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EQDirect problems. Cabling?

Penguin

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Penguin

Penguin

Posted
Posted

Now having my roll-away observatory operational, I am trying out controlling the scope with EQMOD and I'm having problems that I think are probably the EQDirect cable. What I have is...

  • Laptop in the obvservatory, running Stellarium, StellariumScope and all the EQMOD stuff
  • 3 meter USB2 cable to a powered USB2 hub strapped to the pillar.
  • Short USB cable from the hub to a HitecAstro EQDirect box, which then has an RJ-whatever cable plugged into the HEQ5 Pro mount.

It was working last week and I was able to connect to and control the scope using Stellarium from the laptop. However, at that point I was running a 2-meter USB2 from the laptop straight into the EQDirect, bypassing the hub.

This evening, I fired it all up and it failed to connect to the scope. First suspects were the hub and 3m USB. First I swapped that back to last week's 2m cable. Success! It found the scope on COM2. I disconnected and tidied up the cables, then tried to reconnect. "Not found" on any port! So I tried various different cables, with and without the hub. No joy. The only thing I was not able to swap out was the EQDirect cable and box, which is old, cracked, and came with the 2nd-hand scope, so I am suspecting that.

I've ordered a new EQDirect cable from FLO but is there anything else I should suspect?

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symmetal

symmetal

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Posted

If it doesn't work anymore when plugged directly into your laptop with the 2m cable or is intermittent then I would suspect the EQDirect cable. You could try gently pushing down or pulling up on the EQDirect module (or the cable going into the module) when it's plugged into your laptop and trying to connect to the scope to see if it will work at any point. If it only works when pushed or pulled a certain way then that's where the problem is. I assume your laptop USB port works fine with other things plugged into it.

Alan

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  • 4 weeks later...
IanL

IanL

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Posted

I know you've fixed the problem by swapping it out, but for anyone else finding this thread with the same problem:

- If the Hitec EQDirect is one with an (old) Prolific chipset then it's most likely a driver 'problem' that causes these failures to connect. Basically the designers of the chipset got very cheesed off that it was cloned by a number of unscrupulous (mainly far-Eastern) manufacturers. In the end they released a new driver that refuses to connect to the cloned chips.

- Later versions of Windows, especially Windows 10, like to update drivers regularly so if you install the box using a working driver from CD or download it may work first time out. After a restart or plugging in to another USB port you may well end up with the updated driver which then refuses to work with the EQDirect leading to a missing COM port and the issues you describe.

There is a fix described here for 64 bit versions of Windows, or scroll to the end if somehow you are using 32 bit: http://www.ifamilysoftware.com/news37.html

More complicated fixes involve installation of the working driver, waiting for Windows to update and break the driver and then rolling it back in device manager and telling Windows not to update it again. I've had mixed results with this and you need to ensure you always use the same USB connectivity so that it doesn't install a new driver on a different port.

The simplest solution is to buy or build an FDTI chipset cable instead as these just work!

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