autoguidingstar adventurer Autoguiding a star adventurer (or not)

[ChrisNiceButDim]

Has anyone managed to successfully guide a Star Adventurer? I tried earlier tonight. Callibration fails due to lack of star movement so I thought I'd test the ST4 connection. When I try manual guide through PHD2 the LEDs blink as soon as I send an East or West pulse to the mount and there's no sign of any movement. This happens even when there is nothing on the mount. I assumed this flashing was to show it was receiving commands but there's no mention in any of the documentation that this should be the case. Blinking LEDs indicate either a firmware update is taking place or a motor error caused by excessive load for example. The mounts works well unguided so I'm wondering if anyone else has had experience of guiding or blinking LEDs. Thanks in advance for any opinions or advice.

[steppenwolf]

2 hours ago, ChrisNiceButDim said:

Callibration fails due to lack of star movement so I thought I'd test the ST4 connection. When I try manual guide through PHD2 the LEDs blink as soon as I send an East or West pulse to the mount and there's no sign of any movement.

I don't have a Star Adventurer but it could well be that it is all working fine but that you simply do not have sufficient movement during calibration - even operating manually, the amount of movement would be difficult to detect by eye. Have you tried increasing the step size in PHD's setup dialogue box?

This guide may be of assistance.

[ChrisNiceButDim]

Many thanks I will try this although as far as I can tell flashing LED's indicate an error. I've even opened it up to see if I can detect any change of rate during pulses but can't. Like you say though maybe the movements are very small. I have increased the guide steps to over 2500 though and still no star moment.

[Owmuchonomy]

As Steve says, plus flashing LEDs on SW mounts usually means a low voltage issue in my experience.  What power supply are you using?

[ChrisNiceButDim]

It runs on 4 AAs Yes I suspected that so put brand new ones in. Still the same fault. :-/

[andrex66]

Good afternoon,Andrea from Italy here. Chris,I'm in the same boat as you,but in my case I can calibrate successfully.Did you manage to sort the blinking problem? I tried two different power supply and 4 new batteries,but the blinking is still there,like 3 per second. Could someone who guided the SA successfully chime in and report his/her experience? Maybe the fast blinking rate is normal when guiding?

 

Thank you all and clear skyes,

Andrea

Edited January 30, 2018 by andrex66
forgot to say thank you

[thomasv]

Hi, I've just posted some PHD2 plots of guiding the star adventurer in another post in this 'Mounts'  group, and yes I also get the blinking lights when guiding, but I think I've established that it does not mean an error, it seems that every time the star adventurer receives a guiding pulse it will flash.

[andrex66]

Hi thomasv,glad to hear that,I was beginning to think my unit was defective.

I'm going to follow your thread,could you please share any useful hint you should find?

Thanks a lot,

Andrea

[thomasv]

Hi, sure, will do, I need to get the mechanics a bit bore solid and sort out my USB issues, but then intend to get out and try it again weather permitting. There is already quite a lot out there though, have you seen this thread?

 

 

[andrex66]

Hi! thank you so much,I've seen wonderful pics taken with the SA and a DSRL,so this little mount can surely give some good results.Hope you will sort out your USB issues,best of luck!

Thank you for the thread,I'll dig into it as soon as I'm home.

Andrea

[Jammy]

I've just tried guiding on my Star Adventurer for the first time.  As mentioned in the thread I am getting flashing lights at calibration and the calibration doesn't seem to be frozen with nothing happening other then the flashing lights.

Did anyone find what causes this, and is it working?  Also, do I need to adjust anything in PHD2 to tell it that I'm guiding in RA only?

Thanks