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Qhy5L-ii Problems - No Image


Rico

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For high res planetary recording i may have to look at another solution like that one you've posted earlier

I've been working on filter wheel support for the next release (because I want to be able to use it mysel for Jupiter this apparition :)  Hopefully that means it's reached a stage where it's genuinely useful as a planetary capture application for mono cameras.  Without filter wheel support it's rather more work with a mono camera.

James

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They do make life hard for themselves.  It seems that almost every camera they produce has a completely different driver.  I think they may (relatively) recently have changed the way they handle the coding of the drivers, too.  It used to be (as far as I can work out) that a (Belgian?) chap called Tom Van den Eede seemed to be writing them.  I don't think he's on the scene any more though.  Possibly they've taken it in-house.

James

Hi James

I think 'Tom Van den Eede' is an internet myth! I reckon they probably get students to do their coding on the cheap - with all that entails! I don't mean to malign them but their software seems to be their weakest point.

They've been testing out a cooled version of the qhy5l-ii (miniCAM5S) which sounds interesting but no sign of it on the market yet!

Right, off to bed for me!

Louise

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Hi all

Just a follow up. I've tried fiddling around with various combinations of cables and usb ports. I can't get the native (high compatibility?) driver or the ascom driver to work via a usb 3.0 port on any computer. However, it works fine with a usb 3.0 hub which is plugged into a usb 2.0 port. That tells me it's a driver problem, not a hardware one. I've posted on the qhy forum. I'll check back, if and when I get a reply! 

Louise

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Louise, just to add. The only way that mine ended up working on my USB 3.0 ports was with the second high performance driver. 13.1.6, which ironically is one that they DON't recommend installing if you have USB 3.0 ports. Weather has been awful so I haven't had a chance to guide yet with it. Time will tell if I have a stable setup

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Louise, just to add. The only way that mine ended up working on my USB 3.0 ports was with the second high performance driver. 13.1.6, which ironically is one that they DON't recommend installing if you have USB 3.0 ports. Weather has been awful so I haven't had a chance to guide yet with it. Time will tell if I have a stable setup

Ok - I'll investigate some more when I get a minute :)

Cheers

Louise

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I don't have a 32-bit system to compare it to any more, but I should also be able to try it on at least one 64-bit system.  For me the camera works on (64-bit) OSX and Linux via USB3.  I'm bending OSX to my will at the moment having found a bug in my driver for the camera that shows up randomly on OSX.  I'll have a go at Win7 once I've sorted that.

James

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Had a fiddle about today and managed to get it working with a usb 3.0 on a 64-bit system but it's refusing to work on my 32-bit one. Sigh. The 32-bit Win 7 system sees the camera and the power light come on. It appears in Device Manager but none of my applications will connect :( As yet, nothing helpful from the qhy forum.

Louise

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I got my qhy5-ii to autoguide for the first time on Sunday evening. I used usb2 port, opened up Ezplanetary and put into Livebroadcast, opened up Metaguide - alternative guiding for QHY cameras and got 120 sec subs. normally I can only manage 60 sec subs unguided. So I was delighted for the first attempt. Unfortunately the Moon was lighting up the sky and I was unable to get any DSO images, but with better Polar alignment I know it will do much better.

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Well, I downloaded the "high performance" driver onto my laptop and installed it.  When I plugged in the camera however, the drivers failed to load.  I'm now downloading the "high compatibility" driver to see how that goes.

James

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Actually, it's just occurred to me from thinking about the diagnostic messages that it must have loaded the driver for the camera initially and uploaded the firmware, but then when the camera reset after the firmware installed it didn't then load the second driver.  Perhaps it might have been worth persisting.  Something to investigate another time...

James

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I can now report that with the compatibility driver then the camera works fine in PHD for me on my 64-bit Win7 laptop with USB3.  It does however manage to crash the latest version of FireCapture, so it's not all good news.  Fortunately I don't use it for planetary imaging.

James

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Actually, it's just occurred to me from thinking about the diagnostic messages that it must have loaded the driver for the camera initially and uploaded the firmware, but then when the camera reset after the firmware installed it didn't then load the second driver.  Perhaps it might have been worth persisting.  Something to investigate another time...

James

Hi James

I think you have to uninstall whatever is the current driver before installing the alternative one but it's a bit confusing as both have the same name. There doesn't seem to be any way of seeing which driver is currently installed...

Louise

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Hi James

I think you have to uninstall whatever is the current driver before installing the alternative one but it's a bit confusing as both have the same name. There doesn't seem to be any way of seeing which driver is currently installed...

Louise

I did uninstall them old one, but in this case I was rambling about something different :)

The QHY cameras (all of them I think) don't actually have their firmware in the camera.  When they're initially plugged in they present their default USB vendor id and product id to the OS, which triggers the loading of a specific driver.  That doesn't actually operate the camera, but uploads the firmware to it.  Once the camera has loaded the firmware it resets itself, disconnecting from the USB bus and rejoining, but this time presenting a new USB product id configured in the firmware.  This second combination of vendor id and product id triggers the OS to load the actual driver to work the camera.  So in effect each camera has a pair of drivers associated with it -- one for loading the firmware and the other for actually running the camera.

What happened when I tried my QHY5L-II with the high performance driver was that the Windows loaded the first driver and the camera clearly reset and triggered the second, but for some reason installing that second driver failed.  I only realised that was happening when I tried my QHY5 afterwards and the dialog box told me that the first driver had loaded and then the device had disconnected and the second driver started loading before the box disappeared.  It may just have been a timing thing, so I'll give it another go some other time.

No idea about the FireCapture issue though.  My recollection is that the author said he had a fair few problems getting the newer QHY cameras to work, so it may be related to that.

James

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Hi James

Hmm... Sounds overcomplicated! How have you monitored all that taking place?

Looks like I'm stuck with using mine on a 64 bit system. Not the end of the world but a bit frustrating... I've not had any official reply on the qhy forum. Still, if I ever get a laptop at least it will be 64 bit :)

Microsoft have stopped selling Windows 7 and Windows 8 now, though there are still a lot for sale by retailers. Win 10 is due in 2016.

Louise

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It does seem complicated, but it appears to be quite a common way for manufacturers to create a device with loadable firmware, not just astro cameras.  I believe the ASi120 actually uses the same chipset, but has burnt the firmware into the EEPROM that's available as part of the chipset, so it doesn't need reloading each time.  I had some fun getting it all to work with oaCapture on OSX so it could load the firmware for you.

I've been tempted to pick up a copy of Win7 just in case I need it at some point in the future.  Between the family we have several, but I'm not sure how transportable the licence keys are.  Some of them might be tied to specific hardware.  I thought Win10 was out next year though, and I can't see me upgrading anything before then, so perhaps by the time I'm ready things will look different.

James

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Hi James

Microsoft officially has always said only one copy on one machine, I think... You have to have a new installation 'validated' online. However, I'm not sure what the 'validation' actually involves. I've certainly upgraded systems before (new hard disk, new mobo etc) and Microsoft's validation software hasn't complained but I still used an authentic copy of Windows which was unique to one machine. Maybe it won't complain if you have a copy across two machines - not sure! Maybe they'll be happy with it having a valid product code.

I'm thinking of upgrading my 32-bit system as it's only an E5200 processor and if I'm going to do it I might as well go to 64 bit. Whether or not it will let me do that with the same Windows that I have on another system is to be established!

Louise

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I've been having trouble with my QHY5L-ii camera too.

I bought it a year ago for use with an OAG.  To cut a long story short, I've only just got an OAG!

I tried to get the focal distance sorted out at the weekend before I used it, but when I tried using the camera with PHD it wouldn't work.  I remember that I had problems when I first bought it.  I was having USB conflicts with an external wireless network adapter (really old laptop).  When I uninstalled the network adapter it started working.  That was on XP.  I've just installed Windows 7 and tried using it again.  I'm still having problems.  I've installed the latest drivers from the QHY website, and now have the camera working with PHD through the ASCOM drivers.  The system drivers give me nothing.  I've tried the high compatibility driver, and just about to try the other driver.

I did have it working before with EZPlanetary, but I prefer using Sharpcap.  Do I need to use the WDM driver for Sharpcap?  I couldn't get Sharpcap working before, and I tried all sorts.

I was also wondering if I should be using PHD2  instead of PHD?  (Only found out today that there was a PHD2).  Is there a difference?

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