Trying to control a Virtuoso Sky watcher Mount using Matlab without the Synscan controller

[Antoine1997]

I've made a serial connection with my pc and my Virtuoso and i'm trying to send commands to my mount via Matlab without passing trough a Synscan controller but I'm not sure if it is do-able. I found the communication protocol of the Synscan (attached). Can I use it to send the same commands on a serial port directly connected to my mount ?

 

SkyWatcher instruction user Manual SynScan Serial Communication Protocol.pdf

[Marci]

Synscan protocol REQUIRES connection to the Synscan controller. You can’t direct control the Virtuoso iirc.

[JRWASTRO]

On 16/05/2019 at 04:23, Antoine1997 said:

I've made a serial connection with my pc and my Virtuoso and i'm trying to send commands to my mount via Matlab without passing trough a Synscan controller but I'm not sure if it is do-able. I found the communication protocol of the Synscan (attached). Can I use it to send the same commands on a serial port directly connected to my mount ?

 

SkyWatcher instruction user Manual SynScan Serial Communication Protocol.pdf 686.51 kB · 10 downloads

Re: send commands to my mount via Matlab without passing trough a Synscan controller but I'm not sure if it is do-able.

Brave man!

You can do anything with MATLAB and Simulink ( https://au.mathworks.com/products/simulink.html ) How much cash have you got ? These mathworks chaps charge like a "wounded bull" !

Have you seen the open source approximation to MATLAB called OCTAVE ?

Jeremy.

 

 

 

[Antoine1997]

Responding in case someone stumbles upon this topic and now that I know much more on this:

Stupid me looked at the wrong protocol.

The protocol I posted earlier allows to communicate with the Synscan. As I don't have a Synscan I only need to drive the motors according to the data sheet attached.

Typical communication protocol is :

REQUEST: ':1F<data>

'                     (String which always begin with ':' and end with a carriage return)

RESPONSE '=<data>

'                     (String which always begin with '=' or '!' in case of an error and end with a carriage return)

Fortunately, it's a scholar project so I can work with Matlab as it is provided. But I'm 99% sure it will indeed also work with open source equivalent such as Scilab or Octave as it is a simple serial communication

 

skywatcher_motor_controller_command_set.pdf

Edited June 13, 2019 by Antoine1997