skywatcher gps mouse

[jelstone26]

I apologise if this is in the wrong section.

I received my skywatcher gps mouse on friday. i plugged the mouse in to the middle port on the synscan handset, placed the mouse on a horizontal surface and powered up the mount as it says in the manual. The problem I am having is that it will not move past the initializing screen. Please can anybody help?

[StevieDvd]

All gps units have a poor first time start up, or if left unused for a long time. The first time fix may take around 5 minutes - is yours taking significantly longer. Also I presume you are doing this outside with a clear view of the sky.

[jelstone26]

thanks for the reply, its been on for at least 3 hours, its in a room right by a window where i have successfully used a few gps devices before.

[IanC11]

You need to take it outside......

[JamesF]

You need to take it outside......

I'd think that would be a good plan. I have a GPS unit that won't work inside the house even in a window. It might be that it can't see enough satellites to get an accurate fix. Other GPS devices may be more tolerant of less accurate results, perhaps?

James

[jelstone26]

thanks for the advice everybody, i'll take it outside tomorrow as now that i planned to do that it started raining .

[mhard26339]

Hi, I had this problem; nothing to do with being indoors, if I started the mount up, waited for it to initialise and then plug in the GPS it would do its thing but never at startup. The solution was to do a firmware update of the Syncscan Contoller at least to version 3.34, in the small print on what is fixed it states "some minor GPS issues". Did the update and worked and initalised immediately, the only problem was that I did not have a serial port on any of my computers and I could not get drivers to work so had to buy a cheap Serial Port Controller Card but at least all is well now excepting if you want to use EQMOD there is no way to connect the GPS to the computer.

Hope that this helps

Regards Mike

Mike

[jelstone26]

Hi, I had this problem; nothing to do with being indoors, if I started the mount up, waited for it to initialise and then plug in the GPS it would do its thing but never at startup. The solution was to do a firmware update of the Syncscan Contoller at least to version 3.34, in the small print on what is fixed it states "some minor GPS issues". Did the update and worked and initalised immediately, the only problem was that I did not have a serial port on any of my computers and I could not get drivers to work so had to buy a cheap Serial Port Controller Card but at least all is well now excepting if you want to use EQMOD there is no way to connect the GPS to the computer.

Hope that this helps

Regards Mike

Mike

thank you for this. I'm currently on version 3.28 so this could well be the problem.

[jelstone26]

I took the gps mouse outside this morning and still had no joy so i guess it must be that the firmware needs updating as mhard26339 suggested. Unfortunately i dont have a rs232 port on my pc so ive bought a rs232 to usb cable which should arrive sometime this week.

[mhard26339]

Hope that it works, I already had one tucked in a drawer but I could not get a driver to work with either XP or Win 7 hence the Serial Controller Card for the workstation, that went staright in - hope you have better luck than I did wth the driver but I am sure that you are now on the right track!!

[jelstone26]

I received my rs232 to usb cable today which i plugged in and it installed straight away in com port 3, now the problem I am having is that when i try to update the firmware a message comes up saying ''can not connect to a synscan hand control'' even when i manually select the correct com port. sorry for so many questions but can anybody help with this?

[StevieDvd]

Are you putting the handset into the correct state. You need to press a combination of buttons when powering it up to get it into the mode it needs for firmware updates. Don't have the SW PDF to hand to tell you the keys to hold.

[jelstone26]

yes, you just have to push 0 and 8 simultaneously.

[jelstone26]

well this is strange. I was having a bit of a mess around with the synscan hand controller tonight and i noticed a gps menu so then i plugged in the gps mouse (which you are supposed to do prior to starting the hand controller up) and i now have a gps lock. But when i do things the correct way (plug in the gps then startup handset) it still wont move past the initializing screen.

[Oddsocks]

Looks like someone over at Cloudy Nights is having the same issue.

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Number/5585537

[jelstone26]

thanks for pointing that out Oddsocks, now i just have to get my pc to recognise that a synscan handset is connected so i can do a firmware update.

[Geordie mc]

I bought my rs232 to USB cable from marlins and firmware updated fine. Not all cables have the full compatability I believe. This might be the issue?

[Geordie mc]

Sorry that's Maplins. I hate predictive text!

[evanapp]

Let me throw in another GPS issue. My GPS had been working fine, with handset firmware 3.28 through 3.35. Now it suddenly starts reporting a date in midyear 2033! Time, latitude and longitude are all correct. However, when you manually correct the date on the handset, it throws the time off, so you have to reset the time as  well, pretty much wiping out the usefulness of the GPS. Anyone seen anything like this or have any suggestions?

Evan