Arduino Ascom focuser Mark2

[silios]

Thank you, ill try being semi focused the night and ill post back my findings!

Good luck with the obsy! I guess it must be the ultimate diy project on the list, hard to make but rewarding

[russellhq]

Is it a powered hub? Do you have anything else connected and is it ok if the focuser is the only device?

Yeah, it's a powered hub. I've got the Atik and serial to USB cable from the mount also connected. I tried it without the other devices connected.

I tried a bunch of different combination to see if I could narrow down the fault and recorded them in the table below. For each combination, only the focuser USB device was connected and it was uplugged before testing. I recorded the voltage across the Nano +5v and GND pins for info.

I know very little about electronics so really don't know what the table is telling me, but all I need to know to make it work is to make sure the power is plugged into the hub and turned off before attaching the USB cable to the laptop!

[silios]

i use to have the exact same problem with a custom shutter release i made for DSLR. every other time i was getting device not found for some random device ( mount,guiding camera, canon 350D digic,remote shutter ) what shorted it out in the end was a quality powered usb hub. i verified it with the multimeter as well. also before buying anything i would test a shorter usb cable. I think theres os quite big voltage drop in 5m one.

[Davey-T]

Finally managed to get it all in a box today, bit bigger than I wanted but at least it all goes in with room to spare, used your idea of sticking the Arduino on a bit of Vero board,  just got to fit it to the Lunt LS60 somehow now.

Dave

[tekkydave]

Finally managed to get it all in a box today, bit bigger than I wanted but at least it all goes in with room to spare, used your idea of sticking the Arduino on a bit of Vero board,  just got to fit it to the Lunt LS60 somehow now.

Nice job. I should have used a slightly bigger box, mines a bit of a squeeze.

[blackdragon72]

Sounds interesting. I have no experience of Macs. What client program do you plan to use and how will it interface to the arduino?

I dont know much about it either. Nebulosity support microtouch focuser in max osx (and of course many more focusers in Win), I hope they will add auto focus function in their future release.

[blackdragon72]

Yeah, it's a powered hub. I've got the Atik and serial to USB cable from the mount also connected. I tried it without the other devices connected.

I tried a bunch of different combination to see if I could narrow down the fault and recorded them in the table below. For each combination, only the focuser USB device was connected and it was uplugged before testing. I recorded the voltage across the Nano +5v and GND pins for info.

I know very little about electronics so really don't know what the table is telling me, but all I need to know to make it work is to make sure the power is plugged into the hub and turned off before attaching the USB cable to the laptop!

table.png

I am using this. I usually have auto guide, ccd and usb-serial connected to the hub. It never gives me any issue with external power.

http://www.amazon.com/Port-Compact-Black-USB-2-0/dp/B000T9S4CI/ref=sr_1_2/183-2930130-3956353?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1413086575&sr=1-2&keywords=startech+usb+hub

[SUNJiaLin]

Hello, I'm new on this thread.

I got Arduino Uno with stepper and temperature sensor.

Uploaded everything Ascom 6.1, serial commands through Arduino works and make rotating and I can get the temperaure.

BUT : when I launch AAF2, I don't know which ASCOM driver to select 

I have a choice list :

- ASCOM Simulator Focuser Driver

- Generic Hub

- Pipe Diagnostic Tool

- POTH Hub

- Simulator

Certainly I missed something...

- Could you help me ?

[russellhq]

Doesn't look like you have listed it. The driver has AAF2 in it's name, and I think the full name is "ASCOM Focuser Driver for AAF2".

[wuthton]

Hello, I'm new on this thread.

I got Arduino Uno with stepper and temperature sensor.

Uploaded everything Ascom 6.1, serial commands through Arduino works and make rotating and I can get the temperaure.

BUT : when I launch AAF2, I don't know which ASCOM driver to select

I have a choice list :

- ASCOM Simulator Focuser Driver

- Generic Hub

- Pipe Diagnostic Tool

- POTH Hub

- Simulator

Certainly I missed something...

- Could you help me ?

You need to register the driver. See post number 57, page 3.

[tekkydave]

I havent got the auto register quite figured out yet. Its low down on a list that keeps getting longer.

[silios]

Some pictures of the finished product!

A note in case someone search for it in the future.

In countries where a comma "," is used to mark the radix point such as Greece, the temperature from the sensor gets translated to ludicrous amount of heat in some software (2350c temp reading when the sensor reoprts 23.5c)

The solution is to change in the regional settings the decimal point

[Davey-T]

I havent got the auto register quite figured out yet. Its low down on a list that keeps getting longer.

In Win 8 you can press win key + z to get a drop down menu and one of the options is open command prompt as administrator, you'll need this to register the DLL.

Dave

[tekkydave]

In Win 8 you can press win key + z to get a drop down menu and one of the options is open command prompt as administrator, you'll need this to register the DLL.

Dave

Yeah, I have done that in Win 7 although you have to use ctrl-Enter I think. The problem is the setup program should do it automatically but it doesn't. Ill get to the bottom of it one day

[Davey-T]

I think in win 7 you can shift and rt click on the desktop to get the drop down menu.

Dave

[iwannabswiss]

Looks good silos. I just finished putting my in the container, now just need to decide either direct drive or belt. Currently have it on direct drive but we'll see when it comes time to take some pictures.[emoji4]

[silios]

Looks very tidy iwannabeswiss, puts mine to shame

The good news is that last night, got first light and it performed awesomely bringing the subject to focus!

[Gina]

Looks good silos. I just finished putting my in the container, now just need to decide either direct drive or belt. Currently have it on direct drive but we'll see when it comes time to take some pictures.[emoji4]

That's superb - very neat indeed - well done

[SUNJiaLin]

I havent got the auto register quite figured out yet. Its low down on a list that keeps getting longer.

I understand that solving such kind problem is time consuming, just to make it more clear for the dummies like me, it would be great to copy the "manual" process in the Wiki page of SourceForge.

Didier

[SUNJiaLin]

A note in case someone search for it in the future.

In countries where a comma "," is used to mark the radix point such as Greece, the temperature from the sensor gets translated to ludicrous amount of heat in some software (2350c temp reading when the sensor reoprts 23.5c)

The solution is to change in the regional settings the decimal point

Silios, thanks a lot !

I'm French and we are using also comma and I didn't got any temperature at first.

After changing regional setting, it is working.

- Is there any way to modify Arduino code to get it correctly according regional setting like all third party applications ?

Didier S-C

[SUNJiaLin]

By the way, I'm really not efficient and by curiousity I checked "Trace" in Ascom box,      

and it became a nightmare      

until I use "Ascom profile explorer" to force "Trace" from "true" to "false".

Even desinstalling AAF2, Ascom 6.1 don't remove "Trace" status...

Hope it can help and avoid loose time for others   

Didier S-C

[Mick J]

Didier,  have you now managed to install the driver ?    

[tekkydave]

Silios, thanks a lot !

I'm French and we are using also comma and I didn't got any temperature at first.

After changing regional setting, it is working.

- Is there any way to modify Arduino code to get it correctly according regional setting like all third party applications ?

Didier S-C

I'm not sure the arduino is aware of its locale. It might be possible to change the dot to a comma in the driver as it will be able to access the language/locale settings from the PC. I'll look into it next time I do some work on the driver.

[tekkydave]

I understand that solving such kind problem is time consuming, just to make it more clear for the dummies like me, it would be great to copy the "manual" process in the Wiki page of SourceForge.

Didier

Thanks for the suggestion. I have put the details of the Manual Driver Registration on the SF wiki page.

[silios]

I'm not sure the arduino is aware of its locale. It might be possible to change the dot to a comma in the driver as it will be able to access the language/locale settings from the PC. I'll look into it next time I do some work on the driver.

Exactly!

What programming language is the driver written in?