Camera timeouts with PHD2

[Guest]

I'm just starting to get my guiding setup. I'm using PHD2 and a ASI120mm mini camera.  I set it off and it seems to run ok but after 10 or 15 minutes PHD2 reports a timeout on the camera and disconnects it. I've got the loop time set to 2 seconds. Any ideas?

Cheers

Steve

 

[Dr_Ju_ju]

I take it you're using Microsoft? then, using device manager, check that none of your USB ports are configured with a sleep timeout also in Power Management, check for the same....

[Guest]

9 hours ago, Dr_Ju_ju said:

I take it you're using Microsoft? then, using device manager, check that none of your USB ports are configured with a sleep timeout also in Power Management, check for the same....

Hi Julian, I found the problem but I don't know how to fix it. I'm on windows 7.  I have two cameras attached. The guide camera ASI120 and my canon 450d DSLR. Both are on USB ports. The problem occurs when I take a picture with the canon. Not every time just every now an again. I assume it's some kind of band width problem for the USB ports. When I take a picture with the canon and the picture is downloaded to my laptop I think it must block out the replies from the guide camera.

In my original setup I had a little 7 port USB hub attached to one of the laptop's USB ports and both cameras were plugged into the USB hub. I thought if I had one camera plugged into the hub and the other plugged into one of the other spare laptop USB ports it might work but it didn't.

I've run the guide camera with the canon attached but without taking any pictures on the canon and it seems fine. When I start taking pictures with the canon the guide camera eventually times out. There's a 20 second timeout on the guide camera and PHD2 does restart the guide camera but it seems to pick a new guide star when it does. The effect is that I get a series of matching pictures from the canon. Then I get the 20 second time out and PHD2 restarts, picks a new guide star which is now slightly off from the first set. Then I get another set of matching pictures from the canon (slightly off from the first set)  until the guide camera times out again.

If you have any ideas on how I can fix this I'd be grateful.

I have checked device manager. There was a setting which allows windows to disable a port to save power. I've now switched that off in all the USB ports. I don't think that was the problem. I think it only takes effect when the laptop is running on battery.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Dr_Ju_ju]

Being Windows 7, also prompts to the laptop being quite 'old', so I hate to say it, but it may be time to consider some updates....  & they don't have to be too expensive !!

I normally run 3 cameras during a session, 2 ASI (1600M & 120M (both driven through a USB 3 port) & a Canon 600D (USB 2).

The separation into USB2/3 helps, but I also use BackyardEOS to drive the Canon camera(s) (I sometimes also use an 1100D, using an additional instance of BackyardEOS ) & I don't get any problems with USB bus conflicts... 

[Guest]

Hmm. that's what I was afraid of. Thanks Julian.

[tomato]

I had the same problem a while back when using SGP, it has gone away since switching to NINA, but I am also running Win 10.

[Budgie1]

If you're using the ZWO supplied USB cable for the ASI120mm Mini then try a good quality cable instead.

I used to get my ASI120mm Mini dropping out but it stopped when I upgraded the USB lead, I went for THIS ONE.

It may not work, but it's worth trying before opting for a new laptop.

[michael8554]

I ran a similar setup for many years on W7, so I don't think you necessarily need to upgrade.

As well as the timeout setting, you should look at the Power setting in Device Manager / Universal Serial Bus controllers / USB Root Hub / Properties / Power, and  Power Management.

You may find that the way the USB sockets are connected inside the USB chips, that you have all of your devices on one Root Hub.

Michael

[Guest]

Thanks Michael,

I had the same idea and I spent some time looking at the way the USB ports are assigned but I didn't really understand it. There are 4 USB sockets on the laptop so I moved the ASI camera around the 4 sockets and looked at the properties of each port. Whichever socket it was plugged in to it always said Port 1 hub 2 under the general tab.  There are two USB Root Hubs listed on device manager. 

I'll have to look again.

Steve

 

[Guest]

I think this problem is fixed.

I decided to start from scratch and create a new profile in PHD2. When selecting the camera I discovered that the ASI camera appears 3 times in the pull down list. At the top of the list are two entries "ASI Camera (1) (ASCOM)" and "ASI Camera (2) (ASCOM)". At the bottom of the list is "ZWO ASI Camera". Originally I'd selected "ASI Camera (1)(ASCOM)" which worked apart from the timeouts. Tonight I selected "ZWO ASI Camera" and it worked fine with no time outs.

There was another difference. In my first setup I set the camera to 16 bit rather than 8 bit. This seemed a good idea since it would give better resolution. I set this using the software downloaded from the ZWO website not from PHD2. Tonight I just left all the defaults and saw that the saturation value for the star was set to 255 rather than 65535 so I guess it had defaulted back to 8 bits.  I don't know if this change had any bearing on the problem.

Steve

 

[michael8554]

Lots of mentions on the PHD2 Help forum that the 16 bit driver drops out to 8 bits, I should have thought of that from the onset.

Michael

[Guest]

Hi Michael, do you think the 8/16 bit thing has any thing to do with the timeouts I was getting.? Also does it matter that it's set to 8 bit rather than 16 bit for the purpose of tracking?

Steve

 

[michael8554]

That was my conclusion.

I don't remember whether 8 bit was deemed drastically worse than 16 bit, but you don't have a choice ?

Michael

[Guest]

Yes you can set 8/16 in PHD2 I found out. Where you connect to the camera there's a tool type button and you can set it there. I guess you already know that. I'll try it next session.

The reason I ended up with 8bit was because I decided to go with all the default values and that seems to be one.

Steve