TopTek G3M2210M ASCOM AutoGuide Connection Problem - Any Advice?

[MarsG76]

Hello All,

Has anyone came across a situation where PHD2 connection to a camera guideport using ASCOM returns a "ASCOM Driver Problem during connection: (ASCOM.ToupTek) Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt." error message.

Connection of the camera using both the ASCOM and native driver for pictures both work OK, its only the ASCOM for guiding that causing the problem.

Reason why I want to try the ASCOM instead of sticking with native driver is that when I'm previewing the PHD2 window display, it seems to operate normally, but when I start to guide (or even calibrate PHD2), the refresh, guide pulse correction delay becomes around 8 seconds.. stop guiding and the interval is back to what ever the exposure time is set to, 1 sec, 2, 0.5 etc... normal....

Hopefully someone here has seen this and found a solution because ToupTek support is not interested in responding for about a week now....

I'm running Windows 10 in my observatory, camera is a G3M2210M....

CS,

Mariusz

 

Edited August 18 by MarsG76
mental blank

[michael8554]

Hi Mariusz

If you're using ASCOM drivers to Pulse Guide, you don't connect to the "camera guideport".

You run a USB cable from the camera USB socket to the PC. 

And a serial connection from the PC to the serial port on the mount.

Michael

[Stuart1971]

^^

What he said…👍🏻

[michael8554]

No updates, he's gone Walkabout......... 😞

Michael

[MarsG76]

On 19/08/2024 at 18:27, michael8554 said:

Hi Mariusz

If you're using ASCOM drivers to Pulse Guide, you don't connect to the "camera guideport".

You run a USB cable from the camera USB socket to the PC. 

And a serial connection from the PC to the serial port on the mount.

Michael

Thanks for the response, and sorry for the delay in answering... combination of life and poor weather...
Any way, I use ST4 connection for guide pulses.. I'm assuming that the signal sent to the mount via ST4 are also called "guide pulses".

I always used the ST4 method of guiding without issues, be it with my ZWO120mm mini or the GPUSB... everything was working great... the guide interval pulses were sent to the mount at the set intervals and there are guide pulse direction markers on the time line shown (when enabled).. unfortunately with the ToupTek G3M2210M camera, the guide pulse intervals are 8-11 second apart, even when the interval in PHD2 is set to 1 second... and there are no guide pulse directions shown in the PHD2 time line when enabled...

I suspect that this behavior coupled with the "memory error" I get when trying to connect using the ASCOM ST4 driver is a driver bug... when connection using the "on-camera" option, it connects.. although with the delay in guide correction I described.

I have been in contact with ToupTek, and there was a driver update, so I'll need to test it ASAP to see if this has been fixed...

[michael8554]

"ASCOM ST4 driver"

You're confused.

It's either ASCOM Pulse Guiding

Or it's ST-4 Guiding.

"I always used the ST4 method of guiding without issues"

But you have a load of issues !

Post a LINK to the GuideLog

Michael

 

[Stuart1971]

Nobody uses ST4 to guide anymore do they…?

Change to ASCOM pulse guide, lose a cable and all will be much better, ST4 guiding is your issue 100%

Edited Sunday at 07:37 by Stuart1971

[MarsG76]

Hang on... confused?? All I asked was if anyone had that same problem with a piece of imaging equipment where I'm suspecting a bug in either hardware or software.. I'm happy with my current setup, my guiding is more than good enough, especially with the equipment I'm using and I do not have time to f-around with a new method of connections hence why I built the observatory, so to not waste time setting up every clear night and most likely let clear nights pass by.

Michael, I might have named the method I used for guiding mistakenly as "pulse guiding" when "officially the "premitted" way is ST4, who cares... that was not the premise of my question... the only thing I'm confused about is some misguided thought that perhaps I'd find a straight forward answer, or heaven forbid, some help from a fellow human being... I guess not the first time... thanks, but I prefer to stick to my ST4 guiding and I guess I'll have to work out this ToupTek camera ST4 guiding problem myself out... again, not the first time.

One thing I do not understand is why have people turned into such a miserable bunch hell bent on criticizing everything that is done differently from what they do?

[MarsG76]

On 22/09/2024 at 17:37, Stuart1971 said:

Nobody uses ST4 to guide anymore do they…?

Change to ASCOM pulse guide, lose a cable and all will be much better, ST4 guiding is your issue 100%

No nobody uses it except for me... I must be the only one...

Edited Monday at 12:37 by MarsG76

[Stuart1971]

10 minutes ago, MarsG76 said:

No nobody uses it except for me... I must be the only one...

If you are getting the delay of your guide images refreshing, this is usually down to a USB issue, either a USB bandwidth setting from the camera to the PC, also ST4 guiding is slower anyway, and it may be better with the native driver, because the ASCOM driver is probably more set up for Pulse guiding, all I was trying to say is if it’s an issue rather than scratch your head and lose time trying to sort, don’t bother just switch to pulse guiding and you issues, as long as not down to USB cable, will go away….

I was trying to save you a lot of head scratching and lost imaging time…camera manufacturers still put guide ports on the cameras, why…? Well I have no idea..🤷🏼‍♂️

The thing is with ST4 guiding is every time to move to a new target in a different area of the sky, you have to re calibrate, which also wastes time, you don’t with pulse guiding, you calibrate once and then that’s it until you move your guide camera, I have not re calibrated my guide set up up for 7 months..

so all in all rather than dissing all the comments, maybe try listening and saving yourself a lot of time and headaches in the future, and get yourself into the 21st century of Astro imaging…👍🏻

[Stuart1971]

Also FWI, You are also confusing people when you call it “ASCOM autoguide connection problem”, it’s not, is an ST4 connection problem, using the ASCOM driver, and not the native camera driver, when you say ASCOM autoguide, people will assume you mean pulse guide..

[michael8554]

Your first post indicated a connection problem, and we merely pointed out that accordidng to your description of the setup, it was probably wrong.

Michael

Edited Monday at 17:25 by michael8554

[MarsG76]

14 hours ago, michael8554 said:

Your first post indicated a connection problem, and we merely pointed out that accordidng to your description of the setup, it was probably wrong.

Michael

Yeah a connection problem but not a cabling problem.. I used the same connection for years first with GPUSB, than ZWO120mm mini without problems. The problems started when I swapped the ZWO120mm mini with the ToupTek G3M2210M, exactly the same cabling method... but ToupTek responded to my question/description of events since and it seems like they realised that there is a bug in either their firmware or the driver as I suspected and I suspect there will be a firmware/software update soon.