Nexstar Raspberry Pi Controller

[Gina]

The astroberry - svn directory contains the source files for Astroberry.

There would appear to be the .cpp & .h files for the four drivers viz. altimu, brd, focus and gps (in alphabetical order) plus associated .xml files which control the appearance of controls in Ekos.  Files CMakeLists.txt, README, INSTALL, COPYING.LIB and directory cmake_modules.

Edited October 9, 2016 by Gina

[Gina]

Here's the contents of CMakeLists.txt :-

[Gina]

Cuppa needed   Back shortly...

[tekkydave]

I have booted up my indiserver pi to see if the drivers are there. Looks like they are:

pi@indiserver:~ $ sudo apt-get install librtimulib7 librtimulib-dev
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
librtimulib-dev is already the newest version.
librtimulib-dev set to manually installed.
librtimulib7 is already the newest version.
librtimulib7 set to manually installed.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.

According to this page librtimulib-dev is installed in raspbian by default. The packages that end '-dev' are required for development.

Once you install them your Astroberry should compile. (He said confidently  )

Edited October 9, 2016 by tekkydave

[Gina]

Thanks Dave

[Gina]

Both those have installed - neither were present before.

[Gina]

make has now worked

[Gina]

Seems to have built and installed the four drivers correctly

[Gina]

Looks like time to stoke up the soldering iron

[Gina]

I think the first system I shall work on will be the all sky cam, then that project can be finished or at least working with RPi control and imaging.  My ultimate aim for that comprises :-

1. Capture sky image on ASI178MM and save data on client HD
2. Control focus
3. Turn dew heater on or off
4. Measure temperature inside dome
5. Measure ambient temperature outside dome

The first three will get things going and make the ASC usable from Ekos.  I think the RPi will handle 1-wire but not sure about an INDI driver.  I use 1-wire DS18B20 digital thermometers for temperature measurement.

I've been switching the dew heater with a power MOSFET from Arduino which has 5v logic levels whereas the RPI uses 3.3v.  I shall need to check that the logic level MOSFETs I use work with the lower logic levels.

[Gina]

OTOH...  I would like to get my main DSO imaging system changed over to Linux ASAP so I may spend some time on that.  I have no problem with running two projects side by side though these are hardly two different projects.

I can do some testing indoors - I have my NEQ6 mount indoors and could easily bring the camera rig in.  Bea rung in mind that the EQ8 works exactly the same as the NEQ6 on EQMOD ASCOM I don't foresee any problems with INDI when I move the RPi setup out to the EQ8.

[tekkydave]

I'm just waiting for the RPi prototyping board to arrive so I can start building the hardware (I don't have Amazon Prime).

It will contain:

• Pololu driver in a socket
• 12V to 5V regulator to power the Pi *
• Sockets / terminals for incoming power (12V) & motor connections.
• Anything else I think of that might be useful

* If a linear power regulator gets too hot doing 12V -> 5V I might just leave that separate and have a 5V feed from a buck converter or something.

 

[tekkydave]

These sockets I bought arrived yesterday and fit the Pololu pins perfectly.

[Gina]

The RPi takes 600mA not driving anything so dropping 7v (12-5) will produce 7x0.6 = 4.2W - if you go analogue you'll need a decent heatsink.  If you power other things off the RPi say by USB or GPIO, that will go up.  Another idea recommended by Raspberry (I think) is to use a powered USB hub and run both RPi and camera etc. off that but an imaging camera needs to run directly off the RPi USB so I don't see how they make a USB hub work!  I'm thinking of using a buck converter with enough current capability.

[tekkydave]

Yes, I think you're right there. I tried it before and it got fairly hot. I have a few spare buck converters in stock.

[Gina]

I should have some too - another search coming up   Wish I could get myself (and my stuff) organised

[Gina]

A4988 driver module with sockets, placed on HAT.  Needs soldering and links put in but I'll see what else I want to put on the board first.

Edited October 9, 2016 by Gina

[Gina]

Though I'd try to get the WiFi set up until I'm ready to build the focuser but no joy  -  followed the instructions and rebooted.  Ethernet connects fine and is shown in the router devices list but the WiFi isn't.  Does it matter it the WiFi wlan0 static IP is the same as the wired eth0?

Here are my network config files but with SSID replaced with s and password with p

[Gina]

Checked up and changed a couple of thing going by this site  and rebooted.

But still WiFi not seen by router

Edited October 9, 2016 by Gina

[Gina]

Maybe I'll test the NEQ6...

[Gina]

Or maybe I'll take an afternoon nap...

[tekkydave]

Your ip addresses must be different.

[Gina]

Thanks Dave   YIPPEE!  It's working

[Gina]

I've connected the NEQ6 to the RPi and 13v power now to see if it works   So guess I need to start indiserver with the mount driver...

[Demonperformer]

Do you have the synscan version or the syntrek version?