A new bug...

[ollypenrice]

Given the amount of time I spend imaging you might think I'd had all the bugs available, but clearly not; I'm running the dual TEC rig on the Crab, one side doing Ha and the other OIII, the latter in Artemis Capture. I stop the sequence to refocus. I then try to restart the sequence but Artemis tells me, 'Failed to position filterwheel.' I haven't asked it to reposition filterwheel and it still says I'm in position 2, which is OIII, so I ignore the sequencer and just set it to repeat exposures, since I'm not shooting through any other filter tonight. However, I wait for the first sub to come in and it's OK... but there's something odd about it. Finally I look over to the other screen and realize that the OIII side of the rig is now shooting Ha. I never asked it to change filters. It still claims to be shooting OIII. But what's really odd is that it has placed the filter in the correct position for Ha despite having had a paddy and spontaneously moved without instruction. 

Rebooting Artemis set everything back to normal.

Ho hum.

Olly

[wimvb]

Gremlins

[AKB]

Probably it will never happen again...

...I thought you eschewed electronic filter wheels for just this reason?

Tony

[Davey-T]

My Atik EFW2 has a funny turn occasionally starting up with filter numbers starting from 10 upwards, disconnecting reconnecting sorts it 

Dave 

[carastro]

I have had weird things happen in the past when my EFW2 thinks it has filters up to 100.  I spoke to Atik about it at the time, but I can't remember now whether they offered a solution, or whether it just rectified itself.

I also find sometimes my Artemis software doesn't find the filterwheel and shows no filters at all.

I find the best thing to do in these situations, is to shut Artemis down and disconnect the camera and filterwheel from the laptop and power and then plug it all in again.

I had a weird thing this evening in Artemis when the downloads just got stuck and if I hit any other buttons in Artemis, it would say it was flushing, and then the captured image didn't download at all.  Again same action as above, turned the camera off and unplugged it all and then plugged it all in again.  Not ideal when it was stuck at -15 degrees, but seems to have recovered.

Carole 

Carole  

[tomato]

If Olly with his er, robust set up, has software gremlins, what hope for the rest of us?😳

[Tomatobro]

I had a problem with my EFW2 where the orange drive ring would stretch and form a free loop on the slack side when indexing. If the wheel has off at an angle the free loop would drop out of the wheel grove so the wheel and motor would become disconnected.

I fixed it by replacing the orange rubber ring with a new one and touch wood its not been a problem since. I can't recall the filter wheel  showing an error when this failure occurred.  At the start of this problem I could not figure out what was going on so I added a current sensing circuit to the filter wheel power supply that turned on a led so when the filter was about to change I could look at the mount and see if the led indicated that indexing was taking place.  What I noticed was that when the motor was free (the drive ring out of its grove) no led indication took place (minimal drive current ) and this led (no pun intended) to extensive bench testing to identify the cause.

[ollypenrice]

On 30/12/2019 at 00:11, AKB said:

Probably it will never happen again...

...I thought you eschewed electronic filter wheels for just this reason?

Tony

I lack the courage of my convictions, Tony! On the dual rig, at least, there is no reason to use an electric wheel since I shoot either NB or lumnance on one side and stick to one filter all night. I still have a manual wheel, too. There is no doubt at all that the filterwheels are the least stable of my PC-controlled devices.

Olly

[tooth_dr]

15 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

There is no doubt at all that the filterwheels are the least stable of my PC-controlled devices.

Olly

I totally agree. Lost 2-3 nights due to dodgy filter wheel.  I now have an Atik EFW2 and EFW3 and they are totally stable *touches wood*

[ollypenrice]

43 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

I totally agree. Lost 2-3 nights due to dodgy filter wheel.  I now have an Atik EFW2 and EFW3 and they are totally stable *touches wood*

Ah, all mine are Atik EFW twos... (Not what you wanted to hear!)   My most consistent problem is that they fail to connect properly to Artemis. When this happens a lot of plugging and unplugging sometimes works but occasionally it doesn't. When I try again in the morning they connect. However, the arrival of Atik's Filter Wheel Runner offers an alternative control software which gets me back in business, though without the ability to run sequences in Artemis.

Olly

 

 

[carastro]

Quote

 the arrival of Atik's Filter Wheel Runner

I remember you telling us about this before, but I forget where you said it was located.

Incidentally I had a lot of Artemis problems last night, connected OK, but download kept getting stick both in Looping mode and in sequencer.  Then went into flushing mode and did not download at all.  Switched off artemis and switched it on again, then the cooling was greyed out.

Ended up re-booting the computer, unplugging both the camera and EFW2 from power and starting again.  Really annoying.  Also had problems with PHD.

Carole

Edited January 4, 2020 by carastro

[ollypenrice]

16 minutes ago, carastro said:

I remember you telling us about this before, but I forget where you said it was located.

Incidentally I had a lot of Artemis problems last night, connected OK, but download kept getting stick both in Looping mode and in sequencer.  Then went into flushing mode and did not download at all.  Switched off artemis and switched it on again, then the cooling was greyed out.

Ended up re-booting the computer, unplugging both the camera and EFW2 from power and starting again.  Really annoying.  Also had problems with PHD.

Carole

Filter Wheel Runner, I think, is just an Atik download. From memory it was part of the Core Software. I only discovered it by accident so you may have it already, perhaps.

Olly

[carastro]

Thanks Olly, must investigate the laptop and perhaps the installation disc. 

Have you tried Dusk yet.  I saw it on line somewhere and it looked very much like Artemis, so might be worth investigating. 

Carole

[Davey-T]

16 minutes ago, carastro said:

must investigate the laptop and perhaps the installation disc. 

You can make a shortcut and put the icon on your desktop.

Edited January 4, 2020 by Davey-T

[carastro]

As yes, thanks Dave, that now rings a bell.  Must take a look at my imaging laptop.

Carole 

[Hallingskies]

On 30/12/2019 at 00:23, carastro said:

I have had weird things happen in the past when my EFW2 thinks it has filters up to 100.  I spoke to Atik about it at the time, but I can't remember now whether they offered a solution, or whether it just rectified itself.

I also find sometimes my Artemis software doesn't find the filterwheel and shows no filters at all.

It’s not just me then!  I like Artemis a lot but it seems to be a bit random sometimes.  Shutting it down and restarting it seems to work most times.  It seems to be a lot better when not anywhere near Windows 10....🤞🤞🤞

[AKB]

6 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

There is no doubt at all that the filterwheels are the least stable of my PC-controlled devices.

All the more reason to use an OSC, then...  🙂

[tooth_dr]

5 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Ah, all mine are Atik EFW twos... (Not what you wanted to hear!)   My most consistent problem is that they fail to connect properly to Artemis. When this happens a lot of plugging and unplugging sometimes works but occasionally it doesn't. When I try again in the morning they connect. However, the arrival of Atik's Filter Wheel Runner offers an alternative control software which gets me back in business, though without the ability to run sequences in Artemis.

Olly

 

 

I have never used Artemis so that looks like the problem. 

[teoria_del_big_bang]

On 31/12/2019 at 19:22, tomato said:

If Olly with his er, robust set up, has software gremlins, what hope for the rest of us?😳

Whilst I do not wish any gremlins on anybody it kind of makes me feel a bit better knowing even the experts can have problems as well. I hope that doesn't make me seem shallow 🙂 

[ollypenrice]

2 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

I have never used Artemis so that looks like the problem. 

You may be right but, unfortunately, I love using it and hate learning new software! (Old gimmer, stuck in his ways!!)

Olly

[ollypenrice]

Just now, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Whilst I do not wish any gremlins on anybody it kind of makes me feel a bit better knowing even the experts can have problems as well. I hope that doesn't make me seem shallow 🙂 

Believe me, I'm not an expert on computers, hardware side or software. Ahem, 'not an expert' is likely to remain the understatement of the year, world wide, despite the year being only four days old...

😁lly

[carastro]

Quote

I have never used Artemis so that looks like the problem. 

You may be right but, unfortunately, I love using it and hate learning new software! (Old gimmer, stuck in his ways!!)

Olly

Ditto ditto.  I love it because it is simple.  I don't love it when it goes wrong, but I'd rather stick with it than change.

I still use PHD1 since it is so simple and works, can;t be bothered having to enter the focal length etc every time I change scopes in PHD2.  

Carole 

[Peter Drew]

And yet, beginners still seem to be keen to get into imaging!    😀

[carastro]

Quote

And yet, beginners still seem to be keen to get into imaging!    

They see the pretty pictures and think - I'd love to do this.  

Little do they know what lies ahead LOL

1. The cost.

2. The frustration.

3. The huge learning curve.

Carole 

[teoria_del_big_bang]

7 minutes ago, carastro said:

They see the pretty pictures and think - I'd love to do this.  

Little do they know what lies ahead LOL

1. The cost.

2. The frustration.

3. The huge learning curve.

Carole 

How right you are, and I got into this even though many on this and other forums , including your good self, did try to tell me what was involved.

But, despite all the above on those odd occasions it all goes right what a feeling it is to get an image of something so distant and so feint. It really does make all that  worth it, despite knowing at the back of your mind things WILL go wrong again at some stage 🙂 

Steve