Nexstar Raspberry Pi Controller

[tekkydave]

Another issue could be the bcm2835 library. I will try running a test program to check it is installed correctly.

[Gina]

We are both getting the same error with the Astroberry driver yet you are using Raspbian and I'm using Ubuntu MATE with different sources so I feel sure the problem has to be with the Astroberry driver .deb file.

[tekkydave]

It could be that that we both havent compiled bcm2835 correctly or it doesnt work on rpi3. Less likely than astroberry issue but I want to eliminate it.

[Gina]

I haven't compiled the bcm2835 - just installed the INDIbleeding library from a repository in Ubuntu MATE.  This includes everything in one go.  Well, except the Astroberry driver.  This quote from the INDI Library on Raspberry PI

Quote

Furthermore, if you install Ubuntu Mate for Raspberry PI 2, you can get all the bleeding edge INDI and KStars directly from the Ubuntu INDI PPA, no need to download and install packages manually!

I'll see if I can find the details again.  For one thing I want to start again and install everything on an 8GB micro SD card - anything bigger seems totally unnecessary.

Edited October 6, 2016 by Gina

[tekkydave]

Does indy-full contain the bcm2835 library? It is needed for astroberry to talk to gpio pins.

[Gina]

I've no idea!  Aha - I guess that could be the problem.

[Gina]

I replied to this but my post has disappeared - again!!  This seems to be happening quite often recently

Answer :- I have no idea but maybe not so that may be why Astroberry isn't working.  I would have expected a different error though.

[Gina]

That post that had disappeared has come back!!  Weird.

I'm pretty sure INDI-full does not contain the bcm2835 library but could be wrong.  I found the archive containing the bcm2835 library.  There was no mention of INDI so I reckon they're separate things.  Tomorrow I'm expecting to receive some 8GB micro SD cards and proposing to install Ubuntu MATE followed by the bcm2835 library, INDI-full and Astroberry on one of them.  I shall not be installing KStars/Ekos because I see no reason to run those on the local RPi 3 server - they are on my client Linux Mint laptop.

May install TeamViewer for testing and I plan to remove unwanted software such as Libre Office, Thunderbird and a few other things I'm certain I won't want on the server.  I see no point in cluttering up the card with unwanted stuff and also a compressed archive of the card contents will be smaller and take up less room on a backup drive plus better for distributing to friends once I get it all working.

[Gina]

Decided to order the HomePlug LAN with WIFi Access Point as I would like faster data transfer than I can get with my present system.  Plus a WiFi access point in my observatory warm room would provide much better reliability.  Higher speed WiFi from the RPi might be achieved with separate dongle as I have n type dongles whereas I think the RPi is only 11b - it certainly only has a miniature aerial.

[tekkydave]

7 hours ago, Gina said:

That post that had disappeared has come back!!  Weird.

I'm pretty sure INDI-full does not contain the bcm2835 library but could be wrong.  I found the archive containing the bcm2835 library.  There was no mention of INDI so I reckon they're separate things.  Tomorrow I'm expecting to receive some 8GB micro SD cards and proposing to install Ubuntu MATE followed by the bcm2835 library, INDI-full and Astroberry on one of them.  I shall not be installing KStars/Ekos because I see no reason to run those on the local RPi 3 server - they are on my client Linux Mint laptop.

May install TeamViewer for testing and I plan to remove unwanted software such as Libre Office, Thunderbird and a few other things I'm certain I won't want on the server.  I see no point in cluttering up the card with unwanted stuff and also a compressed archive of the card contents will be smaller and take up less room on a backup drive plus better for distributing to friends once I get it all working.

Once I have a working system for mount, focuser and my ZWO ASI120MC I mayl try rebuilding using Raspbian lite which has none of the X stuff and apps.

[tekkydave]

8 hours ago, Gina said:

Decided to order the HomePlug LAN with WIFi Access Point as I would like faster data transfer than I can get with my present system.  Plus a WiFi access point in my observatory warm room would provide much better reliability.  Higher speed WiFi from the RPi might be achieved with separate dongle as I have n type dongles whereas I think the RPi is only 11b - it certainly only has a miniature aerial.

According to raspberrypi.org it is 11n. I'll see if I can find out what speed I'm getting.

[Gina]

I could do the same   Thanks

[tekkydave]

Getting this on my RPi3 using internal wifi

$ iwconfig 
wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"<removed>"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: "<removed>"   
          Bit Rate=43.3 Mb/s   Tx-Power=31 dBm   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:on
          Link Quality=39/70  Signal level=-71 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:26  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

 

[tekkydave]

I have checked the bcm2835 library and it appears to be installed & working. I had V1.42 installed so I have installed the latest (V1.50)

wget http://www.airspayce.com/mikem/bcm2835/bcm2835-1.50.tar.gz
tar xvfz bcm2835-1.50.tar.gz
cd bcm2835-1.50
./configure
make
sudo make install

To test it I hooked up my DVM to pin 11 and used the blink program in the examples folder

cd examples/blink
gcc -o blink blink.c -l bcm2835
sudo ./blink

The voltage on pin 11 should swing from 0V to 3.3V and back every 0.5s. I had to slow it down a bit so I edited blink.c and changed the 2 lines containing

bcm2835_delay(500);

to

bcm2835_delay(3000);

recompile as above and run again. It's a bit easier to see on the DVM now.

So that rules out the bcm2835 library. Back to Astroberry. I will download and recompile from source to see if that improves things.

[Gina]

Very interesting - thanks Dave   I'll try that - when I've woken up   Another late night last night so had a lie-in this morning - just had breakfast

Edited October 7, 2016 by Gina

[Gina]

Here's my LAN speed for RPi 3.  Distance RPi 3 to router about 5m :-

Quote

gina@Rpi3-UM1:~$ iwconfig
enxb827eb135828  no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"<removed>"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: <removed>  
          Bit Rate=72 Mb/s   Tx-Power=1496 dBm   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:on
          Link Quality=67/70  Signal level=-43 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

lo        no wireless extensions.

gina@Rpi3-UM1:~$

 

 

Edited October 7, 2016 by Gina

[tekkydave]

I installed Astroberry from source as follows and now it starts with no errors - not tested with the stepper driver yet

I needed these dependencies installing on Raspbian. Ubuntu may already have them and the installation method is different but no harm done if you reinstall them. They should be in your standard repositories

sudo apt-get install subversion cmake libgps-dev

Then download source and build:

svn checkout svn://svn.code.sf.net/p/astroberry/svn/trunk/ astroberry-svn
mkdir indi-astroberry
cd indi-astroberry
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr ../astroberry-svn
make
sudo make install

Now to connect up the stepper...

[Gina]

OK - now installed latest bcm2835 library following your info (copy/paste)   I'll try blink shortly.  Just letting brekky go down

[Gina]

3 minutes ago, tekkydave said:

I installed Astroberry from source as follows and now it starts with no errors - not tested with the stepper driver yet

I needed these dependencies installing on Raspbian. Ubuntu may already have them and the installation method is different but no harm done if you reinstall them. They should be in your standard repositories

sudo apt-get install subversion cmake libgps-dev

Then download source and build:

svn checkout svn://svn.code.sf.net/p/astroberry/svn/trunk/ astroberry-svn
mkdir indi-astroberry
cd indi-astroberry
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr ../astroberry-svn
make
sudo make install

Now to connect up the stepper...

That's great Dave   You seem to be getting there   I'll follow your track shortly

Edited October 7, 2016 by Gina

[Gina]

Is the blink pin 11 on the connector or GPIO11?  I've ordered one of those HATs but meanwhile  I have the narrow ribbon cable I can use to connect and the DSO138 oscilloscope for testing.

[tekkydave]

Yes - the physical pin 11 on the gpio connector.

[tekkydave]

The stepper is moving 

I still need to work out what all the Ekos options mean and do but it moves when you press the "Focus In" and "Focus Out" buttons here:

Its doing full stepping at the moment as I haven't connected up the M0, M1 pins yet

 

Edited October 7, 2016 by tekkydave

[tekkydave]

I don't seem to be able to post videos so here's a still pic

[Gina]

Great stuff Dave

[tekkydave]

KStars seems to crash at random running on my Ubuntu PC.