CEM40 ; getting going with the ascom stuff

[Legion Of Andromeda]

righto, i recently purchased a second hand Ioptron CEM40 mount, it works fine as a standalone mount but has never used in conjunction with the ascom platform.

I have experience with ascom in conjunction with ATP and more recently, NINA for connectiing my cameras, focuser and my previous Skywatcher mount

However, i hit a brick wall with the cem40. i have a feeling that i need to update the firmware on the mount and the handset,,before setting up the drivers in ascom?

any guidance on best practice, cables, additional drivers, pitfalls to avoid, matching software to hardware would be appreciated.

The official source of help is a little inconsistant in detail and reliability, so i could do with comments from those that have been down this road and come out the other side

 

Thanks in advance

[michael8554]

I would have a look on the US "Cloudy Nights" forum, there are many CEM posts there.

Michael

[imtl]

What exactly are you stuck on?

Did you install the ASCOM IOptron driver? And the ICommander?

[PaulE54]

I use APT on a windows 10/64 machine to talk to my CEM40 and never had a problem. Central to the software stack is the iOptron commander software, which you need to install. This makes the mount appear as an ASCOM mount to APT, CdC, PHD2 and anything else that needs to talk to the mount. 

In terms of hardware, I use a single USB3 active cable from the Windows machine inside the house, out to the mount via a powered USB3 hub next to the mount. The USB3 hub takes leads from the camera, the mount and the iPolar. The USB cable to talk to the mount plugs into the socket labelled USB on the side of the mount opposite to the on/off switch, next to the socket marked iPort.  Page 8 of the manual. The other socket marked USB (on the end of the mount, underneath the iPolar socket) does NOT control the mount - that links to whatever you have plugged into the USB socket on the saddle. 

Hope this helps but shout if you need more.

Paul E