Xagyl FW8125 Filter Wheel Review

[Toxophilus]

This is something that I have been planning on doing for a while but simply not have the chance to get round to. On top of that I have not had an opportunity to try it out until recently and so I don’t want to comment on something that I have not actually used for real.

A few months ago I treated myself to an Atik 314L+ Mono Camera. I used it in mono for a while but always intended to use a filter wheel with it. So after some deliberation I decided to go for the Xagyl 8 position 1.24” filter wheel.

 This is what Xagyl Astro say about it:

http://www.xagylastro.com/ascom-motorized-filter-wheel-8x125.html
Ultra slim motorized filter wheel - only 0.7" thick! Holds 8 x 1.25" filters and threaded for M28.5 x 0.6. USB controlled and powered (no additional power supply required). No motors protruding from the filter wheel to get in the way. Measuring only 7.6" x 8" x 0.7", this is one of the smallest, thinnest motorized filter wheels on the market. Only adds 19mm of back focus to the optical path when used with our adapters. Perfect solution for Basler Ace, ZWO ASI, ATIK, Moravian and SBIG cameras.

My choice of filter wheel really boiled down to two, this one and the Atik EFW2. The deciding factor being that the Xagyl took its power from the USB rather than having another power supply just to drive a filter wheel.

I’m not sure if this has changed but and it is now being sent with fewer adaptors, but this is what I got in the box

:

Just about every adaptor from 2” - 1.25” - 1” (IIRC), a darks filter, a thumb screw, a USB cable, and probably some other things that I have now forgotten about and a filter wheel.

The finish on the accessories and wheel is excellent and very robust the only criticism I could level would be that inside the window that you can remove to add/change filters was not completely painted, but this was easily touched up. The build quality overall appears really good and I'm delighted with it so far.

 

The wheel is big (well it needs to be to fit 8 filters in) measuring roughly 195 x 190 x 19 mm and for the build quality and size is not too bad on weight at around 860g (without filters).

 

I selected the appropriate adaptors for my LX90 and Camera and fitted them. The threads are well cut and I never felt in danger of cross threading them although with anything like this caution is urged when dealing with any fine threads.

Next came the fitting of the filters themselves. I had gone for Xagyl’s own filter set and this is what they say about it:

http://www.xagylastro.com/lrgb-filter-125-astrography.html
The transmission properties of the LRGB filters are optimized for CCD astrophotography with different models of cameras (ATIK, ZWO ASI, SBIG, etc.) Our LRGB set allows to take images in correct colour for all types of objects. Where other brands make strange compromises, we do the best colour reproduction possible. Both stars as well as objects that emit only in spectral lines, are reproduced in their true colors.These filters are properly sized for our ultra thin motorized filter wheel. The set consists of 4 interference filters for Red, Green, Blue and a Luminance filter for parfocal imaging. Each filter also includes an IR block. Clear aperture is 24mm.

 

Again the build quality matched that of the wheel.

The filter wheel kit also came with a black out filter for taking darks which could be useful to save having to cover the scope. However, I run a pre done set of darks as the Atik with its temperature control and low noise lets you get away with doing this. But for noisy cameras or if you are running an exposure for which you don’t have a dark library then it would be convenient.

 

The filters are fitted by way of a door that can either be closed via a small screw or if you regularly want to access the filters the screw can be replaced with the little thumb screw provided in the kit.

With the narrow size of the filter wheel the filters are ‘snug’ inside the wheel.

This narrow width may be troublesome for some users as this will restrict the range of filers that you can use. Some of my cheaper filters needed a little bit of modification before they would fit neatly. There are 3 spacers inside the wheel that lets you do some fine tuning but even with that movement is very limited. Talking with Daniel Lajeunesse from Xagyl they recommended using Baader and Orion filters (but double check dimensions before buying).

Finally putting it all together this is what it looks like mounted onto my LX90:

Unfortunately, due to its size I have limited room behind the focusing knob and therefore restricted in options for electronic focusing and I have for now had to drop my current electronic focuser. But I was getting that issue with just the Atik 314L+ fitted so for me it was not real hardship. I may play around with positioning to see if I can get a perfect solution at a later date though.

Connecting the wheel to both Windows 7 and Windows 10 machines the wheel goes through its initialisation routine (which involves one complete rotation of the wheel to find filter number 1) and then was immediately recognised and picked up as a Serial COM port. I loaded the Ascom drivers and the test program for the wheel, that I use to drive the wheel in use at the moment. I may look into scripting things and using it via Nebulosity but that will be at a much later date.

Starting the filter wheel program, you get an Ascom dialog to choose the filter wheel (in this case Xagyl FilterWheel 2) from which you can enter the configuration (Properties) dialog:

The dialog allows you can set the various options for the wheel, see the COM port used, the firmware version on the wheel and find other useful and not so useful pieces of information. The wheel itself is highly configurable. You can set names for each of the filters rather than having to remember a number (which in the heat of the moment can help stop mistake being made).

 The various buttons at the bottom of the dialog either have automatic processes associated with them (such as Recalibrate) whilst others have some sophisticated dialogs associated with them.

 

Calibration (the wheel uses magnets to determine the position of the wheel with filter 1 having a different polarity to the others) the sensor can be adjusted to perfectly centre each filter although having used the Recalibrate option I have never had a need for this, but it’s nice to know the option is there. The other dialogs look like this:

Lastly there is an option to allow you to update the firmware, which is a relatively painless process and something I used extensively at first. When I initially received the filter wheel I had the first v4 firmware release on it and this has some issues to say the least. However, the support from Daniel Lajeunesse at Xagyl as excellent and I worked with him to get the firmware working well. I’m now on 4.0.9 and it runs perfectly.

Once you are done with the configuration the running dialog looks like this:

Just click on the filter you want, a wait mouse cursor appears and when it changes back to your pointer the filter is in place and ready to go!

In summary the filter wheel is well made and support was excellent from Xagyl. The motor uses a worm screw drive which could be criticized as being a little noisy but I have never found it bad and it’s not as if you are changing filers ever few seconds in normal use. The configurability of the wheel means that you should be able to deal with any filter issues with regards to precise positioning. The big potential downside to the wheel is that with it being so slim your filer options could be reduced. The fact that it takes power from USB and does not need another cable and power supply is a big plus for me and I certainly have no regrets in buying the wheel. I just need some clear skies and less busy evenings to get out there and on build my astrophotography experience.

Hope you find this interesting/helpful.

[RobertI]

Very useful, I am on the verge of getting one if these myself so thanks for posting.

[laudropb]

Very informative report. Thanks for taking the time to post.

[sloz1664]

Nice in-depth report. Thanks for posting

 

Steve

[Dixie]

Enjoyed the review - out of interest have you got your wheel to operate successfully through a powered usb hub?

 

[Toxophilus]

1 hour ago, Dixie said:

Enjoyed the review - out of interest have you got your wheel to operate successfully through a powered usb hub?

 

In short yes, with no problems so far. I have tried it over USB2 on a 7M extension and a USB3 hub on a 5M active repeater with a 2M cable to the hub and both worked fine. I did have some misbehaviour the last time on the USB3 hub, but then I'm working on my own filter wheel control program that interfaces with the ascom driver and I think that occasion may have been down to programmer error as I had recently made a few changes to it then. Unfortunately the weather has not given me chance to try it since.

[Dixie]

Appreciate the reply.  Seems it's a problem specific to my wheel.  Which is progress of sorts.

 

[Toxophilus]

29 minutes ago, Dixie said:

Appreciate the reply.  Seems it's a problem specific to my wheel.  Which is progress of sorts.

 

I'm guessing that its the 8 position Xagyl wheel that you are having issues with then?

[Dixie]

No it's a basic 5 filter wheel job bought in 2013.  As I saw it works fine with its own lappy port but gets fatally confused by anything else.

[Toxophilus]

25 minutes ago, Dixie said:

No it's a basic 5 filter wheel job bought in 2013.  As I saw it works fine with its own lappy port but gets fatally confused by anything else.

It may be worth contacting their support. They were very helpful to me. Other than offering ideas that you have possibly already thought of I'm probably not of much help, but here goes.

Have you made sure that the main cable to the hub is not too long or out of spec? USB 2's ususally a max of 5 meters and USB 3, 3 meters.
Is the power supply providing sufficient power to the ports?
Does the wheel work on the hub with no other devices that may be draining too much power?
Have you tried other powered hubs to see if that helps?
Does your OS see the wheel connect and disconnect? Again a possible power issue?
Can't think of anything else at the moment but if I do then I will let you know.

Good luck! 

[Dixie]

All very good points and I think I've tested most of them already, ie other hubs, powered, unpowered, short cables, allocated a port itself.  I'm in touch with Xagyl support - very quick to respond.  I'll get it sorted some how. 

[Dixie]

Can I finally ask how old your filter wheel is?

 

[Toxophilus]

8 hours ago, Dixie said:

Can I finally ask how old your filter wheel is?

 

I bought it June 2015 so 8-9 months old and whilst it may not have had much in real astronomy use (due to the poor weather), it has had quite a hammering over that time with the software that I have been writing and testing that I was doing to help get the firmware right when I was having issues at the start.

[Daniel-K]

how much are these?

[Toxophilus]

1 hour ago, Daniel-K said:

how much are these?

Ian King imaging currently have them at £339.00 as do Astrograph. Those are the only two official suppliers in the UK. You can have a look at their sales site for more information: http://www.xagylastro.com

[Toxophilus]

On 3/2/2016 at 00:02, Dixie said:

All very good points and I think I've tested most of them already, ie other hubs, powered, unpowered, short cables, allocated a port itself.  I'm in touch with Xagyl support - very quick to respond.  I'll get it sorted some how. 

I have had one thought that you may want to check out and comes from an issue that I was solving in trying to get USB serial ports more stable on my machine, as I have an issue with it constantly disconnecting. Now I get this under Windows 10, but it may apply to you. Under power management/settings there is a dialog for managing your current power plan (for plugged in and on battery) . Under 'change advanced power settings' there is a dialog that allows you to change the USB power settings. In there is an option for 'USB Selective Suspend Setting', by default this is enabled. I disabled this option on my machine and my problems with my serial port disappeared. As the driver for the filter wheel sees is as a USB Serial port device then this may be the cause of the problem you are encountering. Hope this helps.

[Dixie]

Just to say I may have got this problem sorted.  Xagyl support is very good.   The filter wheel is currently on Version 4, but mine is Version 2, which is a bit more sensitive to power. There's a threshold setting in the filter wheel software which they suggested increasing.  That did the job combined with recalibrating (another software option) when connected to the powered hub.  So far so good.

Rich

[Toxophilus]

8 hours ago, Dixie said:

Just to say I may have got this problem sorted.  Xagyl support is very good.   The filter wheel is currently on Version 4, but mine is Version 2, which is a bit more sensitive to power. There's a threshold setting in the filter wheel software which they suggested increasing.  That did the job combined with recalibrating (another software option) when connected to the powered hub.  So far so good.

Rich

Cool, Thats great news. let us know how you get on with it.

[wuthton]

I had one of these, it worked fine for a year or so but then started to jam more and more often. After much pulling of hair it turned out to be the bearing on the carousel coming loose. When the wheel runs in reverse it can unthread and jam. 

If you run it forwards only it's not a problem. 

[Toxophilus]

6 hours ago, wuthton said:

I had one of these, it worked fine for a year or so but then started to jam more and more often. After much pulling of hair it turned out to be the bearing on the carousel coming loose. When the wheel runs in reverse it can unthread and jam. 

If you run it forwards only it's not a problem. 

That's interesting to know. I have run mine in all kinds of directions and had not problems yet, but I will keep an eye out for it. There is a forward only option in the driver that would prevent this so it may be worth my while setting this. It does however have the disadvantage that selecting a previous filter would take a lot longer though.

[fwm891]

On 01/03/2016 at 21:53, Toxophilus said:

Ian King imaging currently have them at £339.00 as do Astrograph. Those are the only two official suppliers in the UK. You can have a look at their sales site for more information: http://www.xagylastro.com

Ian currently 5 position at £195