ASIAIR or Pegasus Powerbox?

[StevieDvd]

1 minute ago, Stuart1971 said:

Agreed, but the ASIair is way way way over priced for what it is......IMHO...👍🏼

Agreed 👍 - I may end up using it with with Astroberry or Stellarmate if I can access the power board fully and the off/on & wifi/reset extras.

[Stuart1971]

Just now, StevieDvd said:

Agreed 👍 - I may end up using it with with Astroberry or Stellarmate if I can access the power board fully and the off/on & wifi/reset extras.

This can be done, it’s been mentioned on the INdI forum, the power ports work, but are on all the time, no on or off setting...👍🏼

[StevieDvd]

1 minute ago, Stuart1971 said:

This can be done, it’s been mentioned on the INdI forum, the power ports work, but are on all the time, no on or off setting...👍🏼

Done that it's a simple tweak.  ZWO have inadvertently put a link to github on updating the kernel which gives you more access than I think they realise. 😮

[Stuart1971]

1 minute ago, StevieDvd said:

Done that it's a simple tweak.  ZWO have inadvertently put a link to github on updating the kernel which gives you more access than I think they realise. 😮

Ssshhhhhh...👍🏼

[Droogie 2001]

Well I finally caved in and purchased the Pegasus power box Ultimate v2.

It’s certainly not cheap especially when adding on the dedicated PSU and other shorter cables.

To be honest I could not find a better alternative that would meet my requirements. All other options were compromises which defeated the point of the whole endeavour.  Hopefully this will help my setup times and get me imaging more often. 
It also offers the option for other ideas. A USB compute stick  could be an interesting project.

Thanks for everyone’s advice.

 

 

 

[kens]

2 hours ago, StevieDvd said:

Agreed 👍 - I may end up using it with with Astroberry or Stellarmate if I can access the power board fully and the off/on & wifi/reset extras.

I've just written a new INDI driver that is now in the nightly builds: indi-asi-power lets people who want to convert their ASIAir to a full blown INDI but control the power ports. Still in beta while it is being tested.

[kens]

2 hours ago, StevieDvd said:

Done that it's a simple tweak.  ZWO have inadvertently put a link to github on updating the kernel which gives you more access than I think they realise. 😮

Maybe someone told them the licence requirements of the various open source components they use

[wimvb]

12 hours ago, kens said:

I've just written a new INDI driver that is now in the nightly builds: indi-asi-power lets people who want to convert their ASIAir to a full blown INDI but control the power ports. Still in beta while it is being tested.

Does that work with the asiair app?

[kens]

40 minutes ago, wimvb said:

Does that work with the asiair app?

No. The idea is that if you want to install an alternative OS you can still control the power ports. It can also be used on a normal RPi if you want to DIY power ports and control them.

[Icesheet]

25 minutes ago, kens said:

No. The idea is that if you want to install an alternative OS you can still control the power ports. It can also be used on a normal RPi if you want to DIY power ports and control them.

So the idea is you can load another OS on a different SD card and then it would be possible to switch between the two depending on your needs/ equipment?

[StevieDvd]

14 hours ago, kens said:

I've just written a new INDI driver that is now in the nightly builds: indi-asi-power lets people who want to convert their ASIAir to a full blown INDI but control the power ports. Still in beta while it is being tested.

Very interesting, does it have a control panel, have you investigated the control of the wifi & reset options too?

[kens]

1 hour ago, Icesheet said:

So the idea is you can load another OS on a different SD card and then it would be possible to switch between the two depending on your needs/ equipment?

Correct. 

[kens]

7 minutes ago, StevieDvd said:

Very interesting, does it have a control panel, have you investigated the control of the wifi & reset options too?

All INDI drivers have a control panel. This one is very specifically configued to manage the GPIO pins used by the ASIAir Pro but could be easily adapted for other pins and other uses. I don't actually own an ASIAir so initial testing was done on a RPi3 with LEDs connected to the GPIO pins and then by owners of the ASIAir.

Be aware that when you install another OS that you cannot use the ASIAir app. You need to use Ekos or any other INDI compliant program. So as mentioned above, when you want to use the ASiAir app then boot from the ASI SD card. If you want to control a wider range of equipment with fully functional tools like Ekos and the latest PHD2 then boot from an alternative SD card

Using an OS like Astroberry or Ubuntu, things like wifi are easily manageable by the usual OS tools. I don't know what the reset options are but assuming they are not GPIO related then I have not investigated that. This driver was solely to ensure that the power ports could still be controlled.

BTW an alternative is the Astroberry DIY driver. The down side is that its configuration means that the On and Off controls work in reverse. I have a patch to make that configurable, but it also is unable to drive the pins with Pulse Width Modulation e.g. for light panel and dew heater control. So this driver is a completely new one. If you only need On/Off control then the Astroberry DIY driver is a good option and has fewer moving parts.

[StevieDvd]

Thanks Ken,

I have Astroberry & Stellarmate setups to play with as well as an Asiair - my last hurdle is handling the stepper motor focusers (Moonlite & Lakeside) so have a lot of non- ZWO gear and not wanting to buy new ZWO equivalents.  I've added a stepper motor shield to one setup and coding a uno with stepper motor addon - this is so I can circumvent the focus controller boxes. The latter with the Asiair in mind with an alternate OS.

Will give the beta a looksie.

Steve

 

[Icesheet]

4 hours ago, kens said:

Correct. 

Show me where to sign up 😂

[kens]

8 hours ago, Icesheet said:

Show me where to sign up 😂

If you are game to install from the nightly build then:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mutlaqja/indinightly
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install indi-asi-power

A new release of KStars and INDI is imminent so be careful as the nightly build is on a different version to the stable build and might mess things up for you

I'm about to push a set of minor fixes to the driver. Hopefully this allows the package to enable the systemd service and also adds some small enhancements. These will take a day or two to make it into the nightly build.

To remove the nightly ppa

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:mutlaqja/indinightly

 

[kens]

12 hours ago, StevieDvd said:

Thanks Ken,

I have Astroberry & Stellarmate setups to play with as well as an Asiair - my last hurdle is handling the stepper motor focusers (Moonlite & Lakeside) so have a lot of non- ZWO gear and not wanting to buy new ZWO equivalents.  I've added a stepper motor shield to one setup and coding a uno with stepper motor addon - this is so I can circumvent the focus controller boxes. The latter with the Asiair in mind with an alternate OS.

Will give the beta a looksie.

Steve

 

I thought there were already INDI drivers for the Moonlite and Lakeside focusers.

As a side note, the pigpio library that the driver is based on http://abyz.me.uk/rpi/pigpio/ gives the option to use the GPIO pins on the RPi to drive a stepper motor (via suitable circuitry equivalent to the Arduino shield). 

[Stuart1971]

8 hours ago, kens said:

If you are game to install from the nightly build then:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mutlaqja/indinightly
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install indi-asi-power

A new release of KStars and INDI is imminent so be careful as the nightly build is on a different version to the stable build and might mess things up for you

I'm about to push a set of minor fixes to the driver. Hopefully this allows the package to enable the systemd service and also adds some small enhancements. These will take a day or two to make it into the nightly build.

To remove the nightly ppa

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:mutlaqja/indinightly

 

Be very careful using nightly builds unless you know what you are doing, there can be many bugs and issues, this particular driver may well be fine, but others may be really buggy...it’s really for the savy Linux user and for beta testers...

Edited March 1, 2021 by Stuart1971

[StevieDvd]

9 hours ago, kens said:

I thought there were already INDI drivers for the Moonlite and Lakeside focusers.

As a side note, the pigpio library that the driver is based on http://abyz.me.uk/rpi/pigpio/ gives the option to use the GPIO pins on the RPi to drive a stepper motor (via suitable circuitry equivalent to the Arduino shield). 

I have the solutions running, using available indi drivers (the stepper motor shield is a waveshare so also allows a 12v power supply for the RPI).  The existing motors need more than 5v hence the waveshare shield, the arduino uses a 12v supply too.

The finishing is more cosmetic, like proper leads and a case for the arduino solution. For a remote control setup I don't need the original focuser handsets or extra cables they entail, ideally I'd be looking for a small inline circuit with usb one end and 9 pin d-type the other.

[wimvb]

1 hour ago, Stuart1971 said:

Be very careful using nightly builds unless you know what you are doing, there can be many bugs and issues, this particular driver may well be fine, but others may be really buggy...it’s really for the savy Linux user and for beta testers...

In @kens case, I believe it only installs the indi-asi-power driver, and doesn't upgrade anything.

[Stuart1971]

17 minutes ago, wimvb said:

In @kens case, I believe it only installs the indi-asi-power driver, and doesn't upgrade anything.

Ah, ok...as you can see I am not a Linux savy person....👍🏼😂

[kens]

Still worth highlighting the risk. 

58 minutes ago, Stuart1971 said:

Ah, ok...as you can see I am not a Linux savy person....👍🏼😂

I think it's still worth highlighting the risk about the nightly builds. You should remove the nightly PPA as soon as you install the driver if you don't want to be exposed. Or wait till the driver is in the stable build to be completely safe.

[StevieDvd]

I got stuck at the first hurdle with - it seems there is no Raspberry/Buster for indinightly

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mutlaqja/indinightly

I tried working around that and failed when doing the make command saying that defineProperty was used in wrong scope (line 159 in asipower.cpp) - and suggesting using deleteProperty!

Am happy to trash the sd-card and reflash the OS so don't mind using nightly builds or custom drivers. I can pull your latest from github and try again.

Update

Worth noting that there's an Astroberry update out which Radek says contains indi-asi-power 0.6, so was able to complete installation.

So a little bit of testing needed now  😀

Edited March 1, 2021 by StevieDvd
Update about new upgrade

[kens]

6 hours ago, StevieDvd said:

I got stuck at the first hurdle with - it seems there is no Raspberry/Buster for indinightly

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mutlaqja/indinightly

I tried working around that and failed when doing the make command saying that defineProperty was used in wrong scope (line 159 in asipower.cpp) - and suggesting using deleteProperty!

That's one of the issues I was alluding to with the nightly builds. There is a change in the INDI library which introduces defineProperty for use by all drivers. But the new library is currently only available in the nightly build. So when you try to build it fails unless you install libindi-dev from the nightly. Even then it depends which OS you are running. Last time I looked, it had not yet propogated to Ubuntu 20.10 or 21.04. It should all be sorted with the next INDI release.

[StevieDvd]

1 hour ago, kens said:

That's one of the issues I was alluding to with the nightly builds. There is a change in the INDI library which introduces defineProperty for use by all drivers. But the new library is currently only available in the nightly build. So when you try to build it fails unless you install libindi-dev from the nightly. Even then it depends which OS you are running. Last time I looked, it had not yet propogated to Ubuntu 20.10 or 21.04. It should all be sorted with the next INDI release.

Today's update to Astroberry has solved that. I took a clean image 2.0.3 written to sd-card, the did the apt update dist and then followed your instructions and apart from a warning in pigpio it compiled OK.

The panel is appearing and can be set, I think there may be a few issues when turning a power port on/off without the label being chosen first. I'll check those tomorrow but power can be turned on/off on the ports.

As this is aimed at an Asiair installation of Astroberry would it be better to label the ports 1-4 instead of the coders 0-3?

I miss the Asiair beep on startup, it seems to quiet at startup now.

Thanks

Steve