Thoughts on which imaging rigs to concentrate on

[Gina]

Cat 6 cable and mini PC box are due to arrive today.   "What about all your efforts with the Raspberry Pi?" I hear you say - well...

I've been assessing the comms situation and reluctantly come to the conclusion that using an RPi running INDI server will be too slow for data transfer using the ASI1600MM-Cool camera.  I would need to transfer 32MB of data in a few seconds to avoid losing too much time to data transfer as my exposure times seem to be 30s or 60s and sometimes as low as 10s.  32MB = 256Mb so I would want a data transfer rate of over 100mb/s ideally.  Best the RPi can do is 100mb/s Ethernet and that doesn't mean that actual data rate, I have discovered.

Another possibility might be to run KStars/Ekos locally and save images to micro SD card then take the next day to transfer the data to the indoor desktop Linux Mint machine ready for processing.  I might look into some of these possibilities later but ATM I would prefer to spend my time capturing images (weather permitting) and processing data.  Plus getting to grips with PixInsight.

As I said above, there seems to be a couple of things that need sorting out in the ZWO driver (or might be a limit in Ekos) before it will do what the Windows driver will do in conjunction with SharpCap and APT so I'm sticking with Windows for a little while.  Once INDI works properly with ZWO stuff I can install Linux on the mini PC and with a Cat 6 Gigabit Ethernet link to my Linux Mint desktop should be well away.

I apologise to all those hanging on my every word regarding the RPi but ATM I'm afraid I have failed to get it all working   I may have more on this later but for the moment I'm concentrating on other things.

[Gina]

The mini PC and cable has arrived   I have the cable run from router to the astro laptop in the scope room - length is plenty   I think that with my new garden I shall be able to run the cable overground so won't need to bury it.  In which case I can make do with one cable and won't need a spare.

[Gina]

Connected Beelink mini PC to power (using supplied PSU) and to HDMI TV, keyboard and trackball.  Went through the setup procedure, turning off a whole bunch of snooping features then added password in WiFi setup and it connected to router.  At one point it rebooted.  Next step will be to install the software I want to use and see if it works.

[Alien 13]

Looking forward to seeing how the mini PC performs.

Alan

[Gina]

Me too

[Gina]

Now I need to read up on what I need for EQMOD ASCOM etc.

[Gina]

Stuck at virtually square one   Downloaded and installed TeamViewer but it refused to install ASCOM.  Can't say I like the look of Windows 10

Didn't realise there was so much stuff to install to get a windoze system working.  Think I'll install Linux on it!  Seems simpler!

Edited November 4, 2016 by Gina

[Gina]

Lots of Microsoft stuff needed for ASCOM - .NET framework, c++ runtime both 64 and 32 bit versions which have to be installed separately first then there's EQASCOM, all the drivers for the equipment, SharpCap and APT plus goodness knows what else.  In comparison installing INDI on Linux seems a breeze.

One thing I will say - the Beeline mini PC is a nice little box

[Gina]

With all the problems of Win 10 and it's updates, I think I might install Win7.  I can get Win7 Home Premium (same version as I'm running now on the laptop) on a USB stick for very little money. 

[Gina]

Clear(ish) sky tonight and I'm capturing OIII subs for Heart and Soul - 60s gain 50dB and -30°C histogram stretched in Photoshop.

[Gina]

The image is coming and going as patches of cloud pass by.  I'll leave it running and see what I get.

Edited November 4, 2016 by Gina

[Gina]

1 hour ago, Gina said:

With all the problems of Win 10 and it's updates, I think I might install Win7.  I can get Win7 Home Premium (same version as I'm running now on the laptop) on a USB stick for very little money. 

Wrong! - the USB stick has the software but no key code - it is only for reinstalling the OS and then using original key to register and use.

Oh well...  I'll have another go with the currently installed Win 10 Home Premium tomorrow.

[Gina]

I've had time to sleep on this and had some thoughts

I'm thinking that EQMOD ASCOM is all about driving the mount.  I don't think image capture is concerned with this but only the capture software and camera/EFW drivers.  If so I can do without EQMOD ASCOM and use INDI server on a Raspberry Pi with KStars on Linux Mint desktop client indoors. 

I know plate solving needs access to the camera image and the mount but I'm not using plate solving currently anyway - with widefield the pointing accuracy is good enough to get the object in the frame with just a small amount of correction needed for good framing.

Edited November 5, 2016 by Gina

[iapa]

On 03/11/2016 at 16:27, Gina said:

I see.  Thank you Chris

Since I shall be digging up the grass between house and observatory, I could lay CAT5E cable in MDPE water pipe in the ground under the weed membrane and gravel.  What bit rate do you think I could get out of that?  It would be about 15m long.

CAT5e and CAT 6 will both support 1Gigabit per second transfer rate at up to 100m lengths. (CAT6 is actually rated for 10GBit per sec). 

Remember to divide by 10 to get a better approximation for Byte per second rate (there's normally a couple of extra bits added to the each Byte for error correction. 100MByte per second should transfer a couple of images per second.

If you use some of these ethernet over power devices they may have additional correct and/or compression which will also reduce the over all transfer rate.

Don't forget to make sure the Network Interface Cards and any hubs/switches also support Gbit speeds  (yes I have a certificate 'teaching granny to suck eggs 101')

[Gina]

Yes, the devices I want to use with Gigabit LAN are rated at 1 Gigabit.

[iapa]

2 minutes ago, Gina said:

Yes, the devices I want to use with Gigabit LAN are rated at 1 Gigabit.

LOL

I did mention my certificate

Oh, one thing to watch for, CAT5e can be wound round corners quite tightly, CAT6 has a larger radius requirement for going round corners - it's not massive, but worth watching for.

Edited November 5, 2016 by iapa

[Gina]

My hating of Win 10 has already started!    Powered and booted up the system today and it already reports 108 problems with the system for which it want money paid for an application to fix them!  Wherever I go with this I seem to have problems

[Gina]

IF - I say if rather than when because I suspect this is the case, if I can get the software I want downloaded and installed on this Beelink box I'm wondering if I can set up two separate LAN systems - one connected to the internet via router and the other NOT connected.

Or should I just Install Linux on the box instead of (or beside) Win 10?

[Gina]

I think I might plug my Linux Mint USB stick into a USB port and install a dual boot system - if it will boot from USB.

[iapa]

9 minutes ago, Gina said:

My hating of Win 10 has already started!    Powered and booted up the system today and it already reports 108 problems with the system for which it want money paid for an application to fix them!  Wherever I go with this I seem to have problems

That's definitely not right.

Windows does it's own patching FoC.

[Gina]

A screen pops up with a "Start Repair" button which takes me to a browser and web page for buying the repair app.

[tekkydave]

Sounds like ad-ware to me from a pre-installed app. McAfee and other anti-virus s/ware are regular scammers in this way.

Edited November 5, 2016 by tekkydave

[tekkydave]

Might be worth going through the pre-installed applications, put there by the vendor and uninstalling them. If there is an anti-virus program leave it installed for now. I always switch to AVG on my Windows systems and VMs as it is FREE and does a good job. Install any replacement program before removing the old one though. Even AVG though tries to push you to buy the paid-for version at every opportunity. You have to be careful where you click.

[Gina]

Avast is installed and it found and quarantined a piece of adware and I guess there's probably more.  I have AVG on my main Win7 desktop and on the obsy laptop.

This new box won't boot from USB and there's no sign of any way to change the boot order.  I've tried various keys when cold booting but none of the usual ones do anything - it just boots straight into windoze   Looks like I've bought a pup

Three possibilities I guess :-

1. Send it back to Amazon
2. Open it up and put in a Linux SSD or install Linux on the current SSD on another machine.
3. Go on struggling with Win10.

[Gina]

I believe I have 14 days in which to request a refund if I don't like it for any reason but I would prefer not to do that as in most respects it seems good.  It seems to have fan cooling of the processor which might eventually fail in a very damp atmosphere.  If I opened it up I could change the cooling - warranty voided, of course.  It's difficult to find a mini PC that is true 64bit.