Wrong cable or wrong brain? (Stellarmate)

[George Gearless]

I've run into problems with connecting my mount to stellarmate.

Am I correct in assuming that this is where I'm supposed to put the cable comming from the Stellarmate (the middle empty port)?

 : 

 

The plug I got from the supplier is too big. The empty middle port is smaller than the left one. Just want to make sure before I contact them about sending me the wrong cable.

Btw, the above is a photo of a Synscan handcontroler. The fitted cable on the left port goes into the mount marked 'hand controller'.

George

[StarDodger]

You don’t use the hand controller, use EQMOD, no need for connecting the handle controller to SM....?

Edited June 18, 2019 by StarDodger

[StarDodger]

But if you insist on using it that way (not sure why you would) then yes it’s the middle port using the correct cable obviously..which I think has a serial plug on the end, so you then need a serial to USB adapter...makes it all very complicated ..

[George Gearless]

36 minutes ago, StarDodger said:

But if you insist on using it that way (not sure why you would) then yes it’s the middle port using the correct cable obviously..which I think has a serial plug on the end, so you then need a serial to USB adapter...makes it all very complicated ..

Oh I want to keep it as simple as absolutely possible. The reason I asked is that my setup program in Stellarmate (I forget the name of the program) can find my two cameras no problem, but fails to find the mount. And placing the serial cable comming from the Stellarmate into the serial port that is clearly marked 'handcontroler', seemed intuitively wrong to me. So, since there is a second serial port on the handcontroler, albeit smaller, I figured that kinda made sense. 

Ok, I'll rummage around the webmanager a bit more and see if I can't get it sorted. I'm kinda happy that winter is several months away. So, I've got some time on my hands to dry-train before I go 'live'.

Thanks.

[StarDodger]

16 minutes ago, George Gearless said:

Oh I want to keep it as simple as absolutely possible. The reason I asked is that my setup program in Stellarmate (I forget the name of the program) can find my two cameras no problem, but fails to find the mount. And placing the serial cable comming from the Stellarmate into the serial port that is clearly marked 'handcontroler', seemed intuitively wrong to me. So, since there is a second serial port on the handcontroler, albeit smaller, I figured that kinda made sense. 

Ok, I'll rummage around the webmanager a bit more and see if I can't get it sorted. I'm kinda happy that winter is several months away. So, I've got some time on my hands to dry-train before I go 'live'.

Thanks.

If you get yourself a proper EQMOD cable then that goes from the SM unit, direct to your mount hand control port, there is no simpler way to be honest, the INdI EQMOD driver for the skywatcher mounts is superb...

what mount do you have, if it an EQ6 then I have the correct cable for that and I don’t use now, so could sell to you. if you are interested message me, as have an EQ8, if it an EQ5 then I can send you a link to good EQMOD cables for approx £10..

Anything you need to know related to Stellarmate also drop me a message as am an old hand with it now..

Edited June 18, 2019 by StarDodger

[George Gearless]

18 minutes ago, StarDodger said:

If you get yourself a proper EQMOD cable then that goes from the SM unit, direct to your mount hand control port, there is no simpler way to be honest, the INdI EQMOD driver for the skywatcher mounts is superb...

what mount do you have, if it an EQ6 then I have the correct cable for that and I don’t use now, so could sell to you. if you are interested message me, as have an EQ8, if it an EQ5 then I can send you a link to good EQMOD cables for approx £10..

Anything you need to know related to Stellarmate also drop me a message as am an old hand with it now..

Careful StarDodger! I might take you up on it.

My mount is a Skywatcher EQM-35 Pro. I asked the supplier (Astroshop) if SM would be compatible with it, which they confirmed. In the same mail I asked what cable I should get, and they sent me the appropriate cable (this is the one if you're curious).

The serial plug fits into where I would normaly have my handcontroler. I think that's what confused me, compounded with the fact that I couldn't get a connection to the mount. So I think it was a case of 'wrong brain, right cable'.

As you have no doubt deduced by now, I went for it and bought pretty much everything I talked about in another thread. Guidecamera ZWO ASI 120MM Mini USB 2.0 Mono and ZWO ASI 385MC USB 3.0 Colour Camera for the main. Oh and a mini guidescope. I tell you, it was tough going when I informed the missus. Had to take cover behind the couch and throw small pieces of chocolate at her, until she calmed down 😁. I think I'm ok now (allthough not tremendously popular).

The next couple of weeks I'll be fidgetting around with my new toys and propably frustrate the hell out of myself and everyone around me. I may take you up on your offer, and add you the list of people I intend to frustrate over the summer.

George

[StarDodger]

1 hour ago, George Gearless said:

Careful StarDodger! I might take you up on it.

My mount is a Skywatcher EQM-35 Pro. I asked the supplier (Astroshop) if SM would be compatible with it, which they confirmed. In the same mail I asked what cable I should get, and they sent me the appropriate cable (this is the one if you're curious).

The serial plug fits into where I would normaly have my handcontroler. I think that's what confused me, compounded with the fact that I couldn't get a connection to the mount. So I think it was a case of 'wrong brain, right cable'.

As you have no doubt deduced by now, I went for it and bought pretty much everything I talked about in another thread. Guidecamera ZWO ASI 120MM Mini USB 2.0 Mono and ZWO ASI 385MC USB 3.0 Colour Camera for the main. Oh and a mini guidescope. I tell you, it was tough going when I informed the missus. Had to take cover behind the couch and throw small pieces of chocolate at her, until she calmed down 😁. I think I'm ok now (allthough not tremendously popular).

The next couple of weeks I'll be fidgetting around with my new toys and propably frustrate the hell out of myself and everyone around me. I may take you up on your offer, and add you the list of people I intend to frustrate over the summer.

George

Yes that is the correct cable, so you do connect direct from SM to the handset port... 😀

[George Gearless]

Succes! To be perfectly honest I have no idea how I did it. Just fiddles about with the webmanager then VNC and all of a sudden I could hear the mount give the initial click-click sound in the gears when it comes online. Fiddles some more and managed to find the controls for slewing and took a few pictures of the wall. With both the main camera and the guide.

So, cable 'problem' solved. Now if only I could get the damned app to connect (I've been using my Wifi capable stationary PC untill now), I'd be golden.

[StarDodger]

53 minutes ago, George Gearless said:

Succes! To be perfectly honest I have no idea how I did it. Just fiddles about with the webmanager then VNC and all of a sudden I could hear the mount give the initial click-click sound in the gears when it comes online. Fiddles some more and managed to find the controls for slewing and took a few pictures of the wall. With both the main camera and the guide.

So, cable 'problem' solved. Now if only I could get the damned app to connect (I've been using my Wifi capable stationary PC untill now), I'd be golden.

To connect app, are both your PC and SM connected to the same network, I usually use an iPad and connect it to the SM hotspot..

[George Gearless]

10 minutes ago, StarDodger said:

To connect app, are both your PC and SM connected to the same network, I usually use an iPad and connect it to the SM hotspot..

I'm currently in a Chat with Stellarmate guy. I think the problems are bigger than first anticipated. Will let you know.

[StarDodger]

1 hour ago, George Gearless said:

I'm currently in a Chat with Stellarmate guy. I think the problems are bigger than first anticipated. Will let you know.

Yes Jasem is very helpful, and first rate at what he does..

[George Gearless]

3 hours ago, StarDodger said:

Yes Jasem is very helpful, and first rate at what he does..

He sure is a champ. Ok, so status:

When I got the Stellarmate I could not connect during the authentication process. I could find the network and log onto it not problem with my tablet, but then nothing happened. Enter Jasem, who during a long and painstaking process found out that I had an old firmware version. So I needed to upgrade it. Took me a while to figure out, but finaly I got the SD card flashed and it now had the proper version.

I was able to log on briefly and thought everything was ok. Then the next day, same s**t. Luckily my stationary PC has Wifi, and with it I was able to log on to Kstar with VNC. I was also able to log on to webmanager on Stellarmate. But I simply couldn't with the tablet. So during the chat today, Jasem has patiently guided me through VNC to check for various things. Including a restart of Ekos and something called mongodb. This was through the command window on Stellarmate VNC. Now I could connect and everything looked fine. I even got my mount and cameras to work through the app. So I took a few pictures of the wall, while feeling like Bruce Willis in 'The Jackal' when I turned my telescope :):

Turned off everything and had a cup of coffee which turned out to be 4 hours long. Got back and switched everything on again. App unable to connect. Did the reset commands through VNC and could once again connect. Something's definitely amiss. I've sent Jasem my update on mail and hope he can come up with a solution. I swear to God that man has the patience of a teacher teaching a retard how to do calculus. And he certainly knows his way around a Stellarmate. So I put my trust in him to come up with a permanent solution.

In the meantime I'd better set up some sort of cable scheme. My mount looks like a hastily decorated christmas tree. And I haven't even put on the dewbands yet. I'm bound to get one of the cables snagged on something as it is.

George

 

[StarDodger]

18 minutes ago, George Gearless said:

He sure is a champ. Ok, so status:

When I got the Stellarmate I could not connect during the authentication process. I could find the network and log onto it not problem with my tablet, but then nothing happened. Enter Jasem, who during a long and painstaking process found out that I had an old firmware version. So I needed to upgrade it. Took me a while to figure out, but finaly I got the SD card flashed and it now had the proper version.

I was able to log on briefly and thought everything was ok. Then the next day, same s**t. Luckily my stationary PC has Wifi, and with it I was able to log on to Kstar with VNC. I was also able to log on to webmanager on Stellarmate. But I simply couldn't with the tablet. So during the chat today, Jasem has patiently guided me through VNC to check for various things. Including a restart of Ekos and something called mongodb. This was through the command window on Stellarmate VNC. Now I could connect and everything looked fine. I even got my mount and cameras to work through the app. So I took a few pictures of the wall, while feeling like Bruce Willis in 'The Jackal' when I turned my telescope :):

Turned off everything and had a cup of coffee which turned out to be 4 hours long. Got back and switched everything on again. App unable to connect. Did the reset commands through VNC and could once again connect. Something's definitely amiss. I've sent Jasem my update on mail and hope he can come up with a solution. I swear to God that man has the patience of a teacher teaching a retard how to do calculus. And he certainly knows his way around a Stellarmate. So I put my trust in him to come up with a permanent solution.

In the meantime I'd better set up some sort of cable scheme. My mount looks like a hastily decorated christmas tree. And I haven't even put on the dewbands yet. I'm bound to get one of the cables snagged on something as it is.

George

 

Stick with it, as trust me it’s worth it, I have never looked back after switching to Linux and Stellarmate, yes there were teething issues, and that’s normal, but well worth it in the end.

Aslo Stellarmate has just gone through a major update so again teething issues arise, Jasem is the author of the software and always there to help, he is a genius and a star...

[George Gearless]

Ok, all sorted now. Man, that was rough. Jasem had to connect to my computer via Teamviewer to have a look-see how things were working (or not working) at my end.

Long story short: For some reason, Ekoslive was offline when I tried to connect. And since my app could not connect to an offline server, it was unable to start the app overall. Jasem suspects that the Ekoslive database hasn't finished loading when my app tries to connect. So he worked his magic and made the server restart automaticaly after 5 secs. And voila! Now everything works. Every time. 

It sounds easy. But the poor guy was hard at work for at least an hour combined, trying to figure out what was wrong.

Now all I need is some dark winter evenings and some clear skies :).

George.

PS: Oh, and I also need to learn all the nifty functions that are now at my disposal. Maybe it's not such a bad thing that winter is a long way away.