Question about EQMOD

[Philip Benson]

I am helping a friend setup a SW EQ8 using EQMOD. We have all the cables setup and the connection in Starry Night works fine with EQMOD connecting to COM 3.

Setting the mount towards the NCP we then slew towards Mizar just as a test star.  The mount starts to slew in the general direction of Mizar. The mount settles on Mizar but then the crosshair suddenly jumps a few degrees away and then starts to slew once again towards Mizar.  Settles near Mizar but then once again jumps back a few degrees before slewing back towards Mizar. Th mount physically moves further and further north until it is almost pointing directly overhead.

I went into the EQMOD folder in the user profile (Roaming > AppData > EQMOD) and deleted all the ini files.  Re-entered configuration info for EQMOD and tried again but same thing happened.

Anyone know what is happening here and how to resolve?

[Dr_Ju_ju]

In EQMod are there any Aligment \ Sync points ?  they will probably need to be removed\deleted and EQMod set to "Dialog based"

[Philip Benson]

None yet. I was going use Mizar as the first alignment/sync point but I didn't get that far.  I know the mount encoders are turned on so I have asked that he turn the encoders off in case there is a clash going on. The way the mount was behaving it seemed as though something was fighting against the direction the mount was pointing so if the encoders are detecting that the mount is moving without the hand controller controlling the mount the encoders might be interpreting that as a pointing error and trying to correct it.

By turning the encoders off with the hand controller connected, EQMOD would then be able to take over the pointing completely. Just a thought.

[Philip Benson]

So this afternoon we set the mount aiming at the NCP and turned on. Then connected the mount and the crosshair pointed at the NCP.  All good.  Next we manually slewed to a star using NSEW buttons in EQMOD. That was fine and we could synch on the star.  Next we right-clicked on another star and selected 'Slew to …..'. The mount started aiming towards the star we chose, got almost to it but then the crosshair suddenly jumps a few degrees away from the star and the mount continues slewing past the position of the star.   This jumping a few degrees happens each time the cross hair approaches our target star.

 

Anyone got any ideas?

[Starflyer]

AFAIK if you turn off the encoders using the hand controller, then turn off and use EQMOD directly without it they will be turned back on.

The way to turn them off is to drag the right hand side of the EQMOD window to the right, this reveals some additional options, one of them turns off the encoders. The setting remains between sessions, so set it and forget it.

I found my guiding was far better with them off on my AZEQ6-GT, so I just left them off from that point on.  They're not accurate enough to perform any useful function apart from allowing you to declutch and swing the OTA around for visual use anyway.