Mesu Mount problems- jumping in RA

[Zakalwe]

1 minute ago, RayD said:

Ah ok.  Yes it did seem a bit extreme to be software issues.

I'm still happy with the decision to order it as I'm sure this will get resolved, but of course intermittent problems can sometimes be so hard to track down, even though the actual fix is often pretty simple.

I'm sure that it can be resolved too Ray. There's too many people reporting outstanding results with these mounts. Any system can and will have glitches. The biggest problem for me is getting the time to diagnose and try different things. I haven't had the obsy opened in December due to crummy weather.

 

[steppenwolf]

15 minutes ago, Zakalwe said:

I've re-ran all the cables and used a nylon sleeving to bundle them. The cables are fastened to the rear and front of the saddle. They then loop to the north of the mount and are tied off to the counterweight bar clamping bolt. I am confident that there are no cables snagging.

You have clearly carried out a serious number of diagnostic tests so apart from running without a PC, there doesn't seem to be anything missing.

Do you have a photograph of this cable run? If so, would you mind posting it up here?

[derrickf]

30 minutes ago, Zakalwe said:

Having said that, I didn't buy the mount to run in this mode. I bought it with the express point of running it as an integrated AP setup.

I certainly wasn't suggesting that running it as a "dumb mount" should be anything other than a diagnostic exercise. You have been rigorous in your diagnosis to date with this one exception; again I'm not advocating that you do this - I was just asking if you had.

[Zakalwe]

10 minutes ago, derrickf said:

I certainly wasn't suggesting that running it as a "dumb mount" should be anything other than a diagnostic exercise. You have been rigorous in your diagnosis to date with this one exception; again I'm not advocating that you do this - I was just asking if you had.

It might be worth doing Derrick...thanks for the suggestion. It'd mean sitting at the mount actually looking through a telescope though (shudders at the thought! )
I'd have to find where I have squirrelled away an eyepiece and a diagonal...

 

 

25 minutes ago, steppenwolf said:

You have clearly carried out a serious number of diagnostic tests so apart from running without a PC, there doesn't seem to be anything missing.

Do you have a photograph of this cable run? If so, would you mind posting it up here?

Here you go Steve.

https://postimg.org/gallery/3g9b9w2zu/

 

 

[RayD]

7 minutes ago, Zakalwe said:

It might be worth doing Derrick...thanks for the suggestion. It'd mean sitting at the mount actually looking through a telescope though (shudders at the thought! )
I'd have to find where I have squirrelled away an eyepiece and a diagonal...

 

Couldn't you just connect a camera to the PC but not the mount?

[steppenwolf]

19 minutes ago, Zakalwe said:

Here you go Steve.

https://postimg.org/gallery/3g9b9w2zu/

Perfect, thanks, nothing wrong with that!

[derrickf]

47 minutes ago, Zakalwe said:

It might be worth doing Derrick...thanks for the suggestion. It'd mean sitting at the mount actually looking through a telescope though (shudders at the thought! )
I'd have to find where I have squirrelled away an eyepiece and a diagonal...

I would share your trepidation but, as Ray D suggests, no need to be quite that radical  - just hook up a camera without connecting Sitech.exe to the mount

[Zakalwe]

<sigh>

 

[derrickf]

Is this with no PC connection whatsoever to the mount? If so it would point to this being either a mechanical problem with the mount (faulty encoder?) or a firmware problem. Maybe Lucas can shed some light on possible solutions now that the mount control software is demonstrably not the culprit.

One step closer to a solution ...

 

BTW there is no reason to assume that this is the cause of the aberrant behaviour of the mounts owned by other people.

[Zakalwe]

A quick update.

I have started to use one of these:
GlobalSat BU-353-S4 USB GPS Receiver: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

			GlobalSat BU-353-S4 USB GPS Receiver: Amazon.co.u... GlobalSat BU-353-S4 USB GPS Receiver: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics
			View on www.amazon.co.uk	Preview by Yahoo

 

And NMEatTime2
VisualGPS, LLC

			VisualGPS, LLC Application End User License VisualGPS, LLC. "[THESOFTWARE]" software application will be referred as “software application” through the remainder of thi...
			View on www.visualgps.net	Preview by Yahoo

 

Total cost about £40

Its set up to run as soon as Windows starts. After a few days unpowered my PC clock is about 1/3-1/2 a second off. Within a few minutes it is within milliseconds.

I'm using a new firmware from Dan Gray as well. That seems to have cured the problem of the SiTech clock running way differently to the PC clock which we think is giving the jumps in RA that I've been experiencing. No decent weather to test under the stars though, although I've ran it for a few hours in the obsy.

If it clears I'll get a chance to test and will report back.

[RayD]

5 minutes ago, Zakalwe said:

A quick update.

I have started to use one of these:
GlobalSat BU-353-S4 USB GPS Receiver: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

			GlobalSat BU-353-S4 USB GPS Receiver: Amazon.co.u... GlobalSat BU-353-S4 USB GPS Receiver: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics
			View on www.amazon.co.uk	Preview by Yahoo

 

And NMEatTime2
VisualGPS, LLC

			VisualGPS, LLC Application End User License VisualGPS, LLC. "[THESOFTWARE]" software application will be referred as “software application” through the remainder of thi...
			View on www.visualgps.net	Preview by Yahoo

 

Total cost about £40

Its set up to run as soon as Windows starts. After a few days unpowered my PC clock is about 1/3-1/2 a second off. Within a few minutes it is within milliseconds.

I'm using a new firmware from Dan Gray as well. That seems to have cured the problem of the SiTech clock running way differently to the PC clock which we think is giving the jumps in RA that I've been experiencing. No decent weather to test under the stars though, although I've ran it for a few hours in the obsy.

If it clears I'll get a chance to test and will report back.

That's great news, or at least very promising news.  Fingers crossed it works just as well under real conditions.

Thanks for the update.

[swag72]

I've managed a 2:20m run this evening - I've implemented the new software, but that's it... no GPS clocks or fancy time keeping...... all went well. I hope that tomorrow I will get a full night without cloud so that I can give it a longer test.

[Zakalwe]

Good news Sara. Heavy fog here for the last couple of nights.

[Singlin]

Where did you find the New Software Sara?

[swag72]

Dan from Sitech sent it out to those people that were having issues with the RA jump to try to work out a fix for it.

[swag72]

Looks like I was being too optimistic........ This was part of last nights guide graph.

 

 

[Zakalwe]

So frustrating Sara.

I still haven't had a chance to test mine under the stars.

Where do we go from here? Dedicated Network Time Severs?

[swag72]

I really have no idea Steve - What I don't understand is that I had three imaging runs in effect ...... the first was fine on one target, the second produced these jumps and the third (after the flip on the same target) was fine as well. I am at a loss.

Dan at Sitech has suggested a couple of hardware things, such as mirror flop, guider flexure and focuser flop. I'm using a refractor (no mirror flop), an OAG (no guider flexure) and the focuser is tight and not flopping..... I'm getting very frustrated with this now. 

[Zakalwe]

Try eliminating the time issue.

You could try this to increase the accuracy of the Windows time updates:

http://www.satsignal.eu/ntp/setup.html

I'm personally not 100% convinced that this is the issue here as others are using ancient ODs like Vista and XP. Windows 8 and 10 have a much more accurate way of handling NTP time updates than the earlier systems, so if Windows time was the root cause then I'd expect to here of more people having issues.

Has Lucas Mesu commented on this to you?

[swag72]

If it was a time issue I'd expect it across a whole nights guiding...... but that wasnt the case.

I emailed Lucas on or around Christmas and I've heard absolutely nothing from him at all......Make of that what you will. I get the feeling that while Dan it trying very hard on the software side, the other half of the equation appears to be far less interested.

[RayD]

The frequency of those jumps doesn't look constant Sara.  if it was time related i.e. after x time the difference is y so the jump happens, would this frequency not be very consistent (or in fact absolutely identical)?

I have to say my worry levels are still fairly high for my one 

[Zakalwe]

32 minutes ago, RayD said:

The frequency of those jumps doesn't look constant Sara.  if it was time related i.e. after x time the difference is y so the jump happens, would this frequency not be very consistent (or in fact absolutely identical)?

I haven't seen any frequency in mine. It can guide for 30, 40 minutes and then jump three times in the space of 10 minutes. This makes it so blooming frustrating as you literally have to sit there and nursemaid it. If you turn your back it jumps, PHD loses the guide star and Sequence Generator Pro abandons the sequence. Either that or the guide box lands on another star and SGP continues. When you go to stack the images you lose a massive chunk as the stacking software just stacks the intersecting data.

 

The current thinking seems to be that it jumps once the SiTech clock difference to the PC clock reaches 50 milliseconds. That difference varies constantly, so it seems that the anomaly is almost random.

47 minutes ago, swag72 said:

 Dan it trying very hard on the software side

SiTech have been very responsive so far. Dan contacted me pro-actively as he read my post on the Yahoo group. Top marks from that quarter as far as activity and action is concerned.

 

[RayD]

1 minute ago, Zakalwe said:

I haven't seen any frequency in mine. It can guide for 30, 40 minutes and then jump three times in the space of 10 minutes. This makes it so blooming frustrating as you literally have to sit there and nursemaid it. If you turn your back it jumps, PHD loses the guide star and Sequence Generator Pro abandons the sequence. Either that or the guide box lands on another star and SGP continues. When you go to stack the images you lose a massive chunk as the stacking software just stacks the intersecting data.

That's really odd as I understood one of the early suspected reasons was the clock drift, and after a certain period the jump occurred, which was why the clock was being brought in to question (I am not the brightest spark so could be very wrong in that assumption).

As you say it is, or must be for you guys, so frustrating as there seemingly isn't a glaring fix, and this will be made even harder to achieve if Lucas Mesu is not responding to requests for help.

The 10Micron is all of a sudden looking like a good alternative 

[Zakalwe]

56 minutes ago, RayD said:

That's really odd as I understood one of the early suspected reasons was the clock drift, and after a certain period the jump occurred, which was why the clock was being brought in to question (I am not the brightest spark so could be very wrong in that assumption).

The 10Micron is all of a sudden looking like a good alternative 

At this stage I wouldn't be jumping off any bridges!

There's a small, very small subset of users that are experiencing this (AFAIK...I'm not speaking for Mesu or SiTech- just my own personal experience)  One user is reporting it as fixed with a simple change to the clock setting in SiTech. Sara's seems to be still jumping and I haven't had the weather to test mine. I did run it for a couple of hours with the roof closed and the SiTech clock is working differently with the new software- prior to this it was constantly accruing a time difference between it and the PC.

The vast majority of users seem genuinely happy with their kit. All I know is that mine has exhibited this anomaly from new and that the tracking rate drifted by a lot over the space of 12 months.

[Mesu]

Off course I'm interested.

I just checked my mail box.

They are all answered.

Most of them within a few hours.

Lucas Mesu