CCD Commander & EQMOD park problem

[Euan]

Here is a post I just put up on the EQMOD yahoo group

I'm having a bit of trouble with CCD Commander and the EQMOD driver. Regardless of the position of my mount, CCDC thinks it is parked within 5 or 6 seconds of asking, even if it takes 30 to get into position. This is obviously pretty disastrous for automating a roll-off roof!

Matt Thomas who develops CCDC has sent me the following script to narrow it down, this does two different things:

ASCOM Simulator: Works as expected

EQMOD Sim & EQ6 Driver: Slews say they are completed instantly, the park says it

is completed instantly

Here is the script:

------------

Dim Chooser

Dim objTele

Set Chooser = CreateObject("DriverHelper.Chooser")

Chooser.DeviceType = "Telescope"

Set objTele = CreateObject(Chooser.Choose(""))

objTele.Connected = true

if (objTele.AtPark) then

objTele.Unpark

objTele.Tracking = true

end if

MsgBox "About to slew to RA:10 Dec:17"

objTele.SlewToCoordinates 10, 17

MsgBox "About to Park"

objTele.Park

MsgBox "Park Done!"

------------

Has anyone tried to use the park command and actually got it to behave properly?

[chrisshillito]

And here is the response I posted on the EQMOD Group :-)

Slews and Parks under EQASCOM are always asynchronous - this means that the ASCOM Slew and Park methods will return immediately whilst the mount moves. You therefore need to change your script to:

1: After issuing a slew command, test for slew completion by polling the ascom Slewing property until it is false.

2. After issuing a Park command, poll the ASCOM AtPark property until it is true.

I'm afraid when using a client-server environment like ASCOM the onus is always on the clients to double check their commands have completed as intended as it is quite possible for other clients applications to issue conflicting commands. Certainly no action to close the roof should ever be issued without first checking the mount is at the correct position either by reading the AtPark or, even better, reading and comparing the alt,az coordinates against a known position.

I would be surprised if CCD Commander doesn't include strategies for handling asynchronous movement in this way.

Hope this helps.

[Euan]

Thanks Chris, I have emailed it to Matt Thomas to see if anything can be done in CCDC to deal with it

[Euan]

Big thanks to Chris, the new version of EQMOD now includes a "Synchronous Park" option that allows it to work with CCD Commander