Help please.. Tearing what I have left of my hair out. EQMOD and NEQ6 Pro mount will not connect.

[Garethr]

Arrgh.  After working well for 2 years my PC fell over and died.  So replaced last weekend and started downloading all the software to enjoy my hobby.  Everything going well apart from EQMOD/ASCOM  I cannot for the life of me connect to my mount.  I have checked from power through handset to all cables, disconnecting everything bar keyboard and mouse and mount.  All visable in device manager and I think all software downloaded for EQ mod.  In eqmod set up it will not "see" the mount on any port although I know this is the correct port   COM 4 .  help please any ideas

 

Frustrated 

Gareth   

[Spikey]

USB to serial drivers? Some need the older version to work.

[geordie85]

When my neq6 stopped talking to eqmod I had to check the com port again. For some reason mine had changed from port 3 to port 4 even though it was in the same USB slot. 

[Garethr]

Spikey.

What do you mean???? 

Not a tech person!

 

Gareth 

[Spikey]

5 minutes ago, Garethr said:

Spikey.

What do you mean???? 

Not a tech person!

 

Gareth 

The adapter that goes to the mount from the pc needs a set of drivers installed before it will work properly. From memory they are drivers for the Prolific chipset and will make the USB to serial port on the mount comms function. Have a search on this forum for the version you need as I think the newer versions have issues with Windows 10. 

[Garethr]

Cheers Spikey

 

Will have a look

 

Gareth  

 

[Spikey]

You're welcome. Let us know how you get on.

[Lonestar70]

Hi Gareth,

I agree with Simon that your problem is probably an incorrect or missing driver for your EQDir cable.

Which driver will depend on the type of EQDir cable you have and also which version of Windows you are running.

If it is a Prolific based one and you are running windows 10 then you will probably need to try several older drivers to find one that works.

If, on the other hand, your EQDir cable is based on the FTDI chip then the latest driver is available here for all windows versions: -

http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm

The top one on the list is the correct one.

NOTE... the FTDI chip version of EQDir will not function with any version of the Prolific driver and likewise a Prolific chip version won't work using the FTDI driver.

There is a good chance that your COM port assignment will change when you install the driver... it won't necessarily remain as COM 4.

Hope you get it sorted.

Regards.

 

[GyCx]

Check in the 'device manager' you will find it in 'control panel' system. With the adaptor plugging in look for the entry in the list. As Spikey has stated it will be called 'prolific' if you see this in the device manager check there is no issue with it. If all is well in the device manager go to the eqascom telescope control panel>configure and hit the search button this will scan all com channels for a connected device.

baud rate 9600 retry 2 timeout 1000

[Delasaurus]

Try the Celestron driver, I had the same problem on my EQ5. The driver for Synscan from Ascom site doesn't seem to work, and removes all availiable com ports. Spent hours checking everything including cables etc. Soon as I connected through Celestron driver everything worked fine.  But make sure you connect via the handset.

[carastro]

I had a similar problem with my installation and it was the driver in my case, (stupid non technical me thought downloading all the ascom stuff would be the drivers), however in my case I could see the cable was not being recognised in device manager.

It depends which cable you are using which driver you need.  Mine was a home made one by Dion, so he kindly told me where to find the drivers, Hitechastro have their own.

Carole 

[VIctor_M]

One easy test you can perform:

Do right click on "My computer"  (or "This computer") icon and choose Properties. Then Choose Device Manager (at the left side of the window)

You will see a new window with all devices in your computer. With this window open, plug your mount cable to your computer and check which device automatically appears, normally you will see a new "USB Serial Port" under "Ports (COM & LPT)". This port will show a COM port number (i.e. COM3). This is the COM port number you have to declare in your EQMOD software.

BUT, if you see a Yellow question mark that pop up in the device list when you plug your mount cable, then your Windows is not recognizing the new device (your mount), so you will need to install the driver as other users here have stated. If this is the case, let me know and I'll show you how to know which kind of driver you should search for

God luck!

[Garethr]

Thanks all 

have checked device manager and no conflicts / yellow triangles and when I plug the mount in com 4 pops up.  

Click on eqmodlx and error message appears telling me a doll file is missing which I assume is a driver of some sort 

I have dowloaded everything I can see regarding  eqmod and no success so deleted everything thourghly and reloaded again checking each time no issues but I think as you have been saying I've missed the driver for the hitecastro USB mount cable as needing a driver.  Will try tomorrow and see 

again thanks for the help everyone SGL does it again 

 

Gareth 

[bottletopburly]

I had the hitecastro cable ,was the old prolific set driver , changed to a lynx cable from flo uses fdti no problems now 

[VIctor_M]

Gareth,

if you can see COM4 appearing, I think it is not a problem of drivers. Normally a missing dll is a symptom of an incorrect software installation (EQMODlx) or an incompatibility between the software and your computer or operating system

[VIctor_M]

have you checked this? :

http://eq-mod.sourceforge.net/lxindex.html

it seems that another piece of software is misssing in your computer: HW Virtual Serial Port

also I imagine that you are using EQMODLX because you are ding satellite tracking

I think here is the solution

http://www.astronomoxie.com/msgsdisp.php?parm=eqmod-i-can-t-get-eqmodlx-to-work-at-all

You need to run the utility as Administrator (and maybe also the EQMODLX installer)

[GyCx]

I agree right click on installer and select run as administrator.

[Garethr]

Thanks all. 

 

It seems the problem was the hitecastro cable needing a driver but an older version to work on Windows 10.

Looked up on SGL and found the driver, cleared everything and started again and APT now see's the mount so thanks again all.  Obviously it's cloudy now I have sorted the problem      

 

Gareth 

Now to plug everything else in.....   Fingers crossed