Jump to content

Narrowband

EQMOD


jaygpoo

Recommended Posts

HELP, I have no hair left to pull out.   I have been trying for weeks to get my pier connected to my laptop by a single cable. I have brought a mini beelink pc and downloaded all software needed. I have downloaded ascom platform/ ascom telescope driver and eqmod. I have a NEQ6 mount with the latest eqmod cable. All this works on my laptop BUT will it work on the Mini pc OF COURSE NOT. EQMOD will not connect to the mount. I have tried different cables and the hand control but still no good.  I have reinstalled ascom etc again and used different usb ports but no. Now my laptop is having trouble finding the mount and the download speed of images is shocking. When you try to do a loop to focus the image does not change as you adjust you just sit waiting.. Any ideas as to what is going on would help. Up to know I have never had any problem with eqmod on the laptop and downloads have been fine. I have set up a pc from scratch more than once and had no problems before so I remain baffled as to what I have done wrong??? The Mini pc is connected to the laptop by cat6 cable and running teamviewer on a lan line.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a Beelink BT3 Pro Mini PC attached to my mount to control imaging from 2 scopes and have no trouble connecting to the mount using Eqmod with EQdirect. Are you using an FTDI chipset EQdirect cable. Device manager->Ports(COM &LPT)->ComX->Properties. The Prolific chipset EQDirect cables are a pain with Windows 10 as the built in Win 10 drivers won't work with them. FTDI chipset cables remember what COM port is assigned to it. Perhaps when you swap from your laptop to the Beelink the COM port the FTDI cable assumes it uses isn't available. Check the COM ports assigned on your laptop and the Beelink and ensure the ASCOM port assignments match for the software on each PC. I've never found the EQmod 'auto' COM port search function to work very well so have to check Device Manager to get the right one.

Alan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good reply but I am not that computor good so assigning ports is not a strong point. I am using the latest FTDI cable from FLO. The beelink looks to be a good machine so disappointed with the linkup so far but I am sure I will get there if my frustration holds out. Jay

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jay, Unplug your FTDI cable from your Beelink and display Device Manager and select Ports (COM & LPT). You should see something like this. There may be extra Com Ports shown on your display (for focusers etc) but that's OK.

DM01.png.17b7e347957514e6357ec61aa5f2ae6a.png

With the above screen still open plug in your FTDI cable and an extra entry called 'USB Serial Port' should appear like this

DM02.png.167cba35bc919296b027bdb5abce5e0b.png

Note the COM port number next to the new 'USB Serial Port' entry. This is the number you need to assign in EQMod.

On your EQMOD screen it's probably displaying COM error or similar. Click on the wrench icon as shown

EQMod02.png.41cfbd9a8115c5857f6cbc8e51771b8a.png

The EQMod ASCOM Setup screen should display as below. Click on the drop down box highlighted and select the same COM number you got from Device Manager. You might need to restart EQMod to get it to work with the new COM port. Hopefully it'll all work now. 

EQMod01.png.3813ebcfbb817ad0380f3c0e205b41ea.png

The Eqmod screen shots I got from the web and the layout is now slightly different. Good luck.

Alan

Edited by symmetal
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Sorry for the delay in responding to your helpful replies. I did what Alan showed and on my Beelink it suddenly went searching for a driver which it appeared to find and bingo. I think I did not download the serial driver??? . Anyway I now have it working as it should but have missed the clear weather and now we have snow etc. It must get better so will be hoping to get down to some imaging soon. Jay

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Glad it's now all working Jay. I wondered if you'd given up and it was all in the bin. :laugh2: The correct FTDI driver is built into Win 10 so you wouldn't have needed to download one.

No snow here but very wet and cloudy almost all the time. :sad2:

Alan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 years later...
On 24/11/2017 at 23:28, symmetal said:

I have a Beelink BT3 Pro Mini PC attached to my mount to control imaging from 2 scopes and have no trouble connecting to the mount using Eqmod with EQdirect. Are you using an FTDI chipset EQdirect cable. Device manager->Ports(COM &LPT)->ComX->Properties. The Prolific chipset EQDirect cables are a pain with Windows 10 as the built in Win 10 drivers won't work with them. FTDI chipset cables remember what COM port is assigned to it. Perhaps when you swap from your laptop to the Beelink the COM port the FTDI cable assumes it uses isn't available. Check the COM ports assigned on your laptop and the Beelink and ensure the ASCOM port assignments match for the software on each PC. I've never found the EQmod 'auto' COM port search function to work very well so have to check Device Manager to get the right one.

Alan

Alan

Are you still using one of these as my Son gave me one, A tad slow running windows 10  part payment for DIY work on their house. Maybe I can re-use instead of a RPi

Andy 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, fozzybear said:

Alan

Are you still using one of these as my Son gave me one, A tad slow running windows 10  part payment for DIY work on their house. Maybe I can re-use instead of a RPi

Andy 

Hi Andy,

I'm not using it on my imaging rigs anymore, mainly because it uses eMMC memory as the main 'disk' storage, which is basically a 64GB flash drive embedded in the motherboard, similar to the system used in smartphones, tablets, cameras, etc.

That's fine if your just taking multiple single images of DSOs as you can transfer the still images to your main PC over the network or move them to a separate SD card. It also has an Intel Atom Z8350 CPU and 4GB of RAM. The CPU is certainly not fast, but coped with 2 instances of SGPro, PHD2 and CdC running simultaneously and all controlled via TightVNC from my indoors PC.

For planetary imaging though the eMMC memory was the main bottleneck as it's slow to write to. Using Firecapture or similar, once the free RAM, around 2GB, is filled up with video frames that's it, recording's over, as it would take around 20 seconds to transfer the RAM to eMMC storage and your frame rate would drop to around 1 fps as it couldn't record until some RAM was freed. For a 300 x 300 pixel planetary image you got around 20 seconds of video from an ASI224, or 5 seconds of full frame moon images.

I currenly have 3 mini-pc setups, on three rigs, using Celeron J3455 CPUs, 6GB RAM and 120GB SSD modules. They also have space for a 2.5" hard disk so I installed another 250GB SSD on each for image storage. Celerons get a bit frowned upon here, 😁, but I've never found it lacking in necessary performance, and can now record a full frame ASI178 at its rated maximum FPS for as long as I want, well, until the SSD fills up, as it can transfer RAM to SSD as fast as the RAM fills up. 🙂

Hope that helps Andy.

Alan

 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, symmetal said:

Hi Andy,

I'm not using it on my imaging rigs anymore, mainly because it uses eMMC memory as the main 'disk' storage, which is basically a 64GB flash drive embedded in the motherboard, similar to the system used in smartphones, tablets, cameras, etc.

That's fine if your just taking multiple single images of DSOs as you can transfer the still images to your main PC over the network or move them to a separate SD card. It also has an Intel Atom Z8350 CPU and 4GB of RAM. The CPU is certainly not fast, but coped with 2 instances of SGPro, PHD2 and CdC running simultaneously and all controlled via TightVNC from my indoors PC.

For planetary imaging though the eMMC memory was the main bottleneck as it's slow to write to. Using Firecapture or similar, once the free RAM, around 2GB, is filled up with video frames that's it, recording's over, as it would take around 20 seconds to transfer the RAM to eMMC storage and your frame rate would drop to around 1 fps as it couldn't record until some RAM was freed. For a 300 x 300 pixel planetary image you got around 20 seconds of video from an ASI224, or 5 seconds of full frame moon images.

I currenly have 3 mini-pc setups, on three rigs, using Celeron J3455 CPUs, 6GB RAM and 120GB SSD modules. They also have space for a 2.5" hard disk so I installed another 250GB SSD on each for image storage. Celerons get a bit frowned upon here, 😁, but I've never found it lacking in necessary performance, and can now record a full frame ASI178 at its rated maximum FPS for as long as I want, well, until the SSD fills up, as it can transfer RAM to SSD as fast as the RAM fills up. 🙂

Hope that helps Andy.

Alan

 

Alan,

Thankyou for the information greatly appreciated

Andy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • 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.