qhy5, banding, drivers and software.

[Reggie]

Hi all, I've just purchased a qhy5 from Bern at www.modernastronomy.com

It didn't come with any drivers or software, so I went to the website and downloaded the drivers only to discover that the camera wouldn't work in PHD with the ones from teh site, so I had a look on sgl and from erwin kats posts I followed along and downloaded the drivers suggested via his threads on here and the qhy5ccd forums.

So far so good, PHD 1.10.0 is working with the camera as a Qguider, no problems getting a guidestar from any position. I wanted to tweak the camera settings for the qhy5 but the cam dialog button is greyed out, have I installed the drivers incorrectly in some way?

I'm getting horizontal banding noise, so I wanted to see if changing the gain/lowering the fps would help? I understand this could be a usb hub power issue too?

Also in PHD, When I choose the Qguider it doesn't give me any option for choosing resolution, it allows use of subframes in the advanced settings but doesn't provide any way to set the subframe size or position, should this be working or is it not implemented in PHD for the qhy5?

PHD/Qhy5 have also crashed on me a couple of times but that could have been me playing with settings/cables, I'll keep an eye on it.

finally, which software should I use for imaging with the qhy5? I see some of you guys are using HDCap? Where can I get the latest version from?

I'm a little confused by the website/forum as to how things are done with the qhy5, it all seems pretty random with little solid documentation for running anything at all, if it wasn't for other sgl members posting their experiences I think getting the qhy5 working with phd might have been a lot more protracted :/

[George]

Give Bern a ring and he will email you the correct drivers, some drivers are vendor specific AFAIK.

[Whippy]

Hi Reggie, I can't help you with the imaging side of the QHY5 but I guide with mine and I also get horizontal banding noise but it doesn't affect the guiding so it's no issue for me. I've never used subframes or even looked to change the resolution either, I'm not sure that you can tbh. Personally, all I do in regard to the guiding side of things is get the focus right, chose the exposure time (normally 1 second but up to 2.5 seconds if I need to), choose a star and let PHD get on with it. It works and it's one less thing I need to worry about on a session.

Tony..

[Reggie]

Thx George, I had a look in his download section, I'll try those and ring him tomorrow if they don't work well.

Whippy, I must've sounded like these were all major issues Despite the above, I am very happy with the qhy5, the only issue really is the randomness of the instructions/which software to download for it etc.

The banding I can live with if I can have a guidestar in the fov wherever I'm point the thing, so far it's done that for me, no complaints on performance.

The qhy5/phd did crash on me a couple of times last night though, I think this is a usb issue, as I've been running the cam on its own with PHD for a couple of hours without a hiccup. I know the camera can do subframes(ROI) so I'm interested really as to why these features aren't available in phd, whether its my mistake or its not supposed to work

[SteveL]

I dont think I have ever seen a subframe option for any camera in PHD

[Reggie]

hehehe, me either, but as this is the first camera with ROI I have owned I expected to see a way to set the ROI as phd was offering a tick box for it. I now know different, phd grabs a 100x100 subframe for usb1.1 devices once a star has been chosen.

[steve51450]

hi reggie

i have been down the same route as you and tried to use the qhy site for drivers and i did not find they worked very well at all

bern recomended mr toms drivers to me and i have not looked back since

i find the qhy5 works well in guidemaster and the routine is

download guidemaster

download qhy5 base driver 1st

then download guidemaster plugin

it should all be fine

if you struggle send me a pm and i will ring you and go through it with you

[beamish]

Reggie , I agree with Steve on the whole. I use Tom's QHY5Drv1024 and QGvideo. I don't have the banding when using PHD and never had any issues relating to that and the cam.

You might want to take a look in QGvideo and see if "enhance Noise reduction " and "Gain Boost" have been checked. Oh and no you can't open QG whilst cam is connected to PHD.

As for HDcap ummm Ihad a go with this over the weekend-VERY user UNfriendly and means you'd have to forego PHD as the driver for the cam are differnet and require you to remove ALL referrences to the cam from the puta and mess with registry etc..... My 2p's worth, I've scrapped it on the PC (test location) and remain happy to continue with QG.

RE frame rates for lunar/planetary see this thread.

Login

Okay it doesn't look like I can post a link to the thread in UKAI. Look for "QHY5 users" !! hint it was my post.

Karlo

[Reggie]

I've got it setup with the 1024 driver, qgvideo works now, camera hasn't crashed all day on either driver

[Reggie]

I had another evening out with the QHY5 and it crashed with phd a lot, I'm going to see if I can get it on its own on a USB port and put everything elsethrough the powered usb2 hub, I've checked the psu for the hub and its rated 5V 2amp so it should be plenty as I only had 2 devices (the qhy5 and a joypad).

[Reggie]

I've installed the drivers for this a couple of times now on my laptop, just did the 3rd registry purge, uninstall iof drivers, plugins, changed phd version for good measure along with the guidemaster plugin. Reinstalled everything from bern @ modernastronomy's download section, using the 1024 drivers. Everything appears to be working at the moment, where previously guidemaster was unusable as the image was soo poor it is now giving me gain options, 2x2 binning and noise reduction. I haven't had tome to test everything fully yet but I am making progress

[beamish]

, good luck with it all Reggie. Lets hope this time eh ??

Karlo

[Reggie]

Indeed, version 1.9 of phd is still unstable, it crashes the camera isfine, I can restart phd and re-choose the camera and start capturing. Just trying the ascom driver and a different version of phd to see if thats any more stable. If not then I'm going to see if guidemaster is stable.

[beamish]

Try 1.10.0 PHD. Something's not right tho Reggie, I've never had the Q5 or PHD crash on me and I've had lots running on the lappy etc....

[steve51450]

reggie

i have just had a thought, and it may be worth a try!

are you running the qhy5 through a powered usb hub or direct to the pc

i found the qhy5 did not like powered usb hubs and crashed/froze if used it with one

steve

[Reggie]

I've tried both, I'm now at the stage where I've installed the qhy5 on a 3rd machine in an attempt to get everything stable. PHD will work for a while, and its great when it does but it crashes sooner or later. Guidermaster was crashing and giving an unusable image. I've got guidemaster giving me a good image and still crashing. On the new PC (laptop) guidemaster is running smoothly so far, 20mins and it hasn't crashed, although it might still so don't hold your breath....

I've tried pretty much everything, even phd with ascom drivers on my other 2 machines, I've reinstalled all software and drivers, purged the registry too, tried all usb ports and powered usb2 hub.

If it stays stable on the new machine then I guess I need a reinstall of windows on my main laptop, start from scratch and see how we go from there.... meh.

[Reggie]

ok, things look pretty stable to me so far, guidemaster stable for 3hrs, phd stable for 1.5hrs, before I stopped them both. Have reinstalled xp on teh laptop and all necessary drivers and apps. will test them all out in the morning.

[Reggie]

It seems we are getting somewhere, couple of hours so far on the reinstalled OS and phd hasn't crashed. just minimal driver install and appropriate software/ascom stuff.

Currently phd is running the qhy5 as an ascom camera, and I have EQTour running the EQMod ascom scope simulator.

Just added the dslr and eos utils into the mix, going through a run of 20x1/8s exposures to see how it behaves with the uploading of images, liveview etc., the qhy5 hasn't batted an eyelid so far.

PHD wasn't even bothered at the pc installing drivers for the camera as it was plugged into a 'new' usb port I'll add the usb hub and the eqmod cable next and see how we get on.

[beamish]

XLNT news Reggie !

Fingers still X'ed

[Reggie]

not so good, still crashing, doesn't seem to like the eos at all, power draw for both is 102ma according to windows, nothing else attached to the system. Never had so much grief from a system :/ It's pretty random when it crashes too, phd locks. I have to kill phd in task manager and restart it.

[beamish]

Wish I could suggest something Reggie -but I'm at a loss.

Karlo

[brendant]

Shame you are having so much trouble Reggie with this guide camera, I run mine on a very old Dell Latitude Notebook with Windows XP, it has only a Pentium 166MMX chip and 128 MB Ram, the USB and processor really struggle with processing fast enough so I usually guide at 1.5 or 2 seconds exposure but it always runs faultlessly for hours on end, using the standard 1024 drivers.

Guiding is always direct from the camera to the ST4 port on the EQ5,and always use PHD, Guidemaster is too resource hungry for the laptop.

I run Ascom with Cartes du Ceil connected by the serial cable to the hand paddle of the EQ5 for selecting targets directly, usually leave CdC running in the background without any problems.

Hope you manage to get it sorted, very frustrating when you get these lockups.

Brendan

[Reggie]

I have a 2ghz amd 64bit turion w/2gb of ram, running a clean install of xp pro, Both apps. are freezing, phd and guidemaster, the only other software I am running is EQTour and the EQMod simulator. Should be plenty of resources, the camera has been in each of the 3 usb ports on its own and in a powered usb2 hub(2amp psu) in each of the 3 usb ports as well. I just cannot get it stable on this machine at all. It'll run fine for an hour or so, then it will just give up, no warning from the software at all, just frozen

[beamish]

I just can't understand it Reggie. I suppose prior to having another word with Bern about it, you might want to try asking on the qhyccd forum.

[brendant]

Reggie, wish like Carlo that I could suggest something usefull, resources certainly should not be the problem, there is obviously a conflict somewhere, wonder is it video drivers, certainly a likely candidate.

Brendan