SW Star Adventurer GTI owner thread

[StevieDvd]

7 minutes ago, Bramble said:

Having major problems.  Firstly, I could not get the firmware update to work although I had a good wifi connection to the mount.  I noticed my laptop needed some updates, so I did those and then re-booted everything.  Now the mount does not appear to be broadcasting a wifi signal at all.  I have tried from mobile devices as well - aaagh!  Is there any kind of re-set procedure for the mount, I can’t find any trouble shooting info in the very short manual?  I have yet to get this thing operational in any way, so wanted to get the right firmware on board to link to my ASIAir as had read about problems.  Any suggestions would be much appreciated.  FYI, I have an EQMod cable for connecting to the ASIair, could I use this for another go at updating?

When the firmware goes wrong it may revert back to the ESP*** which tends to mean that Syncan app won't find/connect to it.

• First off download the latest Synscan for your laptop, it may look a little different but has some important updates. And the latest MCFirmwareLoader
• Connect the eqmod cable to your laptop and find the com port it selected (in Device manager).  I usually open device manager and then connect the eqmod cable to watch it get added & assigned okay.
• Connect the lead to the mount and switch on.
• Run the MCFirmwareLoader not the MCFirmwareLoader_Wifi version and set the com port for the serial connection.
• It should give a message that says it won't provide info but can be updated.
• Start the update - it takes a longer time than wifi as I guess it's using a slower baud rate

You may be able to use a USB A-B printer cable to do the update but I have not checked that myself. The serial chip is in the mount and may only get activated once the mount has started correctly. If anyone  gets the firmware fail and does not have an eqmod cable it would be nice to know if USB printer cable works or not. Again, to see the com port selected,  connect the usb lead to the mount and switch it on & connect the lead to the laptop. You may need the SW Prolific driver loaded to get that lead to work.

The new Synscan/Firmware apparently allows a bluetooth connection - not sure if that could be used for firmware updates in the future.

HTH

Steve

[Bramble]

Thank you Steve. I had got about half way to running your suggested steps when I saw your thoughtful reply.  Many thanks as I am sure others will also benefit.  Good news, my firmware is installed and my wifi signal can now be seen by my phone.  Havn’t checked the laptop yet, but I won’t tend to be using that (I hope) other than for updates!  Worth mentioning that, as a total ignoramus with these things, I had no idea that I needed to install ASCOM drivers (and something else) on my laptop to get the flippin’ EQMOD cable to work.  It’s a lynx cable in case anyone else is looking for one.  Anyway, I found the 1.78 firmware loader, allowed it to auto select the port, checked the hand controller button, and it just worked!  I used  the Update button not the MC version (I have no idea what the difference is).   I really thought I had bricked the thing.

One of these nights, I might actually get out and try and get some images!

Thanks again - it might be an early G&T for me today.

[StevieDvd]

1 hour ago, Bramble said:

Thank you Steve. I had got about half way to running your suggested steps when I saw your thoughtful reply.  Many thanks as I am sure others will also benefit.  Good news, my firmware is installed and my wifi signal can now be seen by my phone.  Havn’t checked the laptop yet, but I won’t tend to be using that (I hope) other than for updates!  Worth mentioning that, as a total ignoramus with these things, I had no idea that I needed to install ASCOM drivers (and something else) on my laptop to get the flippin’ EQMOD cable to work.  It’s a lynx cable in case anyone else is looking for one.  Anyway, I found the 1.78 firmware loader, allowed it to auto select the port, checked the hand controller button, and it just worked!  I used  the Update button not the MC version (I have no idea what the difference is).   I really thought I had bricked the thing.

One of these nights, I might actually get out and try and get some images!

Thanks again - it might be an early G&T for me today.

The MC version  just checks what firmware you have installed, but it's a non-destructive connection test (unlike the update). The ASCOM driver is not needed for a firmware update but the serial cable driver (based on the chip) is. The Lynx cable uses an FTDI driver and the mount (usb port connection) needs a Prolific one.

Glad you are back in business

[RobW]

One thing I noticed last night on the new version is that if I'm connected by USB to my PC I don't seem to be able to connect using WiFi from my phone in parallel. I'm sure I've done that in the past, so maybe it got blocked in this new release. WiFi from phone works fine if the mount is not connected to anything else. It's no biggie, but my PC is sometimes a distance from the mount so it was kind handy for a quick slew to target to save trudging back. Bluetooth is also listed but I couldn't get it to work on Android - I doubt it's something I'd use much anyway, my NUC PC card doesn't have working BT at present anyway (long story!). Those aside, 3.44 seems to be working fine.

[PeterKom]

On 31/08/2022 at 23:21, Adam J said:

Typical guiding for tonight. Scope west pointing east, target clsoe to meridian. Neutral balance. Thats 200 pulses at 1.5seconds so 5mins of guiding total end to end of log and it did not trip up once. Ill weigh my rig at some point to let you know the load but the counter weight is about 3/4 of the way towards the bottom of the bar. Peak errors did not even exceed 1 arcsecond per axis in the entire run, with the RMS being 0.59 arcseconds.

Adam

Dear Adam,

What connection for guiding do you use USB or ST-4?

I have problems with the new GTI mount and PHD 2. I can normaly connect the mount with just the USB cable but after calibration is complete I get following error messeges:

"ASCOM driver failed checking IsPulseGuiding. See debug log for more information."
"Pulseguide command to mount has failed - guiding is likely to be ineffective"
"ASCOM driver failed checking for slewing, see debug log for more information."

Otherwise SynScan app works fine. Connection to mount works, alignment procedure works, connection to APT works, GoTo function in APT and Plate solving in APT Pointcraft works fine....

Tried to replace USB cable of the mount but problems are still there.

Mount is 3 weeks old.
Motor board version is 3.37.0C
I see online there is a Firmware: Star Adventurer GTi GOTO mount, version 3.44.
Maybe check this out?

For any suggestions i would be thankful!

CS Peter

[Adam J]

2 hours ago, PeterKom said:

Dear Adam,

What connection for guiding do you use USB or ST-4?

I have problems with the new GTI mount and PHD 2. I can normaly connect the mount with just the USB cable but after calibration is complete I get following error messeges:

"ASCOM driver failed checking IsPulseGuiding. See debug log for more information."
"Pulseguide command to mount has failed - guiding is likely to be ineffective"
"ASCOM driver failed checking for slewing, see debug log for more information."

Otherwise SynScan app works fine. Connection to mount works, alignment procedure works, connection to APT works, GoTo function in APT and Plate solving in APT Pointcraft works fine....

Tried to replace USB cable of the mount but problems are still there.

Mount is 3 weeks old.
Motor board version is 3.37.0C
I see online there is a Firmware: Star Adventurer GTi GOTO mount, version 3.44.
Maybe check this out?

For any suggestions i would be thankful!

CS Peter

I use USB, but the USB did not work at all as shipped to me. I have to flash the motor driver via a eqdirect cable to get the USB working. 

I don't know what firmware I have on it currently, sufficient to say it's working and I have a policy of not fixing stuff that is not broke. 

So I may not be on the latest version. I'll check tomorrow. 

Adam

Edited November 22, 2022 by Adam J

[RobW]

11 hours ago, PeterKom said:

Dear Adam,

What connection for guiding do you use USB or ST-4?

I have problems with the new GTI mount and PHD 2. I can normaly connect the mount with just the USB cable but after calibration is complete I get following error messeges:

"ASCOM driver failed checking IsPulseGuiding. See debug log for more information."
"Pulseguide command to mount has failed - guiding is likely to be ineffective"
"ASCOM driver failed checking for slewing, see debug log for more information."

Otherwise SynScan app works fine. Connection to mount works, alignment procedure works, connection to APT works, GoTo function in APT and Plate solving in APT Pointcraft works fine....

Tried to replace USB cable of the mount but problems are still there.

Mount is 3 weeks old.
Motor board version is 3.37.0C
I see online there is a Firmware: Star Adventurer GTi GOTO mount, version 3.44.
Maybe check this out?

For any suggestions i would be thankful!

CS Peter

I'm also on a straight USB connection from mount to PC (an old Intel NUC box). Couldn't see any benefit of ST-4 even though I have the cables, so I went with a simple/direct USB connection. I'm using the fairly standard NINA/PHD2 combo for software. It did take a couple of minutes after installing the ASCOM platform and drivers to figure which COM port it was using (COM3 in my case) and configure that into SynScan. If all else works, have you checked/changed the normal Altitude limit in SynScan - I got caught by that on Andromeda the other everning, which was above the 75 degrees they set by default in SynScan for the mount. I just whacked that up to 90 and all was OK (apart from shaving my tripod leg!)

[Tomatobro]

19 minutes ago, RobW said:

(apart from shaving my tripod leg!)

I had that problem!

I made a short extension piece to go between the mount and the tripod to give the camera clearance. The skywatcher extension tube was out of stock.

 

[RobW]

Just now, Tomatobro said:

I had that problem!

I made a short extension piece to go between the mount and the tripod to give the camera clearance. The skywatcher extension tube was out of stock.

 

Yeah - it's not actually hitting, so I'm OK for now. I'm considering an HEQ5 anyway, and the Az GTi does lesser duties on my other scope, so I may just live with it for now.

[PeterKom]

17 hours ago, Adam J said:

I use USB, but the USB did not work at all as shipped to me. I have to flash the motor driver via a eqdirect cable to get the USB working. 

I don't know what firmware I have on it currently, sufficient to say it's working and I have a policy of not fixing stuff that is not broke. 

So I may not be on the latest version. I'll check tomorrow. 

Adam

Thanks, I did the motor driver update yesterday, si I will give it a try. I hope it solves the problems.

Peter

[PeterKom]

9 hours ago, RobW said:

I'm also on a straight USB connection from mount to PC (an old Intel NUC box). Couldn't see any benefit of ST-4 even though I have the cables, so I went with a simple/direct USB connection. I'm using the fairly standard NINA/PHD2 combo for software. It did take a couple of minutes after installing the ASCOM platform and drivers to figure which COM port it was using (COM3 in my case) and configure that into SynScan. If all else works, have you checked/changed the normal Altitude limit in SynScan - I got caught by that on Andromeda the other everning, which was above the 75 degrees they set by default in SynScan for the mount. I just whacked that up to 90 and all was OK (apart from shaving my tripod leg!)

Thanks, I did the motor driver update yesterday, si I will give it a try. I hope it solves the problems.

Peter

[PeterKom]

18 hours ago, Adam J said:

I use USB, but the USB did not work at all as shipped to me. I have to flash the motor driver via a eqdirect cable to get the USB working. 

I don't know what firmware I have on it currently, sufficient to say it's working and I have a policy of not fixing stuff that is not broke. 

So I may not be on the latest version. I'll check tomorrow. 

Adam

Adam, from the PHD screen you posted I can see most of the settings you use. What algorithms do you use?

I just tested in PHD the manual guide tool and the commands do work. I put some tin foil on the guide scope put a smal hole inside the foil and I got focus on a lamp maybe 8 m away.
I hope these also means that guding during tracking will also work. We got a great weather forecast in 2 days so I hope problems will be resolved till then.

Peter
 

[Adam J]

15 minutes ago, PeterKom said:

Adam, from the PHD screen you posted I can see most of the settings you use. What algorithms do you use?

I just tested in PHD the manual guide tool and the commands do work. I put some tin foil on the guide scope put a smal hole inside the foil and I got focus on a lamp maybe 8 m away.
I hope these also means that guding during tracking will also work. We got a great weather forecast in 2 days so I hope problems will be resolved till then.

Peter
 

I'll check but I think it's set to the learning one. 

Adam 

[RobW]

If you're a DIYer and don't mind tinkering (and possibly voiding your warranty) there's some useful tips on the internals of the SA Gti on Cloudy Nights, including how to adjust for RA backlash, which mine was gradually developing. 10 minute fix (5 of which was gently warming, removing and relocating the sticker which covers the adjustment hole). And no backlash. More info on the CN thread (including much more major work on regreasing and adjusting DEC, which I have not needed yet)

[mattadams]

On 21/11/2022 at 22:04, PeterKom said:

Dear Adam,

What connection for guiding do you use USB or ST-4?

I have problems with the new GTI mount and PHD 2. I can normaly connect the mount with just the USB cable but after calibration is complete I get following error messeges:

"ASCOM driver failed checking IsPulseGuiding. See debug log for more information."
"Pulseguide command to mount has failed - guiding is likely to be ineffective"
"ASCOM driver failed checking for slewing, see debug log for more information."

Otherwise SynScan app works fine. Connection to mount works, alignment procedure works, connection to APT works, GoTo function in APT and Plate solving in APT Pointcraft works fine....

Tried to replace USB cable of the mount but problems are still there.

Mount is 3 weeks old.
Motor board version is 3.37.0C
I see online there is a Firmware: Star Adventurer GTi GOTO mount, version 3.44.
Maybe check this out?

For any suggestions i would be thankful!

CS Peter

Came here looking for other info but interestingly I keep having the same error as above after varying times after guiding started. I disconnect and reconnect all devices but it will almost always come back. I'm relatively new to guiding so am I missing something that will fix this? The only thing I can think of is that I use a persistent wifi hotspot which synscan doesn't seem to like and therefore PHD2 is getting confused about which IP to use and loses connection (I've set synscan to serial but when connecting through ASCOM to NINA it gives you a popup to pick via IP instead - wouldn't have though this shouldn't happen if a COM port is set?). Did anyone solve this?

The original reason I was looking through this thread though was mentioned earlier about hard RA limits. When manually controlling the mount with the arrows all of a sudden the mount will just stop responding and continue moving off in the direction that you last pressed (mainly happening when I'm nudging the mount in 3S alignment). On occaision the mount hit the hard stop but the motor was still running. Ended up powering off the mount as soon as I could but concerned this may have damaged the worm gear / rest of the assembly? Any suggestions on what I should do? The guiding since seems to be OK but often it needs drastic corrections - not sure if it's because of the above PHD2 errors or wind or other. Life / clouds has got in the way and I haven't had a chance to get out and test any of this in months but thought there might be some useful advice on here.

Thanks!
Matt

[potato22]

Should the polar scope scale be vertical? Mine is offset slightly, as shown in the picture. Sorry if it's a noob question, it's my first mount, and first time looking through a polar scope!

The picture is taken straight, so the scale seems offset 5 degrees or so from vertical.

Wondering if this is deliberately to compensate for magnetic North vs true North, or if the courier dropped it, etc...

Edited April 25, 2023 by potato22

[barbulo]

Hi and welcome to SGL. 

According to my experience, it's difficult to find a SW mount to have the polar scope perfectly squared. You can try to adjust it, but I don't recommend it. I prefer to compensate that inclination with a few steps (less than 1 minute of your time). 

I proceed as follows: place Polaris in the center of the reticle, then move one axis (AZ is normally easier) till the star is out of the circles and then rotate the RA axis to place the horizontal line over Polaris (vertical line if you chose ALT instead of AZ). After these steps you should have your reticle squared regardless the position of the RA shaft, and that 5deg inclination you mentioned should be compensated. Now you can proceed with the polar alignment routine placing Polaris in its right place in the reticle.

[potato22]

7 hours ago, barbulo said:

Hi and welcome to SGL. 

According to my experience, it's difficult to find a SW mount to have the polar scope perfectly squared. You can try to adjust it, but I don't recommend it. I prefer to compensate that inclination with a few steps (less than 1 minute of your time). 

I proceed as follows: place Polaris in the center of the reticle, then move one axis (AZ is normally easier) till the star is out of the circles and then rotate the RA axis to place the horizontal line over Polaris (vertical line if you chose ALT instead of AZ). After these steps you should have your reticle squared regardless the position of the RA shaft, and that 5deg inclination you mentioned should be compensated. Now you can proceed with the polar alignment routine placing Polaris in its right place in the reticle.

OK, thanks, will give that a try. 

[david_taurus83]

On 25/04/2023 at 20:18, potato22 said:

Should the polar scope scale be vertical? Mine is offset slightly, as shown in the picture. Sorry if it's a noob question, it's my first mount, and first time looking through a polar scope!

The picture is taken straight, so the scale seems offset 5 degrees or so from vertical.

Wondering if this is deliberately to compensate for magnetic North vs true North, or if the courier dropped it, etc...

My first mount was an old EQ5 and I adjusted the reticle on that. I set the tripod level with a spirit level and put the mount on but adjusted it as close to horizontal as possible and used the corner brickwork of a house across the road to adjust it. 

Since then, I have had 2 AZEQ6's and the polar scope reticle was loose and wobbly on both! I've never used them, always use software to align now. For imaging the polar scope is pretty much obsolete nowadays. 

[Azoriandan]

I just purchased mine and works great with asiair and my scope.  I want to use it also with a ball mount and dslr for Milkyway landscapes.  Is it possible being a gtmount?  If I polar align the mount and then do star align with the camera will that work?  After that be able to point at any direction with out go to?  Thank you in advance for any help.

[Astroscot2]

Still loving this little mount.

Latest image.

 

[Doversole]

A had a few issues with guiding following a meridian flip using an ASIAIR and a Redcat51.

Anyone experienced issues? Would you mind sharing your ASIAIR configuration. I do recallibrate following Meridian flip.

- I use guiding rate 0.5 (should I try 0.75?)

- callibration step: 9000 (I use a 120mm guidescope) - I will get callibration within 5 steps. I may need to reduce this a bit to add a few more steps. The sweet sport may be around 5000.

- Max duration 2000ms

I also find the mount struggle to get the guiding back after dithering.

RMS is usally around 1.5".

Views welcome!!

[xion824]

Having an issue with my GTi not performing a meridian flip. SynScan Pro shows flipping mode set to Auto, Trail Points enabled, with threshold (deg) at 5. I'm using an ASIAIR Plus for my netup, and flipping is enabled there as well. I have tried several times now where flipping should occur, but it doesn't. Even after waiting 5-10 minutes post flip time (according to the ASIAIR). Am I missing something? Screenshot of SynScan app attached. Appreciate any help. 

Not that I think it matters in this case, but here's my equipment on the mount.

RedCat 51 II-U

ASI533MC Pro

ZWO filter tray

ZWO 30mm Guide Scope

ASI120MM-MINI

ZWO EAF

AAP

Thanks all! Clear skies!

[Elp]

I don't have this mount, I have an azgti and I have not adjusted any settings in the synscan pro app, it isn't relevant because if you're using an Asiair that is controlling the mount and issuing the instructions.

Just a query, does this mount have a hand controller by default? I ask because in the ZWO forums many people were having meridian flip issues and the most common cause or solution was the time within the mount hand controllers not being in UTC format (or incorrect time for location) and having DST enabled when it should be off as DST doesn't apply with UTC time format. Just something to consider.

My azgti and ioptrons MF perfectly fine.

[Doversole]

 

@xion824, I do not use the Synscan app at all as the ASIAIR is controlling the mount. I don't have an issue with the Meridian flip. The ASIAIR will indicate the time for the Meridian flip to occur depending on the object, then stop the plan and execute. Could you please share your ASIAIR configuration?