Date
1 - 11 of 11
King Rate not active on ASCOM driver
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David
Recently acquired a Mach1 / CP3 / Eagle Pier and other associated stuff. Trying it all out in garage assuming sometime in the distant future I have a clear night.
Is there some trick to getting the ASCOM tracking rate "Enable King Rate" option to be active? I tonight upgraded the CP3 firmware from Q to V2 just because one day I might get APCC and was kind of expecting the king rate to be made available - nope. Cheers David |
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HI David I only have a cp4 to go on, but with only ASCOM driver (no APCC) King rate is active for me when I unpark the mount and am tracking in sidereal, and then check the King rate checkbox  On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 6:37 PM David <naz_david@...> wrote: Recently acquired a Mach1 / CP3 / Eagle Pier and other associated stuff. Trying it all out in garage assuming sometime in the distant future I have a clear night. --
Brian Brian Valente astro portfolio https://www.brianvalentephotography.com/astrophotography/ portfolio brianvalentephotography.com |
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David
Brian, yep that is what I was expecting to see with the V2 firmware upgrade. But nothing changed - here is my ASCOM panel:
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On 1/24/2023 10:38 PM, David wrote:
Brian, yep that is what I was expecting to see with the V2 firmware upgrade. But nothing changed - here is my ASCOM panel:You don't have the Enable King Rate box checked. --- Mike |
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David
That's because it is "greyed out" and non responsive. Was the same with Q firmware version which does not support King rate, thats why I thought the V2 firmware which does would make the box active.
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HI David
It took a little research, but I've confirmed what I suspected: King Rate is a feature only of the CP4/CP5 firmware. The CP3 and earlier controllers never had it. Thus it is disabled for them in the driver Brian |
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David
Hi Brian, that's odd - in the CP3 firmware revision pdf I downloaded to see what's different between Q and V2 I noted that for revision T "Invoke King Rate" is on the list of changes. What am I missing?
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sent you a PM On Wed, Jan 25, 2023 at 7:58 AM David <naz_david@...> wrote: Hi Brian, that's odd - in the CP3 firmware revision pdf I downloaded to see what's different between Q and V2 I noted that for revision T "Invoke King Rate" is on the list of changes. What am I missing? --
Brian Brian Valente astro portfolio https://www.brianvalentephotography.com/astrophotography/ portfolio brianvalentephotography.com |
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The documentation for driver version 5.40.01 in this document [https://www.gralak.com/apdriver/APV2_ASCOM_Driver_5.40.xx.pdf] says under Tracking Rate Controls: "Clicking this button sets Sidereal tracking rate. If your mount has a GTOCP5 or GTOCP4 controller with P02-xx or later firmware, the Enable King Rate check box will be available. If enabled, the mount will track at the King rate." I think this implies that the a CP4 or 5 is needed for King rate. |
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David
Hi Ajay, looking at the ASCOM driver version history its seems that V5.40.00 "- Add King rate for CP4/5 versions VCP4-P02.08 and VCP5-P02.08 and later.". So despite King Rate being supported by the CP3 V2 firmware the driver ignores it. Not to worry, the last time I used King Rate was years ago when I used to do a lot unguided.
The night after my OP I noted a more concerning problem with this latest driver and the CP3 V2 firmware - the move rates no longer worked properly. Oddly, they worked with the Q firmware but not SkySafari running as a remote client. Both were now not working. Brian in owe PM advised I call George at AP to sort it out. George confirmed the King Rate situation then after some discussion on the move rate issue he advised I try running the driver directly to the clients instead of via Alpaca. I tried that all last night and it did not resolve the problem, which was kind of a relief because I like using Alpaca. I then went looking for some posts by Ray Gralak that I glanced over a few days ago and found the attached - try using the 5.21.01 driver version. I installed 5.21.01 and bingo, all is now behaving EXACTLY as it should, even using Alpaca. Nice! |
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David
On Fri, Jan 27, 2023 at 09:12 AM, David wrote:
posts by Ray GralakHere they are. I wonder how long this version of the driver will remain compatible with APCC? 
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