Stellarium & Skymax 127 Control

[Al.Grant]

Hi,

Sorry for yet another Stellarium Telescope control thread, but after 3 days of trying to get this to work and reading as much info as I can find - I'm still getting nowhere.

Skymax 127 AZ GoTo

Stellarium 0.11.4

Windows 7 Laptop (64 Bit)

Serial-USB cable (Brand New - Maplins + Win 7 drivers)

Com Port 5 (also tried other com ports)

I am trying to get Stellarium to control my Skymax 127 AZ GoTo mount, but not having any luck in getting the scope to move.

I am using a fresh install of Stellarium 0.11.4 (64 bit).

When configuring the plugin I have selected the Skywatcher AZ GOTO option from the drop down menu (even tried the other skywatcher option) the other options have been left at default settings.

When I start the plugin it tells me 'Connected' and if I check the Win 7 Com port I can see the Serial-USB device listed correctly (Win 7 & Stellarium plugin com port match). I have tried the default com port speed and also tried 11.5k

Start/Stop of the plugin seems to give the correct responses within Stellarium, but my scope just refuses to move!

If I select a star/planet etc in Stellarium and press CTRL+1 nothing happens.

I have seen a few posts about Win 7 and the Stellarium config file, so am starting to wonder if that might be an issue. Although I have a new Serial-USB cable, the RJ11 - Serial cable that connects to the scope has not been checked, but I cannot see any obvious damage.

I may try to get a connection using my Vista Desktop PC so that I can at least verify that the cables work correctly ..... but obviously that won't be any good for outside. Not sure how else I can check the integrity of the cables.

I have seen some posts (older versions of stellarium & EQMOD setups) saying that they have the Telescope AND telescope handset connected to the PC. Do I need this?

At the moment I have only tried connecting the scope direct to the laptop ..... Is this where I'm going wrong?

Any suggestions on what to try or things that I may have missed would be VERY, VERY welcome.

If this keeps up my laptop keyboard may suffer irreparable damage .... not to mention my sanity!

Thanks.

P.S. I have also had a quick go with Cartes Du Ciel & ASCOM Drivers and also Stellarium Telescope ..... nothing seems to work!

[Cornelius Varley]

You need to connect the handset to the laptop using the cream coloured rs232/rj12 data cable, don't connect the mount directly to your computer. Also don't select "PC Direct" on the handset.

Peter

[Al.Grant]

Dumb ... Dumb ... Dumb ... Dumb ... Dumb!

Suddenly it all starts to make sense!

Thank you..... I'll be having another try tonight, this time with everything connected!

( Walks of muttering to himself ..... Dumb ... Dumb ... Dumb ... Dumb ... Dumb!)

[Al.Grant]

Guess what ..... when you connect it all up correctly - It works!

Thanks again.

[dtr42]

ok guys i'm realy dumb i have the skymax 127 /synscan and a laptop. the RS-232 cable to the RJ-11 that i can find are 9 pin adaptors, my lappie is 15 pin so although i can plug into controller i cant plug into the 15 pin female on laptop do i need another adaptor/or can i use the 9 to 15 pin vga adaptor that you find on gaming cards ?total noob with laptop control so any help appreciated

[damnut]

Hi There,

The answer is NOOO. Without checking your lappy, if it is recent you will have a usb port.The 15 pin port will be for driving an external display / projector , so do not plug your rj11/ 9pin into this via any sort of adapter.

What you need is a usb to serial port adapter, I would check with your manfacturers website which versions are supported as some are a bit particular over which chipset is used in the converter (also w7 is particular over the chipset too).. Found below which is also listed as W7 and mac compatible..

http://www.ebay.co.u...3#ht_1246wt_937

[dtr42]

Hi There,

The answer is NOOO. Without checking your lappy, if it is recent you will have a usb port.The 15 pin port will be for driving an external display / projector , so do not plug your rj11/ 9pin into this via any sort of adapter.

What you need is a usb to serial port adapter, I would check with your manfacturers website which versions are supported as some are a bit particular over which chipset is used in the converter (also w7 is particular over the chipset too).. Found below which is also listed as W7 and mac compatible..

http://www.ebay.co.u...3#ht_1246wt_937

ok so if i basically plug the RS-232 cable to the RJ-11 into that one on ebay it converts the rj11 to usb then load drivers for my laptop chipset , plug in then let stelarium gude scope ]

[damnut]

Hi there,

In essence yes, though the term rj11 is just the physical plastic presentation connector, that goes into the mount. At the other end of the cable should be a 9 pin serial connector.

The converter changes the usb port to serial port, so that the control pulses from stellarium \ any other planetarium prog are then sent in the serial format that the mount understands.

You should then be able to configure stellarium to control your scope, I used the same method to drive my 10" lx200. When configuring you need to make sure that the com port assignments are the same for stellarium and the converter drivers, and that the bit rates,stop bits, flow control match

[dtr42]

yeah got it mate. will order that usb one tonight thanks for the help

[damnut]

Hope it works, just update the thread or drop me a pm if you need some help.