Heq5 pro mount stopped working

[Starlight 1]

I was thinking right from post one ( hand set ) and that new lead to by pass it was the only way. I was going to run it thouth l with you last night. but your post on com port  was telling me you know your way round the computer . So well done working it out . For the hand set you have do the tests and it come back as ok . so hard one to say will it every work again  the hand set that is. 

[Tommohawk]

3 hours ago, David Blacklock said:

Yihaaaaaa!

Its working.  It was really bugging me last night, and I was up at 6 this morning determined to give it one last go before I sent the motherboard back.  I had already done quite a bit of reading in the EQcom documentation, but I came across the tutorial videos on you tube, and there is one on the EQcom toolkit and what to do if there is no connection. I worked through this and found out what I was doing wrong.  You will all think I am a complete fool, but I thought a COM port number was always the same if you used the same USB port. I knew that when connecting EQcom through the synscan hand set it used com 3 and thought if I used the same USB port on the pc when connecting direct using the new cable, it would also be com 3.  Wrong! using the toolkit I found set up needed to be changed to com 4 and once I had done that, EQcom connected, and I switched sidereal tracking on, and that familiar old feint whirl started up of the stepper motor.

In summary getting a new cable and connecting direct to the mount has finally worked and was really good advice. It appears my original shorting corrupted both the motherboard and the hand set.  I will now need to learn how to star align using EQcom, but that should be easily achievable.

The motto of this story is to set up in reverse and connect to the power last of all.

Thank you all for your help on this, it's reallly appreciated.

May I ask please one question.  My Syncan hand set, can anything be done to resurrect this from the graveyard of electronic devices? 

Well done you!

The COM port assignment seems a bit random and it isnt necessarily the same for all USB ports. You need to ensure the COM port showing in device manager when connected matches the ASCOM COM port. I was half way through a response last night to that effect but because I thought you had it running in simulator mode I figured it was OK. 

BTW a couple of weeks back I had exactly the same problem even though the COM ports matched on the last previous use - not sure why. Maybe if you install other software on the same USB (physical) port it shunts off the previous device.

Re the handset I now have 2 perfectly good handsets that are unused because I use the same EQDIR connector you now have. Keep it as a souvenir maybe - I think fixing it may be more trouble than its worth.

Let me know if you figure out how to fix the clear sky problem.

[brrttpaul]

I had the very same issue two years back, I found (the hard way) do not plug the synscan back in, for me it was either use the synscan and stick with it or use the eqmod and stick with it whenever i tried switching back i had "no mount" so dont swop them round. also not sure what lead you bought whether its the hi tech lead or what but might be worth you reading this link with leads drivers etc

 

[Tommohawk]

51 minutes ago, brrttpaul said:

I had the very same issue two years back, I found (the hard way) do not plug the synscan back in, for me it was either use the synscan and stick with it or use the eqmod and stick with it whenever i tried switching back i had "no mount" so dont swop them round. also not sure what lead you bought whether its the hi tech lead or what but might be worth you reading this link with leads drivers etc

 

Same here but the newer Lynx astro FTDI version seems to fix all the Prolific issues which were... errr... prolific. 

[Thalestris24]

Hi just to add my 3p worth  If you ever have problems connecting a mount, do try running the Ascom diagnostics before disassembling the hardware. It can save you a lot of time and trouble!

Louise