SynScan V3.22

[MikeP]

The EQMOD Yahoo group has a new message:

A new version of firmware has appeared on the Skywatcher download

site.

http://www.skywatchertelescope.net/swtinc/customer_support.php?id=94&class1=1&class2=101

There are five fixes/updates in the release notes:

Improve PC Direct and fix key lockout problem;

Add SAO submenu in Object Catalog;

Display telescope current position by RA/Dec, AZ/ALT or motor drive

readings of both axes;

Add precision compensation to coordinate calculations;

Additional information (rise, transit, set times, "Below horizon !"

indication if object is selected)

Mike

[Ant]

Excellent news, thank you Mike.

I'll get onto that tonight!

Ant

[Ford Prefect]

thanks for the update

Cheers Jon

[cygnusx1]

Cheers!

[MikeP]

Found the following on the EQMOD board this morning ......

Well, I did a bit of testing with V3.22, and EQMOD 1.14c, and had

very mixed results.

First, the PAE defect seems fixed. I aligned on Vega, went over to

Mizar, went back to Deneb and centered it in a 312X/10 arcmin FOV

eyepiece, and executed PAE. Went over to Alkaid, then selected Deneb

and it went to within 3 arcminutes. Then I selected M57, and it was

in the exact same spot in the eyepiece. I did some more random go-

arounds, and it always nailed Deneb on return. This was with the

hand controller stand alone.

HOWEVER, while the serial pass-through with EQMOD was just fine to

start, as soon as a rate was set or a direction arrow used, siderial

tracking would stop and never restart unless power was cycled on the

hand controller. EQMOD and Earth Centered Universe dutifully

reported the Right Ascension as it incremented, but the mount never

drove again in tracking. GOTOs still worked; but once at the

destination, no amount of hope and tinkering caused EQMOD to drive

the tracking. The only way to get tracking back was to escape from

PC Direct and enable siderial tracking in the hand controller. Which

brings up another issue. The hand controller boots in a no tracking

mode until a stellar alignment is performed. So, when I powered up

and immediately selected PC Direct Mode, the tracking in the hand

controller was not enabled so that even when I left PC Direct mode, I

had no tracking until I went into the hand controller setup menu and

enabled it. Returning to PC Direct Mode, however, stopped the

tracking function from EQMOD.

During the middle of it all, I was able to do a good 3-star alignment

with EQMOD, no problems, using the Rumblepad2 Joystick and not

touching the hand controller.

I'm not sure what this means for satellite tracking through the HC.

Since GOTOs seemed to be enabled, at first thought it should work but

since, for continuous satellite tracking the motion is not a series

of GOTOs but a constant track rate revision, and since once the

controller gets touched while in PC Direct, it does not seem to

accept tracking instructions, there still might be a problem there

for my uses. I didn't have time to run some satellite exercises, and

I'm packing things up for the Grand Canyon Star Party tomorrow so I

probably won't do any more testing for a couple of weeks.

Oh, I tried to Park the mount with EQMOD when I had finished my

little tests, but I had forgotten to re-enter PC Direct Mode. This

caused EQMOD to think it had executed the function. It hung in a

wait state, saying it was "parking..." with not response from the

mount. The only way to recover EQMOD was a complete disconnect

through Earth Centered Universe, and restart of EQMOD. Which caused

ECU to crash, locking EQMOD open. I had to go into Task Manager to

terminate EQMOD. Restarting ECU and then EQMOD, with the hand

controller in PC Direct Mode this time, allowed it all to Park

gracefully and I shut down.

Sounds like it may not be a good idea to update if you intend to use PC Direct.

Mike

[Ford Prefect]

I was planning to upgrade last night, glad I didnt now. Thanks for keeping us up to date on this Mike.

Cheers Jon

[NickH]

I have yet to see a build from this bunch of shonk monster coders that actually works flawlessly.. shame as it's a great mount, and once you work around the "bugs" it will deliver, just the bugs let it down...

ho hum

[geoff_k]

I have loaded it and will give it a try.

No big deal to go back a version if necessary, but I agree that it would be a red-letter day if they could actually get things right.

One thing I must check which amused me when I saw it on a previous release, are the 'Fatory Settings'

About sums it up, really.