Jump to content

Banner.jpg.b89429c566825f6ab32bcafbada449c9.jpg

Mesu Mount problems- jumping in RA

Zakalwe

By Zakalwe
in Discussions - Mounts

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 162
  • Created
  • Last Reply
nigelg

nigelg

Posted
Posted

Hello Sara,

Could the problem be with the Active Optics?

I do not know much about them, but I told years ago, (so I may be remembering it wrong) that the mirror tilts until it gets to the end of its travel. Then the mount is bumped, the mirror resets and the process starts again.

PHD2 should be set to bump during the Dither. Is it possible that the AO is bumping the mount whilst the camera is still imaging?

Just a thought.

Nigel

Link to comment
Share on other sites
kirkster501

kirkster501

Posted
Posted

Is everyone who is encountering this issue using Windows?  Any parallel there?  How about USB connections and how they are routed through to the mount?  USB hubs?  Any recent windows updates or changes with Windows that could be causing issues?  I am on Windows 7 on my imaging rig.  What about you guys?

I also have a Mesu incoming in a few weeks.  Perturbing to see issues when I sold my perfectly working NEQ6 and have to add nearly £4500 to the proceeds to get a Mesu......

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Zakalwe

Zakalwe

Posted
  • Author
Posted
57 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

Is everyone who is encountering this issue using Windows? 

I use Windows 10 Professional. I *think* that I had 7 when I got the mount and I think that I upgraded to 10 shortly after, but I can't be sure. It was somewhere around this time.

Have a look at this thread:

 

57 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

How about USB connections and how they are routed through to the mount?  USB hubs? 

I had jumps when running the mount through a USB3 hub.  I removed the hub and connected directly to the PC with no change.

 

57 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

Any recent windows updates or changes with Windows that could be causing issues? 

Sara thinks that her jumps happened at the same time as a major Windows upgrade (her OS hadn't been updated in 18 months!). AFAIK she's on Win 8.1

In comparison, mine is set to download but not install updates. I am never more than a week out of date.

 

57 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

I also have a Mesu incoming in a few weeks.  Perturbing to see issues when I sold my perfectly working NEQ6 and have to add nearly £4500 to the proceeds to get a Mesu......

Don't worry- you'll be fine. It seems to be a very, very small subset of users that are having this issue. Probably only single figures.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Zakalwe

Zakalwe

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I managed to get a brief window between the clouds and rain/sleet downpours. No jumps seen in a 30 minute run, though I did lose the guidestar once or twice due to clouds. The SiTech clock difference never went above 2 milliseconds. The GPS dongle kept the PC clock trained to less than 10 milliseconds*

It's not a conclusive test as it's tracked for an hour before without jumping. There might be a bit of clear weather tonight to give it another go. Fingers crossed!

 

 

*One possible issue with these GPS pucks is that they do not issue a PPS signal which could mean that the PC clock could be out by a maximum of one second. To get better accuracy would require a Network Time Server. These can be built from a Raspberry Pi with a GPS board for about £100, or purchased as a network device.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/jth/TimeMachines-TM1000A-GPS-Network-Time-Server/B0130PY980/ref=lp_8318400031_1_1?srs=8318400031&ie=UTF8&qid=1484387511&sr=8-1

Link to comment
Share on other sites
tomato

tomato

Posted
Posted

Good to hear!

As you say, by no means an exhaustive test, but so far so good?

I set up last night even with the full moon to give my Mesu an extended run to see if the RA tracking was OK but the clouds rolled in even before I had finished drift aligning.......:clouds1:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
iansmith

iansmith

Posted
Posted
On ‎13‎/‎01‎/‎2017 at 20:34, kirkster501 said:

I also have a Mesu incoming in a few weeks.  Perturbing to see issues when I sold my perfectly working NEQ6 and have to add nearly £4500 to the proceeds to get a Mesu......

Hello Kirkster501,

I've had my Mesu since last June and so far I've not had any problems with it. I haven't even tried making a pointing model but it only takes two images with plate solving to get the scope pointing to within a few pixels of a previous image (one to find out where it's pointing after the first move and one to verify it's in the correct place after a correction). I did a test the other day and after 10 minutes unguided it had drifted off by 7 arc seconds. I don't know if that is good or poor, but its easily guided out.

I would still recommend them.

Cheers, Ian.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
pietervdv

pietervdv

Posted
Posted
On 11-1-2017 at 19:48, Dan Gray said:

Hi  Pieter ,

I was wondering what version of SiTechExe you're using?  Have you upgraded the flash rom of the ServoII to 9.5?

If this continues, then I'll really want to see your tracking logs from SiTech, but you'd have to upgrade to the latest to have the tracking logs available.

Here's the latest version:

http://siderealtechnology.com/SiTechSetup091Zb.exe

 

Hi everyone,

 

Happy to report that since upgrading SiTechExe and the flash rom I have not had any issues. It ran about 15 hours with the updated software and no glitches so far in tracking.

 

Regards,

Pieter

Link to comment
Share on other sites
RayD

RayD

Posted
Posted
Just now, pietervdv said:

Hi everyone,

 

Happy to report that since upgrading SiTechExe and the flash rom I have not had any issues. It ran about 15 hours with the updated software and no glitches so far in tracking.

 

Regards,

Pieter

Great news Pieter, thanks for the update it's really encouraging.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
kirkster501

kirkster501

Posted
Posted
On 16/01/2017 at 20:03, iansmith said:

Hello Kirkster501,

I've had my Mesu since last June and so far I've not had any problems with it. I haven't even tried making a pointing model but it only takes two images with plate solving to get the scope pointing to within a few pixels of a previous image (one to find out where it's pointing after the first move and one to verify it's in the correct place after a correction). I did a test the other day and after 10 minutes unguided it had drifted off by 7 arc seconds. I don't know if that is good or poor, but its easily guided out.

I would still recommend them.

Cheers, Ian.

Thanks Ian.

Do you plate solve with AstroTortilla on the MESU?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
pietervdv

pietervdv

Posted
Posted
On 20-1-2017 at 20:40, pietervdv said:

Hi everyone,

 

Happy to report that since upgrading SiTechExe and the flash rom I have not had any issues. It ran about 15 hours with the updated software and no glitches so far in tracking.

 

Regards,

Pieter

Had a couple more clear nights, 30 hours and counting without hickups. Looks like it did the trick for me. Hopefully other owners are seeing the same.

Pieter

Link to comment
Share on other sites
gnomus

gnomus

Posted
Posted

OK.  So is the latest firmware the 9.5 version on the website?  If so, how does one update the firmware?  Also, the latest Sitech.exe on the website is 0.91Y.  Does anyone know if Dan intends to release the latest version?  (I don't have the jump issue, but I suppose I may as well have everything up to date.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
swag72

swag72

Posted
Posted
On 09/01/2017 at 21:22, Dan Gray said:

Hi All, This is Dan Gray from Sidereal Technology.

First and foremost, I've been working with Lucas Mesu now, for Several years.  A couple of years ago,  My wife (Samantha) and I even had the privilege of meeting him and his wonderful family.  I know for a fact that Lucas does respond to issues.  Here's a case I remember well.

The motor manufacturer that Lucas was using came out with the same motor, but a magnetic encoder instead of an optical encoder.  It cost less, but had the same specifications (as far as I know).  But what Mesu mount users found out very soon, these motors had periodic error in the magnetic motor encoder.  I remember Lucas telling me of driving long distances where he could, and providing other means to replace every single RA motor with these encoders.  In other words, he bent over backwards to fix all of the issues.  It turns out that even this problem wasn't the fault of Mesu mounts, but the motor manufacturer encoder issue! 

Now, about us at Sidereal Technology, we also work hard to fix any issues.  We did have some issues with the software and firmware while controlling Mesu mounts over the years, and you can ask Lucas, we always respond in kind.

This leaves me with NO doubt whatsoever, that when we get this problem nailed down, if it's mechanical, Lucas WILL fix it.  If it turns out to be software or firmware we'll fix it.

So, for Lucas not responding, my bet is a lost email or something, I'm not sure, my experience is he's better at communication than I am!

Over the last few weeks, I've been in contact with everyone that I know has had the RA jumps with a Mesu mount.  We weren't sure if it was software or hardware, and we had to analyze a lot of data to make a determination, which is just now coming out.

Here's what we've learned so far....

In version 0.91T (or any version of SiTechExe.exe before 0.91Z), there was an issue, that if the computer clock and the Servo clock didn't agree by 50 seconds, then SiTechExe WOULD create a jump in RA!

Once one of the users figured this out (I think it might have been Steve or Gordon), then I was able to go right to the issue, and come out with a version that fixed this.

So, SiTechExe version 0.91Zb clock control is now different.  There is an offset correction that happens.  If you change the computer clock, then this offset will keep the mount from jumping because of this reason.  It only changes the offset slowly (about 1 mSec per second of time) until the Servo Clock and the Windows clock agree again.  You can see the offset grow over time by clicking on SiTechExe/Features/Offset Rates.

The other addition I made to SiTechExe is an option to create a log file that can help me figure out why there are jumps.

I've only been getting data from Sara, and she's been extremely helpful in providing me with the log files, both PHDGuiding logs, and SiTechExe logs, every single night that she's able to image.

Here's what we've found  so far, all from Sara's data (thanks Sara for diligently sending me the log files).

Jumps in late 2016 (using versions before 0.91Z) could definitely have been because of the SiTechExe software, and the Servo clock and the PC clock having a large difference.

Once I've fixed this in 0.91Z  I've only received logs from Sara, no other folks have had permissable weather :-(

After looking very hard at the log files, it seems to me that SiTechExe, along with our ServoII controller is doing exactly what it's told.  In looking at the logs around the jumps, I can see that before the jumps, the motor is running smoothly, and the only reason that the system finds a jump, is because PHDGuider see's that the star has moved.  But the data shows that the motors have been steady until they're asked to make the correction (which they do).  I see this in each instance of a jump.  So, it appears that the sky has moved for no reason :-) .  But, since that's unlikely, and since all of the jumps are to the East, (there are large guide West commands) Lucas and I are thinking that it may be roller slippage on Sara's mount.

But, we really need more data from other folks.  

If you're a Mesu mount user, and you're having jumps in RA, then WE NEED YOUR DATA....

Here's instructions:

1. Download and install the 0.91Zb software:

http://siderealtechnology.com/SiTechSetup091Zb.exe

2. Go to the Config tab, Change Config, Ascom and Logging, and turn on "Log Debug Stuff", and "Log Tracking Info"

3. Image for the night, and in the morning, find your SiTech Data folder, zip up and email me the following files:

a. SiTechDebug.txt

b. SerialIOTrap.txt

c. \LogActionFiles\LogTrackingInfo__2017_01_08.csv (your date will vary)

d. SiTech.cfg

My email is grayarea    ....  the.AT.symbol  .....  siderealtechnology.com

Your data folder is located here (your's may vary according to your windows country settings)

C:\ProgramData\SiTech\SiTechExe\

If you can't find your data folder, you can click on SiTechExe/Config/ChangeConfig/ and you'll see a button labeled "Open Data Folder"

Once we have this *&&*^%% issue fixed, don't forget to turn all of the logging  off.

Sara, special thanks to you for all of the log files, and thanks everyone else that has been helpful in making progress to figure this out.

Cheers, Dan Gray

http://siderealtechnology.com

P.S.  Unrelated topic: my best image with our 12.5 inch F/8  Planewave CDK, ST11000 camera, and our Alt/Alt mount at Shepherds Lair Observatory

http://www.siderealtechnology.com/M33-2.jpg

I took all images 5 minutes with no guider (open loop).  There's about 12 hours of LRGB data.  The Alt/Alt mount has a field De-Rotator.  This is needed for Alt/Alt mounts, just like Alt/Az mounts.

Here's a link to our observatory in the Portland Oregon suburbs:

http://siderealtechnology.com/SLO/index.html

 

It's all in the thread on page 5

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.