1. main@ap-gto.groups.io
  2. Messages
   Date   
Re: Help, my Mach2 seems to be lost #APCC #Mach2GTO

Marcelo Figueroa
 

Ok thanks. I will try that tonight
 
Re: Help, my Mach2 seems to be lost #APCC #Mach2GTO

eckhard.voelcker@...
 

Marcelo,

> but DEC insists on trying to point it towards the center of the Earth when starting a park 3.

My Mach2 (also in the Southern Hemisphere) does the same. This seems to be a bug and I have reported this already to George at A-P. I use the Find Home button in the AE  Tab from APCC instead of Park 3.

I use "Find Home" before polar alignment. I send the mount back "Home" before quitting APCC and and use "wake up from last park" when I start APCC. This works perfectly.  

Eckhard
Q. for Ray Gralak about PEMPro

CurtisC <calypte@...>
 

Ray: As you know, I've had considerable angst about the uncorrected PE of my 2010-vintage Mach1GTO.  We had a lengthy discussion about this a few days ago in one of the other threads.  You looked at my logs.  I can't definitively explain why one run on Sep 2 measured only 6-something p-to-p (which is the best number I've ever achieved), and then the next run on the same evening measured 11-something.  I consider these to be unrepeatable anomalies.  In fact, all of my other recent runs (and I've done a lot of them) are in the area of 17 to 19.  My latest one yields 0.87 with correction, even though the raw curve is 17.49.  One could argue that I should be happy with the corrected curve and drop the whole matter.  

In any case, I have a question.

I found this comment from you in 2017: "The only fundamental you should try to measure is the 1.0x fundamental, so uncheck all the other fundamentals because they are random false fundamentals." Really? I found a comment from George W. back in 2014 saying we should use fundamentals 1, 2, and 4 for the Mach1. I think 2 and 4 relate to the periods of the spur gears. Should we use only fundamental 1 with the Mach1GTO, or should we use 1, 2, and 4, or should we use something else? When I run PEMPro, it automatically checks 1, 2, and 3. I found that unchecking 3 and checking 4 makes no visible difference in the curve, but then I read a comment from you somewhere that PEMPro doesn't recalculate the displayed curve if we fiddle with the checked fundamentals.
Re: Help, my Mach2 seems to be lost #APCC #Mach2GTO

R Botero
 

Marcelo
Use the driver to do this as a last resort with no APCC connected. Then go back to your usual arrangement. The other option is to use your hand pad if you bought one with your mount. 
Roberto
Re: Running Mach2 from battery at 24v

Steve Armen
 

Hello Sebastien,

All good points. That 5% loss in the boost converter would most likely turn into heat. In any case, if there are no benefits for normal tracking and guiding for imaging at 24V, there would be no point operating at that voltage. 
Re: Help, my Mach2 seems to be lost #APCC #Mach2GTO

Marcelo Figueroa
 

Thank you for your response, unfortunately that option is not available for the Mach2. The only option is Last Park.
Re: Help, my Mach2 seems to be lost #APCC #Mach2GTO

Brian Valente
 

>>> My question is, is there any way to perform an unpark from park 3?,

yes - when you unpark in APCC, change "unpark from last park" to "unpark from Park 3"

On Fri, Sep 11, 2020 at 8:22 PM Marcelo Figueroa via groups.io <marfig1970=yahoo.com@groups.io> wrote:

[Edited Message Follows]

(Just in case, I am located in the southern hemisphere)

Tonight I finally had the opportunity to test my Mach2. First during the day I installed my equipment and balanced the mount, then I manually left it in Park3.

Later during the night I performed the polar alignment and then a couple of slew using APCC Pro, then when trying to send the mount back to Park 3 it started to turn in the opposite direction, pointing towards the center of the Earth.
 
Then I disconnected everything and put the mount manually  back in park 3 and performed a unpark from the last position. The RA axis seems to work well, but DEC insists on trying to point it towards the center of the Earth when starting a park 3.
 
My question is, is there any way to perform an unpark from park 3?, basically I want to tell the mount: at this moment you are in the park 3 position (I remember that in the case of Mach1 one of the menus allowed that). 

Thanks



--
Brian 



Brian Valente
Help, my Mach2 seems to be lost #APCC #Mach2GTO

Marcelo Figueroa
 
Edited

(Just in case, I am located in the southern hemisphere)

Tonight I finally had the opportunity to test my Mach2. First during the day I installed my equipment and balanced the mount, then I manually left it in Park3.

Later during the night I performed the polar alignment and then a couple of slew using APCC Pro, then when trying to send the mount back to Park 3 it started to turn in the opposite direction, pointing towards the center of the Earth.
 
Then I disconnected everything and put the mount manually  back in park 3 and performed a unpark from the last position. The RA axis seems to work well, but DEC insists on trying to point it towards the center of the Earth when starting a park 3.
 
My question is, is there any way to perform an unpark from park 3?, basically I want to tell the mount: at this moment you are in the park 3 position (I remember that in the case of Mach1 one of the menus allowed that). 

Thanks
Re: pointing error with keypad

Roland Christen
 

Check that the date is correct.

Rolando



-----Original Message-----
From: vincent.visonneau <v.visonneau@...>
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Sent: Fri, Sep 11, 2020 7:31 pm
Subject: [ap-gto] pointing error with keypad

Hi

I have an old (very old 1998!!) AP900gto, i encount some problem with
pointing accuracy.

When i use safari (with skybt) and slew for exemple between a star and a
planet (mirach and mars for exemple), all is ok, the two object are seen
in lot of eyepiece with my mewlon 210, when i do the same operation with
keypad, for the planet, the pointing is always off with the the eyepiece
but when i slew stars to stars, there is no difference between safari
and keypad.

Is there a probleme with time zone or else (i put legal time, timezone
00, daylight saving 0 at the moment), i live in west of france (about
1°25W), what are the good parameter?

Is there somewhere a corruption of planet database, i change the battery
few month ago, generally,  i found pointing is less good than it was
before...

The firmware is 4.19.

What is wrong with me?

Regards

Vincent
pointing error with keypad

vincent.visonneau
 

Hi

I have an old (very old 1998!!) AP900gto, i encount some problem with pointing accuracy.

When i use safari (with skybt) and slew for exemple between a star and a planet (mirach and mars for exemple), all is ok, the two object are seen in lot of eyepiece with my mewlon 210, when i do the same operation with keypad, for the planet, the pointing is always off with the the eyepiece but when i slew stars to stars, there is no difference between safari and keypad.

Is there a probleme with time zone or else (i put legal time, timezone 00, daylight saving 0 at the moment), i live in west of france (about 1°25W), what are the good parameter?

Is there somewhere a corruption of planet database, i change the battery few month ago, generally,  i found pointing is less good than it was before...

The firmware is 4.19.

What is wrong with me?

Regards

Vincent
Re: Running Mach2 from battery at 24v

Sébastien Doré
 

Hi Steve,

If you don’t need to slew at high speed, you might not find a great advantage in boosting your battery voltage to 24V.

While it might seem appealing to get room as far as power is concerned, be aware that a dc-dc boost converter won’t give you much than what your battery can already provide. In fact, any voltage conversion (buck or boost) will result in loss of power in the system. Your load (the mount in your case) will consume about the same amount of power (more voltage and less current at 24V than 12V) but the inefficiencies (as small as they can be, say 5% like in the model you are considering) will be totally lost, resulting in a lost of autonomy of your battery-powered system.

Also keep in mind that some dc-dc converter designs require a minimum load to work (or start working) and perform at their nominal specified efficiency... So depending on what else you plan to power from 24V oversizing might not be your friend...

Clear sky!

Sébastien 

Le 11 sept. 2020 à 17:32, Steve Armen <st5.armen@...> a écrit :



[Edited Message Follows]

Hello,

Preparing for a mach2 in the future, would anybody care to recommend (AP staff included) a good quality DC2DC boost converter for 12V to 24V? Reading the specs, it seems the mount may like to operate at 24V instead of 12V. In the case of operating from 12V batteries, looking at options. 

Looking at this one: https://www.amazon.com/DROK-Conversion-Efficiency-Waterproof-Transformer/dp/B081RFN1VJ

It's nice with much overhead for the current load /power required, good efficiency. Not that I'm planning on slewing at 1800x running from batteries :-) 

thanks,

Steve
Re: Running Mach2 from battery at 24v

Frank Widmann
 

When I run 24 volt stepper motors from a battery, I just wire two twelve volt batteries in series to get 24 volts. Motor scooter and wheel chair batteries are reasonably priced and durable.
Absolute Encoders status

Craig Young
 

What conditions/actions will cause the Absolute Encoders to go into the "Set" condition?

I have a GTO1600AE/CP4 and when I ran the APAE utility it showed the status of the encoders as "Set".  I changed that to "On" and now each time I restart the mount the utility shows the status as "On".  So somewhere in the past the encoders got turned off and remained in a "Set" condition.  Does upgrading the software do that?  Or, some error condition in the mount at startup?

Also, can we get some sort of indication on the ASCOM V2 driver what state the encoders are in (e.g., "Set" or "On").

Craig
Re: Mach2 Wifi problems #Mach2GTO #WiFi

Dominique Durand
 

Hi,
With Mach2 / CP5 I also have an equivalent problem. When the mount is connected to the PC via USB3 the CP5 network disappears from the networks visible on the smarphone and on the PC and for indication if I hold the antennas of the CP5 between my fingers it reappears. I have tried different combinations, but what is certain is that the CP5 / PC connection disturbs the WIFI hopspot of the CP5. I have no password worries and with the CP4 of my previous Mach1 I have never noticed this problem.

Dominique
Re: Running Mach2 from battery at 24v

Steve Armen
 

Thank you for the advice,

It will be cleaner to power direct from 12V battery, when imaging where AC is not available. 

Steve
Re: Running Mach2 from battery at 24v

Dean Jacobsen
 

Hi Steve, I have been running my Mach2 on 12 v since I got it.  Actually, I have the power supply set to 13.5 v but a couple of times I forgot to turn the PS on and ran all night on the backup battery.  It works fine although I don’t slew any faster than 900x (for mapping runs) and I generally run the mount at 600x.
--
Dean Jacobsen
http://astrophoto.net/wp/
Image Gallery - http://astrophoto.net/wp/image-gallery/
Astrobin Image Gallery - https://www.astrobin.com/users/deanjacobsen/ 
Amateur Radio Call Sign - W6DBJ
Re: Running Mach2 from battery at 24v

Roland Christen
 

If you are doing nothing but slewing, then it's nice to have 1800x. However, the mount runs just peachy with only 12 volts. In fact it will even run nicely at 10 volts. When you are tracking or guiding, etc, it doesn't matter what voltage you use, 12v, 18v, 24v. All works just the same.

Rolando



-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Armen <st5.armen@...>
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Sent: Fri, Sep 11, 2020 4:30 pm
Subject: [ap-gto] Running Mach2 from battery at 24v

Hello,

Preparing for a mach2 in the future, would anybody care to recommend (AP staff included) a good quality DC2DC boost converter for 12V to 24V? Reading the specs, it seems the mount may like to operate at 24V instead of 12V. In the case of running from batteries.

Looking at this one: https://www.amazon.com/DROK-Conversion-Efficiency-Waterproof-Transformer/dp/B081RFN1VJ

It's nice with much overhead for the current load /power required, good efficiency. Not that I'm planning on slewing at 1800x running from batteries :-) 

thanks,
Steve
Running Mach2 from battery at 24v

Steve Armen
 
Edited

Hello,

Preparing for a mach2 in the future, would anybody care to recommend (AP staff included) a good quality DC2DC boost converter for 12V to 24V? Reading the specs, it seems the mount may like to operate at 24V instead of 12V. In the case of operating from 12V batteries, looking at options. 

Looking at this one: https://www.amazon.com/DROK-Conversion-Efficiency-Waterproof-Transformer/dp/B081RFN1VJ

It's nice with much overhead for the current load /power required, good efficiency. Not that I'm planning on slewing at 1800x running from batteries :-) 

thanks,

Steve
Re: Mach2 Wifi problems #Mach2GTO #WiFi

Donald Rudny
 

Thanks, Chris for the tip on not having to park. I didn’t know that. I’ll try it next time.

Don

Don Rudny
Pepeekeo, Hawaii

On Sep 11, 2020, at 9:09 AM, Christopher Erickson <christopher.k.erickson@...> wrote:
Re: Mach2 Wifi problems #Mach2GTO #WiFi

Joe Zeglinski
 

Thanks for clarifying this,  Liam,
 
    Glad you are on-board. Keep up the good work.
Joe
 

From: Liam Plybon
Sent: Friday, September 11, 2020 4:28 PM
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Mach2 Wifi problems #Mach2GTO #WiFi
 

Joe,

 

I do not think this is an issue with Ernie’s Windows system. Since the problem is manifesting on multiple systems (mobile device, Windows 10, and a Mac) it is more likely an issue with either the settings in the CP4 or a potential hardware problem. Often we find that general operating system changes, updates and incompatibilities are at the root of an issue, but the wifi issue Ernie describes is occurring on all operating systems.

 

Liam Plybon

 
13801 - 13820 of 86887