New vs Old EQ6-R Pro

[Phillyo]

Hi all,

I noticed there's an EQ6-R Pro for sale on the site and I was wondering if anyone knows the difference between the model being sold (without the USB port) and the new version WITH the USB port. Other than the addition of the port, are there any differences between them? Does the port make any difference if one already has an EQMod cable?

Thanks in advance.

Phil.

[Miguel1983]

To my knowledge there's no difference.

I have the old version and use a RJ45 to usb eqmod cable.

For updates i use the handcontroller's USB connection 

[Phillyo]

Thanks Miguel, that's what I assumed but wasn't sure.

[malc-c]

New version has a different motor board fitted, based on an ARM processor rather than a pair of 16F886 PIC microcontrollers.   They have the USB to 5vTTL serial convertor internal on the new board, allowing a standard A to B USB cable to be used to hook the mount up to a PC, so there is no need to use an EQDIR cable.  The connection is still via a COM port on the PC, but at 115,000 baud rather than 9600 when using an EQDIR cable on the older mounts.   However the firmware, protocol etc is still the same.  The functionality of the mount is no different.

If the mount comes with a handset that also has USB (V5?) then you can use the same USB cable to connect the handset to the mount and update any firmware as required.  You could also place the handset into PC-DIRECT mode and operate the mount via the pass through on the handset, although there is little point with a direct USB connection on the mount.

Hope that helps

[powerlord]

I know that astro equipment is about 20 years behind current tech (handsets , wifi still mostly optional, companies still advertising 'computer controlled' as if its the 1980s, etc), but I wonder if there is any extra benefits from the higher baud rate I get on my EQ6  ?

9600 is abysmally slow. I imagine it only matters much for guiding, and even then, since the protocol has no feedback on slew rate, and you are only sending pulses every second or so, I doubt it matters, but it does feel kinda pathetic that in 2021, we are still controlling kit with an ancient serial protocol, with no feedback, albiet at a protocol that now allows for a massive 14Kbytes per second.

stu

 

[malc-c]

The subject of connection speed has been discussed on the EQMOD user group recently, and to be honest 9600 is ample for the short data transmission that gets sent to the mount from EQMOD, so using a PC - Mount connection that runs at 115k is really overkill, and actually may result in issues with data loss as EQMOD hasn't been "designed" to operate that fast.  When pulse guiding it's typical that the pulses are sent between 1 and 3 seconds, so again, no real need to have uber fast transmission speed.