The ZWO AM5 landed!

[The Admiral]

All good news David. The coffee-tin riser seems to do the business! So I guess you'd reckon the mount handles the Esprit 100 OK?

I see that you are using the ASIAir Mini. How's that working out for you?

Ian

[david_taurus83]

51 minutes ago, The Admiral said:

All good news David. The coffee-tin riser seems to do the business! So I guess you'd reckon the mount handles the Esprit 100 OK?

I see that you are using the ASIAir Mini. How's that working out for you?

Ian

Yes Ian! It appears so! Chucks it round as if it's a Redcat! I haven't inspected any subs yet and after setting up and checking the first couple of subs I left it to do it's thing. At 3.30am when my alarm clock went off to go and pack up, it was still going into its 4th hour. The Air Mini has been great. I've experienced no issues with it. I set the WiFi to 2.4g and I can still get signal from middle of garden to upstairs bedroom. I tried station mode but it's a bit flaky so tend to stick to the Airs own WiFi. Last night was the first time using the 2.1 firmware and all was OK. I did download it from the ZWO site though and not use the one on Google Play as some people think that version is problematic? 

[Elp]

The minis WiFi range is the best out of all the airs.

[Dark Raven]

Latest AM5 Firmware V1.3.0 is out

1. added meridian settings
2. added altitude limits
3. added a fixed park position
4. optimized cable winding problem in the Alt/Az mode
5. memorized custom guide rate
6. fixed DST/LST misunderstanding
7. fixed problem that track light off after GOTO
8. added multi star alignment 
9. fixed other bugs

 

I will not rush to update, just to see first reports of potential bugs.

On completely unrelated matter
ZWO AM5 Review for Visual Astronomy

 

Edited June 21, 2023 by Dark Raven

[Ouroboros]

On 04/06/2023 at 16:21, Dark Raven said:

Latest AM5 Firmware V1.3.0 is out

1. added meridian settings
2. added altitude limits
3. added a fixed park position
4. optimized cable winding problem in the Alt/Az mode
5. memorized custom guide rate
6. fixed DST/LST misunderstanding
7. fixed problem that track light off after GOTO
8. added multi star alignment 
9. fixed other bugs

I will not rush to update, just to see first reports of potential bugs.

On completely unrelated matter
ZWO AM5 Review for Visual Astronomy

 

That’s scope’s a big fella to put on the AM5 isn’t it? I can’t quite see what it it. An Orion something or other. 

[Elp]

Looks like one of the astrographs.

[jpoulette]

Big scope with all the trimmings !

I've spent too much time engineering for the military world.

If it's not de-rated 50% (6.5 kg max) - I'm sweating bullets. 😀

[Ouroboros]

23 hours ago, jpoulette said:

Big scope with all the trimmings !

I've spent too much time engineering for the military world.

If it's not de-rated 50% (6.5 kg max) - I'm sweating bullets. 😀

 yes, quite. I’m umming and arring what to buy to put on my newly acquired AM5. I quite fancy one of the Askar astrographs. Either the FRA600 or the 107PHQ. Both in the 6/7kg range before added stuff. Maybe I should be sensible and think lower aperture, lighter scope. 

[Elp]

Starfield 115? Or one of the TS apos?

Edited June 10, 2023 by Elp

[Ouroboros]

3 hours ago, Elp said:

Starfield 115? Or one of the TS apos?

The Starfield 115 looks quite interesting doesn’t it?  I like the idea of an astrograph though and not having to think about back focus. 

[Martthebass]

I’ve just been reading a post on the FB AM5 users group regarding a user who’s noting that the tracking/guiding performance on his unit has deteriorated significantly with time but stating that his has had significant use - probably much more than any UK users. I was an early adopter and have had mine just under a year, I estimate in that time the mount has probably had about 50 outings. So far the mount has been pretty consistent with typical performance in the 0.6” range but worse if the seeing is dodgy but rarely averaging above 1”.

Is anyone seeing any deterioration in their unit that could cast doubt on the durability of ZWOs execution of this technology?

[Elp]

I would doubt it's the actual strain wave as they're used in robotics doing all manner of work and moving much higher payloads 24 hours a day. I wouldn't rule out their software updates causing the issues (they also make firmwares for the mount as well as the asiair) as my gem sometimes kamakazies after dithering for a few subs and has to recentre. Never happened under asiair firmware v9.whatever.

[AstroPhil]

Hi All,

Another happy AM5 owner here: I'm making steady, but very slow, progress getting a ZWO AM5 mount to work nicely with my INDI/stellarmate setup. Just wondering if anyone here also uses INDI/stellarmate rather than the ASI Air / NINA? I'd particulary be interested to hear of recomended settings for the RA/Dec agressiveness and other parameters (integral gain etc.) that they find to work? I did not get below around 2" RMS last night -albeit this is using a very short FL guidescope (120mm/F4).

I also note a few "INDI oddities" to get it to connect/slew/GoTo. First of alll the mount needs to be breifly attached to the ZWO app to get date/time (I think) info then the slew/goto works in Indi (and at this point the handset can be disconnected. But it'll still "park" without that step. However, unparking does not seem to work - I have to "start tracking", then "unpark" then it wakes up and actually unparks. And then getting the guiding calibration to complete seems to have a bug - it calibrated in RA forward, but the reverse never completes (it seem to go forward an never actaully reverse, just thinks it does). I fixed it (thanks to a comment from kd6awa via Der Pit on the cloudy nights forum) by briefly stopping pulse guiding, then re-starting (re-enabling) it... and then sending a few 0ms pulses manually though the INDI control panel. Then the guide prep completes. But, what a palaver!

Once guiding got going it never really got below 2" (which is fine for my widefield needs) let alone the published 0.5-0.8" - but maybe the Asi air driver is "better" than the INDI one?

Any other AM5/INDI users out there with thoughts/ideas?

Cheers, Phil [PS posted also to the INDI forum, but thought the SGL community might be interestd as well!]

[Dark Raven]

Yeeeah, sounds like INDI/stellarmate... To be clear, I love everything about the concept of INDI/EKOS and I understand how hard it is to drive such open source project. I even bought Stellarmate to support.

Looking at your screenshot I would try to put Bin to 1x1 and reduce box to 32.
Anyhoo, seeing your post made me give my Stellarmate go with ZWO AM5. I got new camera that I was set on testing yesterday. Updated Stellarmate RPI4 8GB it to latest stabile build. Gave it plenty of current with 12V DockerPi Power Board at 10A and supplied the camera on its own with 6.5A. Long story short, they did not get along...

Tried all three available drivers

I do have INDI / Stellarmate / EKOS experience and have successfully imaged with it, but the hustle was just horrendous... Some quite old screenshots below

   

At the end I got fed up with it, not knowing if it will connect to certain device that night or not, wasted many clear nights freezing while trying to make it work. Went out and bought ASIAIR Plus, have not lost a singe clear night since, have not looked back or regretted it.

I am not fan of ZWOs closed ecosystem regarding the ASIAIR. Their stuff just works (for me, for now), and on seldom clear night that I can devote to this hobby I have no inclination to spend them troubleshooting drivers. 

Edited September 7, 2023 by Dark Raven

[Ouroboros]

On 05/09/2023 at 16:11, Dark Raven said:

At the end I got fed up with it, not knowing if it will connect to certain device that night or not, wasted many clear nights freezing while trying to make it work. Went out and bought ASIAIR Plus, have not lost a singe clear night since, have not looked back or regretted it.

I am not fan of ZWOs closed ecosystem regarding the ASIAIR. Their stuff just works (for me, for now), and on seldom clear night that I can devote to this hobby I have no inclination to spend them troubleshooting drivers. 

I agree. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.  Until recently (see below*) using the ASIair felt like coming home to something that simply works after years of flaffing around with control software/hardware that might work but often didn’t. 

* I do wonder now though whether ZWO have over reached themselves trying to make the AIR all things to all astronomers. It was fine until the recent updates.  Let’s hope it’s just a glitch. 

 

 

Edited September 7, 2023 by Ouroboros