Webcam connection

[Wobbly Bob]

Hiya folks. sky was carp last night. Sun was shinning this morning SOOO I thought I would have a go at capturing some proms. Apart from the BLXXDY clouds rolling in the modded phillips SPC 900 wont connect. I am using CDC to run the mount through EQmod and using ASTRO CAPTURE to operate the webcam, BUT when I ask the camera to connect, the screen flickers and then reverts back to the main screen. WHY, what am I doing wrong

[George]

As it ever connected using astro capture before? if yes it may be a connection or driver issue, if no it maybe your camera is not supported or setup correctly.

[Wobbly Bob]

Hiya George, yes it has worked before and then again I did have the same problem on another session. Could it be all 4 USB ports are being used, mouse, game pad, EQmod and webcam !

[vinny]

I had a similer problem untill somebody told me to always plug the cam into the same usb port everytime and this cured it

[Wobbly Bob]

Yes Vinny, I had a simular thought, only trouble is, I cant remember which was what when it did work. May be a bit of a swop around might cure the problem. Then put stickers on the lappy.

[Glider]

My laptop has 3 USB ports. For a long time I always plugged my Neximage into the same one, everytime.

First time I did it Windows had found new hardware and installed drivers, but didn't do this again.

Then one night I used a different port by accident, Windows went through the driver installation again, once.

This almost felt like each port needed the driver registered to it at least once.

I deliberately tried the 3rd port, and it did install the driver once again. Now I can use any of the 3 USB ports without the install driver happening when I plug the camera in.

Another thing is that a USB port supplies power to whatever is plugged into it. There is a limit to the current that can be supplied. Perhaps your 4 USB devices in total are trying to draw too much current.

[Wobbly Bob]

Hi Glider, this also crossed my mind, perhaps a powered USB hub may be the answer !. I did try other USB ports, but there were no driver issues appearing. I will pop out later and try a powered USB hub. All these cables, I dont know. I am shacking in me boots as I have not tried guiding yet !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, more cables.

[astromerlin]

As much as I have heard about how fantastic the SPC900 is, I have had one for nearly a year now and for as many times as I've used it I have no images to show.

Every time I try to use it, it ends up crashing and I have to pull the plug and re-insert.

Admittedly I am imaging remotly (2 X 10m active usb cables each with powered hubs)

After I connected to my modded ATX power supply I found that the voltage on the hubs was 4.30 Volts. I adjusted the voltage to 5.1v (USB max I read somewhere is 5.25v) this reduced the crashing from 3 or 4 times a session to once or twice.

Since then I have bit the bullet and own a laptop. I reduced the cable length to 5m

and expected to have solved the issue but the other night I connected all up and with half an hour it crashed again. Also the mount connection crashed which it's never done before.

Being on the same USB hub, I guess perhaps it maybe a bandwidth issue (cheap and nasty usb cables) so my next experiment to solve this problem is to run the thing on it's own in the hub.

I hope it solves the issue or it's in the bin and I'll stick to the vesta 675 and 680 I have.

As a note, being a laptop virgin, the one I bought has 2 usb ports (great I thought) until I plugged in 2 webcams and got a error message "Not enough bandwidth"

Doh... I'm hoping that purchasing a cardbus to usb adapter (4 port, 2 usb controllers) does the job.