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Re: APPM always fails at meridian

Patrick Sparkman
 

I had similar issues with my C14, and it was creep with the mirror.  My C14 is not an Edge, so I made my own mirror locks that lock the mirror pretty effectively.  Now I have no issues and only have a 1 second settle time.   
Re: Eggy Stars with Polar Axis Correction

Bill Long
 

Hi Ray,

I just went through all of my settings and the only thing I could see that was off, was the polling for my elevation. It was being reported to APPM by the driver as 0, and now its properly reporting 172 meters. I dont suppose this would have any impact?

From: main@ap-gto.groups.io <main@ap-gto.groups.io> on behalf of Ray Gralak <iogroups@...>
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2022 6:20 PM
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io <main@ap-gto.groups.io>
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Mach2 and Eggy Stars with Polar Axis Correction
 
Hi Bill,

> Based on the log data it shows Dec Arc was indeed active. While the rate values in the UI did not change the
> images certainly did after disabling those terms.

The rate values displayed in the UI are calculated from values read back from the mount. If the rate shown in the UI did not change,
then the mount's rate did not change.

If you are within a valid Dec Arc region, the polar alignment terms have *absolutely* no effect. I have confirmed this by stepping
through the code. So, I cannot explain why you saw drift when unchecking the checkboxes except that it was coincidence.

-Ray
Re: Eggy Stars with Polar Axis Correction

Ray Gralak
 

Hi Chris,

My mount was polar aligned. Within 30 arcseconds for AZ and 20 for Alt, according to the APPM model. Sharpcap
said I was below 10 arcseconds for both (which I don't trust fully).

Why would you misalign to test this?
The presumption made by Bill is that the tracking rate correction for polar misalignment is incorrect.

So, building a model when the mount is not well polar aligned should cause even dramatic tracking errors that exceed the magnitude of the other types of errors. If I can reproduce the tracking error, I can confirm a fix by seeing that tracking works well with poor polar alignment.

-Ray
Re: Mount Connection Issue APCC

Chris White
 

On Tue, Jul 19, 2022 at 09:42 PM, Ray Gralak wrote:
Chris,

I suggest you not launch the AP V2 driver from APCC. It seemed like a good idea when I put that feature in, but it's really not needed.

Regarding APCC not closing, that can happen if the ASCOM driver was left open because of another application closing or getting aborted without properly disconnecting from the driver.

-Ray

All of my current testing is with APCC only.  No other applications are connected to the V2 Driver.  Just APCC.  In the case that I just experienced I manually disconnected the driver and mount prior to closing APCC.  The driver window closed.  Then I shut APCC down (successfully)  The next launch of APCC failed, and thats when I found the driver as a background process. 
Re: Mount Connection Issue APCC

Ray Gralak
 

Chris,

I suggest you not launch the AP V2 driver from APCC. It seemed like a good idea when I put that feature in, but it's really not needed.

Regarding APCC not closing, that can happen if the ASCOM driver was left open because of another application closing or getting aborted without properly disconnecting from the driver.

-Ray

-----Original Message-----
From: main@ap-gto.groups.io [mailto:main@ap-gto.groups.io] On Behalf Of Chris White
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2022 6:36 PM
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Mount Connection Issue APCC

I have both of the "auto" boxes checked, but have not tried clicking the "Now" button when I experience this
issue. I can try that next time APCC opens and does not launch the driver. Although, I'm not sure how that would
help if the driver is running as a background process an inaccessible by APCC.
Re: Mount Connection Issue APCC

Brian Valente
 

>>> Although, I'm not sure how that would help if the driver is running as a background process an inaccessible by APCC. 

the ascom driver should not be running and yes I think hitting the 'now' button may help

what you can try is disabling the auto connect ascom in APCC, restart/get yourself to where APCC is running and ascom is not, and then hit the config NOW button. then try connecting to ascom from within APCC

On Tue, Jul 19, 2022 at 6:35 PM Chris White <chris.white@...> wrote:
I have both of the "auto" boxes checked, but have not tried clicking the "Now" button when I experience this issue.  I can try that next time APCC opens and does not launch the driver.  Although, I'm not sure how that would help if the driver is running as a background process an inaccessible by APCC. 



--

Re: Mount Connection Issue APCC

Chris White
 

I have both of the "auto" boxes checked, but have not tried clicking the "Now" button when I experience this issue.  I can try that next time APCC opens and does not launch the driver.  Although, I'm not sure how that would help if the driver is running as a background process an inaccessible by APCC. 
Re: Mount Connection Issue APCC

Brian Valente
 

>>> I always open it directly.  Thanks for the help!

I do this too. I always have APCC running with ASCOM before starting up any apps

have you tried auto-config now button on apcc for the ascom driver? reconfigure the connection

image.png


On Tue, Jul 19, 2022 at 6:26 PM Chris White <chris.white@...> wrote:
On Tue, Jul 19, 2022 at 09:21 PM, Brian Valente wrote:
Chris - when you open apcc, are you opening it directly (i.e., clicking on apcc) or are you opening it via an external app like NINA, SGP, etc. where it opens up APCC and then it attempts to connect to the ascom driver?
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text

 


On Tue, Jul 19, 2022 at 6:17 PM Chris White <chris.white@...> wrote:
Ray,

A little more information on this issue.  It just happened to me again.  APCC opened, connected to the mount but did not connect to the driver.  No pop-ups, no error messages.

I tried to close APCC, and it opened the "closing" pop up and then froze.  Nothing additional happened and no additional pop-ups.

I found in task manager that the ASCOM driver was an active background process despite the driver not opening or connecting. 

I suspect that when I disconnected and shut APCC down the previous time, that for some reason the driver didnt close and this prevented APCC from being able to connect on the next startup. 

The good news is, that I was able to close just the driver with task manager, and this immediately allowed APCC to finish it's own shut down.  Also, the virtual port was not lost for good, and when I launched APCC again, everything connected perfectly, and the old virtual port was used. 

Why the driver isnt closing for me, and causing this issue... I have no idea. 

 

 


 
--
Brian 
Brian,

I always open it directly.  Thanks for the help!



--

Re: Mount Connection Issue APCC

Chris White
 

On Tue, Jul 19, 2022 at 09:21 PM, Brian Valente wrote:
Chris - when you open apcc, are you opening it directly (i.e., clicking on apcc) or are you opening it via an external app like NINA, SGP, etc. where it opens up APCC and then it attempts to connect to the ascom driver?
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text

 


On Tue, Jul 19, 2022 at 6:17 PM Chris White <chris.white@...> wrote:
Ray,

A little more information on this issue.  It just happened to me again.  APCC opened, connected to the mount but did not connect to the driver.  No pop-ups, no error messages.

I tried to close APCC, and it opened the "closing" pop up and then froze.  Nothing additional happened and no additional pop-ups.

I found in task manager that the ASCOM driver was an active background process despite the driver not opening or connecting. 

I suspect that when I disconnected and shut APCC down the previous time, that for some reason the driver didnt close and this prevented APCC from being able to connect on the next startup. 

The good news is, that I was able to close just the driver with task manager, and this immediately allowed APCC to finish it's own shut down.  Also, the virtual port was not lost for good, and when I launched APCC again, everything connected perfectly, and the old virtual port was used. 

Why the driver isnt closing for me, and causing this issue... I have no idea. 

 

 


 
--
Brian 
Brian,

I always open it directly.  Thanks for the help!
Re: Mount Connection Issue APCC

Brian Valente
 

Chris - when you open apcc, are you opening it directly (i.e., clicking on apcc) or are you opening it via an external app like NINA, SGP, etc. where it opens up APCC and then it attempts to connect to the ascom driver?


On Tue, Jul 19, 2022 at 6:17 PM Chris White <chris.white@...> wrote:
Ray,

A little more information on this issue.  It just happened to me again.  APCC opened, connected to the mount but did not connect to the driver.  No pop-ups, no error messages.

I tried to close APCC, and it opened the "closing" pop up and then froze.  Nothing additional happened and no additional pop-ups.

I found in task manager that the ASCOM driver was an active background process despite the driver not opening or connecting. 

I suspect that when I disconnected and shut APCC down the previous time, that for some reason the driver didnt close and this prevented APCC from being able to connect on the next startup. 

The good news is, that I was able to close just the driver with task manager, and this immediately allowed APCC to finish it's own shut down.  Also, the virtual port was not lost for good, and when I launched APCC again, everything connected perfectly, and the old virtual port was used. 

Why the driver isnt closing for me, and causing this issue... I have no idea. 



--

Re: Eggy Stars with Polar Axis Correction

Ray Gralak
 

Hi Bill,

Based on the log data it shows Dec Arc was indeed active. While the rate values in the UI did not change the
images certainly did after disabling those terms.
The rate values displayed in the UI are calculated from values read back from the mount. If the rate shown in the UI did not change,
then the mount's rate did not change.

If you are within a valid Dec Arc region, the polar alignment terms have *absolutely* no effect. I have confirmed this by stepping
through the code. So, I cannot explain why you saw drift when unchecking the checkboxes except that it was coincidence.

-Ray
Re: Mount Connection Issue APCC

Chris White
 

Ray,

A little more information on this issue.  It just happened to me again.  APCC opened, connected to the mount but did not connect to the driver.  No pop-ups, no error messages.

I tried to close APCC, and it opened the "closing" pop up and then froze.  Nothing additional happened and no additional pop-ups.

I found in task manager that the ASCOM driver was an active background process despite the driver not opening or connecting. 

I suspect that when I disconnected and shut APCC down the previous time, that for some reason the driver didnt close and this prevented APCC from being able to connect on the next startup. 

The good news is, that I was able to close just the driver with task manager, and this immediately allowed APCC to finish it's own shut down.  Also, the virtual port was not lost for good, and when I launched APCC again, everything connected perfectly, and the old virtual port was used. 

Why the driver isnt closing for me, and causing this issue... I have no idea. 
Re: Keypad V5.010 available for GTOCP4 and GTOCP5!

W Hilmo
 

That was exactly my thinking until Howard’s comments below.

-Wade

On Jul 19, 2022, at 3:25 PM, Konstantin von Poschinger <KPoschinger@...> wrote:

Hi Wade,

if you use a Model with APCC then the Ortho error is corrected. What you need is a Model on both sides east and west.

Konstantin


Konstantin v. Poschinger

Hammerichstr. 5
22605 Hamburg
040/8805747
0171 1983476

Am 20.07.2022 um 00:20 schrieb W Hilmo <y.groups@...>:

Are there any plans to expose configuring the orthogonality model via APCC or APPM?

APPM collects samples near the zenith at both sides of the meridian, so it seems like it would be pretty simple to have it set the orthogonality information into the mount (maybe it already does this...)

Thanks,
-Wade

On 7/19/22 3:08 PM, Howard Hedlund wrote:
As Roland said, the keypad and APCC can work well together.  Remember, though, that the Keypad model and an APCC model can't interact or communicate with each other.  Whether you want extensive modeling from either the keypad or APCC or both, I would probably start with the keypad's orthogonality model.  Orthogonality is an easily measurable constant, so correct it from the beginning.  


Re: Keypad V5.010 available for GTOCP4 and GTOCP5!

Konstantin von Poschinger
 

Hi Wade,

if you use a Model with APCC then the Ortho error is corrected. What you need is a Model on both sides east and west.

Konstantin


Konstantin v. Poschinger

Hammerichstr. 5
22605 Hamburg
040/8805747
0171 1983476

Am 20.07.2022 um 00:20 schrieb W Hilmo <y.groups@...>:

Are there any plans to expose configuring the orthogonality model via APCC or APPM?

APPM collects samples near the zenith at both sides of the meridian, so it seems like it would be pretty simple to have it set the orthogonality information into the mount (maybe it already does this...)

Thanks,
-Wade

On 7/19/22 3:08 PM, Howard Hedlund wrote:
As Roland said, the keypad and APCC can work well together.  Remember, though, that the Keypad model and an APCC model can't interact or communicate with each other.  Whether you want extensive modeling from either the keypad or APCC or both, I would probably start with the keypad's orthogonality model.  Orthogonality is an easily measurable constant, so correct it from the beginning.  


Re: Keypad V5.010 available for GTOCP4 and GTOCP5!

W Hilmo
 

Are there any plans to expose configuring the orthogonality model via APCC or APPM?

APPM collects samples near the zenith at both sides of the meridian, so it seems like it would be pretty simple to have it set the orthogonality information into the mount (maybe it already does this...)

Thanks,
-Wade

On 7/19/22 3:08 PM, Howard Hedlund wrote:

As Roland said, the keypad and APCC can work well together.  Remember, though, that the Keypad model and an APCC model can't interact or communicate with each other.  Whether you want extensive modeling from either the keypad or APCC or both, I would probably start with the keypad's orthogonality model.  Orthogonality is an easily measurable constant, so correct it from the beginning.  

Re: Keypad V5.010 available for GTOCP4 and GTOCP5!

Howard Hedlund
 

As Roland said, the keypad and APCC can work well together.  Remember, though, that the Keypad model and an APCC model can't interact or communicate with each other.  Whether you want extensive modeling from either the keypad or APCC or both, I would probably start with the keypad's orthogonality model.  Orthogonality is an easily measurable constant, so correct it from the beginning.  
Re: Recal when using an APPM Model

Andrew Jones
 

Hi Dale.

 

Thank you for the detailed explanation.  I thought it was odd that this option was included, which is why I asked. I can be quite confusing for users who don’t use TSX+T-Point. I know Sync’s can be a problem if not pointed at the object being synced, which is why the ASCOM converts Syncs to Recals by default. However, I was not aware of a situation where Recals are a problem.

 

Maybe now that the user sold his SB Mount, the N.I.N.A Devs can remove the option? Also, I hope going forward they stand their ground and not add something until a user can provide evidence that there is a problem. If the user insisted, then they should have provided evidence that with the N.I.N.A Syncs were making it through the TSX drivers. Just saying something doesn’t work should never be enough. Otherwise, 3 – 5 years from now N.I.N.A will be full of functions that don’t serve any purpose or the software becomes so convoluted that it because nearly impossible to understand and navigate, a.k.a. TSX. I have seen a lot of system become “garbage collectors” over time as “temporary” workarounds get added and never removed, or new functionality was added without the change request being properly vetted.

 

I know everyone is into Discord these days, but one thing that would benefit N.I.N.A is a Github Repo. Discord is fine when if I just need to get a question answered, it is less useful for people who need to submit bugs reports or new feature requests. The biggest benefit of using Github, is if that it kind of forces users to document their issues. Without proper documentation, including evidence that there is a problem, then the issue can be closed. Just my 2 cents.

 

Andrew J
Re: Re : Re: [ap-gto] Installing GTOCP4 firmware version VCP4-P02-13

Brian Valente
 

>>>Why the Java installer did not associate the file with the Java platform by default is a mystery.  


Indeed! Software can work in mysterious ways to me sometimes :)

On Tue, Jul 19, 2022 at 7:28 AM Yves Laroche <yves.laroche@...> wrote:
Hi Brian,

It worked just fine for you probably because the USBserialUtilities_VSU-06.jar file was already associated to be opened with the Java platform.  Mine was associated as a zip file even after installing the Java platform so I had to right-click the file and used the "Open with" associated with the Java Platform.

Why the Java installer did not associate the file with the Java platform by default is a mystery.  

Regards,
Yves



Le 18/07/22 22:52, Brian Valente <bvalente@...> a écrit :
Hi Yves

>>> The way I was doing thing worked well with Windows 7 but not with Windows 10.

hmmm.. on my Windows 10 i just double-clicked it and it worked just fine

I don't have Windows 11, so i can't test on that (i know you weren't asking about that, but now i'm curious)

On Mon, Jul 18, 2022 at 7:37 PM Yves Laroche <yves.laroche@...> wrote:
Hi,

I decided to revert back the GTOCP4 firmware to test why the downloading process didn't work with my Windows 10 machine...

First the Java app worked well with my Windows 7 machine but had to find out what was the problem with Windows 10.

When I was opening the Java application I always did "open with" in selecting the Java Platform SE library instead of using the Java platform by default.  The file USBserialUtilities_VSU-06.jar was always treated as a zip file by default instead of a Java file.  The way I was doing thing worked well with Windows 7 but not with Windows 10.

Hope it will help!

Regards,
Yves




Le 12/07/22 14:55, Yves Laroche <yves.laroche@...> a écrit :
Hi Todd,

The first thing I've done but without success.  My computer was correctly connected to the web but no file was downloaded.  Maybe a server glitch...

Regards,
Yves



Le 12/07/22 14:41, midmoastro <teche70@...> a écrit :
Just out of curiosity, any reason why you didn't perform the auto update? Once I launched the java application, I scanned for ports and it auto connected and did the updates all without me doing anything other than choosing the load tab. I was connected using serial cable and usb adapter.  Worked like a charm.
Todd



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Re: Mach2GTO-L cross-threading cw shaft? #Mach2GTO

Cheng-Yang Tan
 

IMO, the stainless steel sleeve may actually not be an improvement over the previous no-sleeve design. I have gone back to the original aluminum counterweight shaft adapter on my AP1100 that did not have the sleeve. Cold weld joints give me the sweats :)

cytan

On Tuesday, July 19, 2022 at 02:16:23 PM CDT, Ted Moss <ghoast@...> wrote:


Unfortunately, I was not successful. I had to use rubber strap wrench to full screw the counter weight shaft. About ¾ of the threaded shaft was muscled through to the end. I backed it out with rubber strap wrench with the same resistance as experienced threading it through. I checked afterwards for metal shaving or metal bits….none. As noted….this acme threaded which impressed me; but I can’t account for the resistance. I’m working with George on this.
Re: Mach2GTO-L cross-threading cw shaft? #Mach2GTO

Ted Moss
 

Unfortunately, I was not successful. I had to use rubber strap wrench to full screw the counter weight shaft. About ¾ of the threaded shaft was muscled through to the end. I backed it out with rubber strap wrench with the same resistance as experienced threading it through. I checked afterwards for metal shaving or metal bits….none. As noted….this acme threaded which impressed me; but I can’t account for the resistance. I’m working with George on this.
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