks, Gray

[Cornelius Varley]

I can answer the last question. Eqmod, as the name implies, is for the equatorial mounts only. If the handset still works but only the LCD has failed you could still use it as an interface with stellerium or CdC.

PS I have a link to a French site which gives instructions on how to make a RS232/TTL interface http://www.autopano.net/wiki-fr/action/view/T%C3%AAte_astronomique_Multi-fonctions_Merlin_Interface .

Peter

[gray]

Hi Peter

thanks

I'll try the bypass on the handset but I had sort of dismissed that due to the impact of not being able to setup time, position and alignment on the mount 1st - but there may be some work around in Stellarium or CdC

Anyone got experience of this

On the RS232-TTL thanks for the link - seems pretty thorough instructions and the RJ11 connector is shown.

Seems time is fast coming to open up the AZ Goto mount itself and figure out some new hack !

Gray

[David JM]

Is the handset a badged Celestron one in the pic? If so you should have a port on the bottom of the handset that can be used to drive the mount from a laptop. All you need is the cable an software.

[gray]

Hi David - yes thats the offending item - but not Celestron - its a Skywatcher

Current status is that I've proven that its just the LCD display itself or possibly the drive from the PIC Chip in the handset.

As a reminder I have the AZ GOTO

Anyway I can make some commands work like slew and rate change but anything complicated is hit or miss without a display

So I am now trying to use Stellarium and the RS232 to RJ11 cable supplied with the unit. So far no joy. There seems to be conflicting advice if PC Direct mode is needed, anyway its tough to be sure I have selected it, as stepping blind through the Utility menu.

Q: Can someone tell me the steps (exact keys) to go from pressing the Utility button to get into PC Direct mode - and to leave it !

I think my Firmware is early 3.0 (I bough the unit Spring 2009) ?

I'm digging through other forums and posts

Thanks Gray

[Cornelius Varley]

With Stellerium you don't need PC-direct.

Peter

[KimG]

A Car battery isn't ideal for this sort of work, they are designed to give a lot of power in a short burst, you would be better off getting a golf trolley battery. If you are not a golfer, it could be well worthwhile approaching your local golf club and asking if they have any used ones, a trolley battery will usually be abandoned long before it is "dead" as it starts to run out of puff on the 14th hole or thereabouts, it still had enough power to drive the trolley round 14 or 16 holes though, it would drive a scope for several hours or more. Being a golfer with several such batteries I can at least in this instance, speak from experience! Doesn't help with the controller, but might be useful info to you.

[David JM]

I was hoping that if it was the 'Celestron' type I could send you the software to control it, as I thought the handsets would just be badges up versions of the same blank.

The Celestron NexRemote mirrors the handset on the PC screen and you 'press' the buttons with the mouse. Good luck with getting it sorted out.

[gray]

Thanks to all of you for the extra info, so here's a progress

Much fiddling with steps on the Synscan controller (blind - no display - remember ?!. So No alignment or setup still.

No progress with the USB-RS232 - weird as I could see data traffic up to the mount (so it must be '232 flow control or something)

Found an old Dell lappy with a classic 9pin Dtype, so ditched the USB-RS232 adapter.

Now can monitor and make some (see note below) AZ Goto moves from Stellarium, with the telescope configured correctly as AZ Goto

Now the scary bit. On slewing or goto from Stellarium the scope moves as follows - Eastward moves in Stellarium result in "Alt up" and Stellarium would not slew East (real East) past some point. Scary also because had a couple of mount collisions.

So I need a way to overcome this "feature" of Stellarium - I guess its due to the lack of correct AZ Goto setup/alignment. Q: Correct ?

Anyway I am looking into ASCOM now - if that fails I guess I have to work out the Alt AZ quirky moves in Stellarium.

So to David's point about the Celestron - this looks like the same SYNSCAN device - probably different Firmware.

Q: Anyway know for sure ?

Q: Anyone had any joy getting spare SynScan LCDs - its marked CEF-CSM0030

Back to the fray

[Cornelius Varley]

Synscan and Nexstar are different.

Have you tried Cartes Du Ciel instead of Stellarium ?

Synscan V3 hanset on ebay http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Skywatcher-SynScan-V3-hand-contoller-HEQ5-lead-/280893222835?pt=UK_Telescope_Mounts&hash=item41668a6fb3

Peter

[gray]

Thanks to all for interest taken so far

So have reflashed the SynScan controller to 3.08 but alas no still no display

I learnt that there is about special control codes to send to the SynScan which should echo the LCD display data back to the RS232 por

its a bit erratic - sometimes I get screen text back in the lappy terminal window and sometimes the handset freezes

Q: Anyone got any tips on using such undocumented feature ?

Also been using the bog standard windows xp sp3 hyperterminal - wonder if serial comms could be an issue

Q: Anyone got any recommendation about which tty/terminal program works best with the SynScan hand set

Anyway was out this morning for the transit and we got about 20 mins of milky/cloudy sun just south of Coventry but with the display problems couldn't get tracking going so a lot of manual slewing but it was fun even if the results were poor !