Another Alternative to Sky Watcher Wifi Adapter

[skybadger]

I have 5 or more ftdi and one pl serial adaptors. No problems with either.. 

I did blow up a pl adapter by reverse connecting 12v. Quite dramatic.

 

[stash_old]

Just do a search here see he problems - Prolific are cheap and nasty,IMO, AND cause no end of problems especially with Windows OS. I am not saying they dont work just more of a problem, from experience, than the others I quoted.

But each to their own ?

[sarqua]

Hello from France

 

Another solution to pilot the EQ6 o other Mount for < 10$ : 

 

https://www.webastro.net/forums/topic/135021-piloter-sa-monture-en-wifi-pour-moins-de-10€/

[stash_old]

12 hours ago, sarqua said:

Hello from France

 

Another solution to pilot the EQ6 o other Mount for < 10$ : 

 

https://www.webastro.net/forums/topic/135021-piloter-sa-monture-en-wifi-pour-moins-de-10€/

Yes I have used them or similar in the past - one problem, if I remember it right (3yrs ago), was that the Input is RS232 not TTL and so cannot be connected directly to any mount plus I think they were limited to 5v and some mount would need 3.3v. But they worked and were reliable ?

I moved on to this supplier which also provided better documentation/software/support  and smaller-  such as a virtual Com creation/control https://www.usriot.com/products/serial-to-wifi-converters/

But that was over 3yrs ago,doesn't time fly, so maybe they have updated it ?

 

 

[Tonyjl]

On 03/09/2018 at 00:51, _Zoltan said:

Hi stash_old,

Nice achievement! But I can't replicate it

You said that you connect directly to the mount - what mount you use? I have a SW Synscan AZ goto without hand controller and it won't work. I've traced the TX/RX lines from the two PIC16f886 inside, and it looks only the RX is wired to the connector. The TX pin is trough a diode wired back to RX pin, and both RX-es are connected in parallel.

The Synscan app is sending :e1 string on connection. I've tried connecting the RX/TX from the USB-serial (TTL) parallel via 1k resistor, it only "hears" what was sent from the computer - no response from the mount.

Later I'll try to check with logic analyzer but I doubt anything will come out of it.

Z

I got the app to send the :e1 to the mount and the mount replies =020401CR but after that, it's all silence. The SynScan Pro app just does not recongnize the reply? And I can't work out why.. And if I use serial instead of UDP over Wifi, the link works flawlessly. One possibility is that the Synscan Pro app listens a different UDP port than it's sending over. (Not 11880)

I've used the roboremo esp32 code and tried modifying it with no luck.

The plan is to use esp32 Wifi for the UDP-Serial link and bluetooth serial to control the camera shutter over manual release cable and optoisolators.. 

 

[stash_old]

4 hours ago, Tonyjl said:

One possibility is that the Synscan Pro app listens a different UDP port than it's sending over. (Not 11880)

UDP does not normally use  the same UDP port to send and receive data.

Synscan App Pro sends on 11880  but listens on what ever port it creates ,as a client, and this is the port that the remote UDP server/client must respond on. Plus the UDP message must contain the whole message - no fragmenting allowed.

Quotes from dev manual(s)

"6. Wi-Fi Connection
The same protocol runs on the SynScan Wi-Fi dongle or mount with built-in Wi-Fi module.
 The Wi-Fi dongle/module runs a UDP server and listen to UDP port 11880 to accept commands
from host.
 The command must be sent in a single UDP package; the response is also included in a single
package.
 When the Wi-Fi dongle/module works in access point mount, its IP address is 192.168.4.1. If it
runs in station mode, the router that it links to allocates its IP address.
6. Useful Resources
 Sample Code: https://code.google.com/archive/p/skywatcher/
 Documents: http://www.skywatcher.com/download/manual/application-development/"

The SW AZ GoTo mount seem's to be a problem ( I have 2) depending on the board version (think mine are v2.9 and v3.5)  - my original prototype worked on one by not the other but I am told that putting the resistor in ,as you have done , corrects the "problem" - I just never tried it as I had moved on.

As for your aims below why not just use Indi (or Gphoto2 to be more precise) and use a RPI - a RPI Zero(w) will run Gphoto2 and mount control via normal serial adapter . It does assume a Gphoto2 supported camera !

4 hours ago, Tonyjl said:

The plan is to use esp32 Wifi for the UDP-Serial link and bluetooth serial to control the camera shutter over manual release cable and optoisolators.. 

 

[Tonyjl]

On 23/04/2019 at 14:01, stash_old said:

UDP does not normally use  the same UDP port to send and receive data.

Synscan App Pro sends on 11880  but listens on what ever port it creates ,as a client, and this is the port that the remote UDP server/client must respond on. Plus the UDP message must contain the whole message - no fragmenting allowed.

Quotes from dev manual(s)

"6. Wi-Fi Connection
The same protocol runs on the SynScan Wi-Fi dongle or mount with built-in Wi-Fi module.
 The Wi-Fi dongle/module runs a UDP server and listen to UDP port 11880 to accept commands
from host.
 The command must be sent in a single UDP package; the response is also included in a single
package.
 When the Wi-Fi dongle/module works in access point mount, its IP address is 192.168.4.1. If it
runs in station mode, the router that it links to allocates its IP address.
6. Useful Resources
 Sample Code: https://code.google.com/archive/p/skywatcher/
 Documents: http://www.skywatcher.com/download/manual/application-development/"

The SW AZ GoTo mount seem's to be a problem ( I have 2) depending on the board version (think mine are v2.9 and v3.5)  - my original prototype worked on one by not the other but I am told that putting the resistor in ,as you have done , corrects the "problem" - I just never tried it as I had moved on.

As for your aims below why not just use Indi (or Gphoto2 to be more precise) and use a RPI - a RPI Zero(w) will run Gphoto2 and mount control via normal serial adapter . It does assume a Gphoto2 supported camera !

Ok, with this hint I finally cracked it!

The magic line in Arduino was to define the remote port as follows:

unsigned int remoteport = udp.remotePort();

Though, the connection is not that stable? Aligning goes without problems, but long slews tend to cause hiccups. Any cures for this?

I tried Indi and gphoto. Indi is complicated and gphoto does not really work with Sony cameras.