QSI camera owners - help me solve a problem with my filter wheel positions!

[MakeItSo]

Hi All,

I am having a problem with my QSI 683 wsg-8. At first, I was getting an unusual artefact on my images when I used the Ha filter which I reported here (see attached 15s sub). 

While investigating this issue I took the cover off and reseated the filter wheel (I noticed the filter wheel position was not perfect and I think the artefact was coming from light leaking through a small hole adjacent to the filter). 

I decided to connect the camera to SGP and watched the filters move as I selected them  i.e cover off. I noticed that if the filter wheel position was set in the control panel of SGP as Red, and I reseated the wheel carefully with the Red filter in position, I could go move through the filters in sequence as expected i.e. in the order I specified in the SGP equipement profile:

1. Red
2. Green
3. Blue
4. Luminance
5. Ha
6. OIII
7. SII
8. Empty

But as soon as I start hopping around, the filter wheel got confused and started lining up the wrong filters. Incidentally, I looked at the filter wheel ASCOM driver settings and noticed only 7 positions specified. 

My question is this (and I am fully prepared for this to be something obvious as I am learning how to use this camera): does the camera "know" which position is 1, 2, 3 etc because looking at the filter wheel I can see nothing that could possibly orientate the camera if it was set at Red and you took the filter wheel out and put it back in at Green (for example). 

Is there a way to "recalibrate" the filter wheel?

Does this issue resonate with any QSI owners? - is there something obvious I have missed?

Many thanks, 

Simon
 

[Davey-T]

I have some QSI683s and the only similar problem I had with one of them was a failing O ring on the filter carousel causing misalignment,  changing filters out of order shouldn't affect it as I think the wheel only turns one way to get to the next specified filter rather than reversing ie: from position 2 back to 1.

Dave

[Adam J]

5 hours ago, MakeItSo said:

Hi All,

I am having a problem with my QSI 683 wsg-8. At first, I was getting an unusual artefact on my images when I used the Ha filter which I reported here (see attached 15s sub). 

While investigating this issue I took the cover off and reseated the filter wheel (I noticed the filter wheel position was not perfect and I think the artefact was coming from light leaking through a small hole adjacent to the filter). 

I decided to connect the camera to SGP and watched the filters move as I selected them  i.e cover off. I noticed that if the filter wheel position was set in the control panel of SGP as Red, and I reseated the wheel carefully with the Red filter in position, I could go move through the filters in sequence as expected i.e. in the order I specified in the SGP equipement profile:

1. Red
2. Green
3. Blue
4. Luminance
5. Ha
6. OIII
7. SII
8. Empty

But as soon as I start hopping around, the filter wheel got confused and started lining up the wrong filters. Incidentally, I looked at the filter wheel ASCOM driver settings and noticed only 7 positions specified. 

My question is this (and I am fully prepared for this to be something obvious as I am learning how to use this camera): does the camera "know" which position is 1, 2, 3 etc because looking at the filter wheel I can see nothing that could possibly orientate the camera if it was set at Red and you took the filter wheel out and put it back in at Green (for example). 

Is there a way to "recalibrate" the filter wheel?

Does this issue resonate with any QSI owners? - is there something obvious I have missed?

Many thanks, 

Simon
 

Potentially the wrong drivers, if it thinks it has a 7 filter wheel when a 8 filter wheel is installed it will use the wrong number of steps between filters for sure. Check the driver and firmware load are correct for your camera.

[Jonk]

In SGP you may need to dig deeper in the settings and manually set it up for the correct number of filters, I can’t remember without being at home.