SkyWatcher AZ-GTi Wifi issues

[Beagleboy]

Hi there,

I got a Skywatcher Mak 127 with an AZ-GTi goto mount as a birthday present last month and it has been working flawlessly until a couple of nights ago. I've been connecting to the mount's onboard wifi with the android version of the Synscan App on my Nokia 6 smartphone. However, these last couple of nights the system has been unusable as the wifi connection keeps dropping after only a few minutes of use. I'm not even getting enough time to align the mount.

What appears to happen on my mobile screen is that the wifi symbol drops away for a few seconds, then comes back, but the movement controls on the app have now become unresponsive. The only way to regain control of the mount is to restart the mount and the app. Then replay the whole scene with the wifi dropping out a few minutes later.

So far, I have tried.

1. Changing the wifi to channel 13, away from all the other local devices.

2. toldmy phone to forget all other wifi sources

3. Replacing the batteries in the mount.

4. Reinstalling the Synsan App

5. Restarting my phone.

I'm not sure what else to do? Has my mount developed a fault?

[Star Struck]

There have been threads on here covering keep alive settings for apps running in  the background on Android that use wifi.

The answer to your problem may well lie there.

I am sure others on here can give you more detail.

[Owmuchonomy]

As above but I also turn mobile data off.

[stash_old]

6 hours ago, Beagleboy said:

I'm not sure what else to do? Has my mount developed a fault?

Truth is wired its faster ,99% reliable and doesn't stop you doing Astro stuff on clear nights 🙂- 2.4 wireless can be very poor especially with interference and 5 is shorter in distance. 🙂  Then you will get those who use WiFi  and have no problems !

[Beagleboy]

I think I've finally narrowed down the problem, and it's to do with my Nokia 6 phone. 

The mount connects perfectly, and reliably to my wife's android Blackberry, and to my Kindle Fire tablet, (that I side loaded Synscan and Sky Safari onto). 

I believe that my Nokia phone is some kind of wi-fi tart, always looking for a better connection and this is where the problem has come from. 

[Dr Strange]

Try going into advanced settings and turn off automatically select network. That may stop it from being such a tart. Otherwise you are kind of stuck with the other devices. I actually bought the Synscan hand controller for the AZ-GTi but that is a £139 addition. It was a good option for me because I didn't have to fiddle with my phone and I could have the mount independent of the phone. Plus I got it for a cracking price. Here it is at FLO:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-mount-accessories/sky-watcher-synscan-v5-handset.html

[Chi]

Some experience with wifi connection problem. 
I bought mine in Feb 2019, it worked fine until after Dec 2019 when it started to get all kinds of weird wifi connection problem - 1) wifi connected but the mount didn't react; 2) it connected but connection dropped shortly; 3) it connected and worked once, relocated and didn't connect; 4) wifi signal (SSID) of the mount wasn't found at all.  I sent it back for service but FLO didn't find any problem, they said it was tested with both Apple and Android phone, then shipped it back to me, the problem persisted.  I searched the web again for similar cases, some people suggested changing connection channel; right, if I could make a connection I would change the channel right away !  Then I read something about incompatibility between the mount and Android 8 and later devices, I checked my phone is Android 9 and my tablet is Android 8, I dug up my long forgotten Sony Z2 tablet which is still on Android 5, installed the app and it connected and worked right away !  So I trusted that the Synscan app does have compatibility problem with at least some Android device with ver 8/9.  BTW, I did purchased a hand control just in case I never solved the problem.

Edited September 28, 2020 by Chi