SGP won't connect with mount

[Jezphil]

Hello

I am having difficulty connecting a SkyWatcher HEQ5 Pro telescope mount to a Primalucelabs Eagle 4 control unit using ASCOM and EQMOD in order to use astrophotography Sequence Generator Pro software. I’ve tried everything - enthusiast forums, manufacturer forums, YouTube tutorials. It won’t work. I would be happy to pay someone by the hour to supervise a solution to this, perhaps via Zoom? Does anyone know of any software consultants/experts that provide this kind of service? Are there freelance software experts who do this sort of thing?

[malc-c]

I've no personal experience with these units, but they basically seem to be a custom NUC type PC running windows 10 that has all the additional hardware to control cameras and mounts built in.  Can you provide details of what exactly the issue is.  I presume you are able to connect to the HEQ5 and use EQMOD to move the scope, both directly and via whatever planetarium / target software ?  Or is the issue with camera control ? 

Do you have an EQDIR cable to connect the mount to one of the USB ports on the Eagle computer ?  From what I've read this device is basically a wi-fi enabled mini PC with built in GPS dongle, and power distribution, so in theory it's no different to using a laptop or PC to control the mount via an EQDIR cable  and running ASCOM and EQMOD as the interface.  The only difference between the Eagle box and a PC is that the Eagle control software allows individual USB / Power ports to be left powered or be disabled.

Edited May 20, 2021 by malc-c

[Jezphil]

19 hours ago, malc-c said:

I've no personal experience with these units, but they basically seem to be a custom NUC type PC running windows 10 that has all the additional hardware to control cameras and mounts built in.  Can you provide details of what exactly the issue is.  I presume you are able to connect to the HEQ5 and use EQMOD to move the scope, both directly and via whatever planetarium / target software ?  Or is the issue with camera control ? 

Do you have an EQDIR cable to connect the mount to one of the USB ports on the Eagle computer ?  From what I've read this device is basically a wi-fi enabled mini PC with built in GPS dongle, and power distribution, so in theory it's no different to using a laptop or PC to control the mount via an EQDIR cable  and running ASCOM and EQMOD as the interface.  The only difference between the Eagle box and a PC is that the Eagle control software allows individual USB / Power ports to be left powered or be disabled.

Thank you so much for your help. I managed to get the connection working by changing the COM port numbers and finally got EQMOD working and a connection to the telescope mount. That felt like a big step forward after hours of figuring out what to do. But then I tried to open Sequence Generator Pro and it will not open. It had been working fine previously except all that remained was getting the telescope connection working which is now done. I have reinstalled SGP but this didn't solve the issue. I am baffled by this. 

Edited May 21, 2021 by Jezphil

[malc-c]

I've been following your posts on the EQMOD group as well.  However you need to provide more information.  I presume you have a monitor connected to the box and are using a keyboard an mouse to set things up seeing this box is basically a fancy windows computer?  If you can launch EQMOD, set the speed slider to 4 and then move the mount using the NSEW buttons in EQMOD then that would confirm communication with the mount.  Now I had to do some googling to read up on what SGP was and it seems that its just an application that does the same as APT or Backyard EOS, in that it allows the setting up of plans to control the camera and take sequences of images.  The fact that you say it no longer runs (presumably it starts to load and then crashes ??) might suggest that it's still retaining an old config setting which conflicts with the new.  More googling and it seems quite common.  Most seem to find the answer by looking in the log files located at   C:\Users\[your username]\AppData\Local\SequenceGenerator .   The only two items that are important is the subfolder 'Sequence Generator Pro' which contains all your profiles and the file 'sg_ui_config.xml' which contains your program settings (layout etc.).  If these are deleted and then you re-install you may need to input your registration details again.

Other than that, for now go old school and install Cartes du Ciel, PHD2 and APT, and see if you can connect to the mount and camera with those applications - If you can then it confirms the hardware and drivers are OK.  Then it's just a matter of resolving the SGP start up issue as doing the above would prove it's not a hardware / driver / ASCOM / issue, but a software one...

 

  

[Jezphil]

On 21/05/2021 at 09:43, malc-c said:

I've been following your posts on the EQMOD group as well.  However you need to provide more information.  I presume you have a monitor connected to the box and are using a keyboard an mouse to set things up seeing this box is basically a fancy windows computer?  If you can launch EQMOD, set the speed slider to 4 and then move the mount using the NSEW buttons in EQMOD then that would confirm communication with the mount.  Now I had to do some googling to read up on what SGP was and it seems that its just an application that does the same as APT or Backyard EOS, in that it allows the setting up of plans to control the camera and take sequences of images.  The fact that you say it no longer runs (presumably it starts to load and then crashes ??) might suggest that it's still retaining an old config setting which conflicts with the new.  More googling and it seems quite common.  Most seem to find the answer by looking in the log files located at   C:\Users\[your username]\AppData\Local\SequenceGenerator .   The only two items that are important is the subfolder 'Sequence Generator Pro' which contains all your profiles and the file 'sg_ui_config.xml' which contains your program settings (layout etc.).  If these are deleted and then you re-install you may need to input your registration details again.

Other than that, for now go old school and install Cartes du Ciel, PHD2 and APT, and see if you can connect to the mount and camera with those applications - If you can then it confirms the hardware and drivers are OK.  Then it's just a matter of resolving the SGP start up issue as doing the above would prove it's not a hardware / driver / ASCOM / issue, but a software one...

 

  

Hi - many thanks for this. I really appreciate the advice - it's been very frustrating. I finally went for the option of clearing out all the software - ASCOM drivers, EQMOD, SGP - then reloading everything and this did the trick. During a brief break in the clouds I went into the back garden last night and tested it - to my amazement it all worked perfectly after a few minutes figuring out I had to unpark the scope in both EQMOD and SGP. It felt like alchemy. I know this is basic amateur technology, but to this tech-dunce it felt like a big step forward to plate solve and use SGP's other features like dithering. The Syn-Scan handset and finderscope were redundant. I only started this hobby a year ago and kept the software very basic with ATIK Artemis, the usual handset three-star aligning and some terrible cable management that is now improved with wifi and on board computer hub. Just need those clouds to go now.