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ASI 120mc messed up frames

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ASI 120mc messed up frames was created by S

Hi!

I am running an asi120mc as an all sky camera capturing one frame pr minute, to show the sky and by counting the number of stars to see if it is clear or not. It sometimes shows some messed up frames, where you for example can see the beyer pattern, i.e. they are no good. This happens a few times pr night and is no major problem. However, if I run my Meade dsi pro at the same time, capturing .5 framers pr second to get 'video' from the observatory to see how the scope is doing and so on, the ASI will almost mess up every second frame or so. I guess the messed up frames are when something us using the usb or Ethernet and there is not full bandwidth on the USB for the asi.

This is on a raspberry pi 2 with Ubuntu mate.

Any ideas on how to make the asi work nicely together with other equipment? Is it working on the rpi 3?

Clear skies!
6 years 10 months ago #16970

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Replied by nMAC on topic ASI 120mc messed up frames

Hi! I had the same configuration on my RPi 2, using a Meade DSI Pro for AllSky and a ASI120MM and suffered the same problem.
I had them all connected to to RPi2 and the only way I solved the problem was with an USB Powered HUB. And even that, was not at the first time.
The ASI is very picky with USB Bus, specially when it's not "alone" on the same bus. The same happened with my SSAG wich is also an USB beast!
Often the powered hub is the best choice leaving RPi ports to less demanding equipment. Also leave the ASI Bandwidth at 40 value.
Have you tried flashing your ASI with the compatible firmware? That solves most of that USB issues.

I have the same setup now but on RPi3 but also had the use the HUB.
Last edit: 6 years 10 months ago by nMAC.
6 years 10 months ago #16972

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Replied by S on topic ASI 120mc messed up frames

Thanks for the reply. I have the compatible firmware, otherwise the asi does not work at all.

Do you power both the rpi and the hub or only the hub? Read somewhat, that powering both can also lead to trouble...

Been thinking about using a rpi 3 exclusively for the asi and connecting it through wifi so the asi will have exclusive access to the usb/Ethernet chip. The rpi3 is not so expensive...
6 years 10 months ago #16973

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Replied by nMAC on topic ASI 120mc messed up frames

I power both of them from a stabilized 5V 10A power supply.
Sometimes even a 1A power supply would not be sufficient for the RPi but the most important would be the HUB, always with external power.

At the moment I have a RPI3 connected to a Powered HUB wich includes a DSI Pro, ASI120MM, Arduino Moonlite Clone and a Canon 550D.
I am also connected to the HEQ5 Via BT module of the RPi, all works fine.
Last edit: 6 years 10 months ago by nMAC.
6 years 10 months ago #16974

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Replied by S on topic ASI 120mc messed up frames

And no messed up frames at all from the asi?

Which hub are you using btw?
Last edit: 6 years 10 months ago by S.
6 years 10 months ago #16975

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Replied by nMAC on topic ASI 120mc messed up frames

Not a single one. Works very well. Iam using a 7 Port 3M (BASF) Hub.
One other thing, very important, are you using 8 bit or 16 bit images?

ASI120 (at least the usb 2.0 model) has some problems dealing with 16bit images! I am using mine as a guider only at 8bit.
6 years 10 months ago #16976

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Replied by S on topic ASI 120mc messed up frames

Thanks for the info.

I am using RGB24, as this was the only thing I could get color images from when I tried. Here are some of the options:
ZWO CCD ASI120MC.CCD_INFO.CCD_BITSPERPIXEL=8
ZWO CCD ASI120MC.CCD_COMPRESSION.CCD_COMPRESS=Off
ZWO CCD ASI120MC.CCD_COMPRESSION.CCD_RAW=On
ZWO CCD ASI120MC.CCD_VIDEO_FORMAT.ASI_IMG_RAW8=Off
ZWO CCD ASI120MC.CCD_VIDEO_FORMAT.ASI_IMG_RGB24=On
ZWO CCD ASI120MC.CCD_VIDEO_FORMAT.ASI_IMG_Y8=Off
ZWO CCD ASI120MC.CCD_VIDEO_FORMAT.ASI_IMG_RAW16=Off

What are you using?
6 years 10 months ago #17001

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Replied by nMAC on topic ASI 120mc messed up frames

Mine is Mono (ASI120MM) and always at 8bit.
But I see you are using 8Bit (ZWO CCD ASI120MC.CCD_INFO.CCD_BITSPERPIXEL=8 ).
So here should be no problems.
My results are only using monochrome. I don't know it color models have those problems at 16bit, maybe other members can comment on their results.
Last edit: 6 years 10 months ago by nMAC.
6 years 10 months ago #17003

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Replied by S on topic ASI 120mc messed up frames

A final note to this story... I never got the asi120 working properly, nothing worked, tried everything in the book! Last week I replaced the 120 with the asi224mc, and it works as a charm. Literally just replaced the cam, changed 120 to 224 in my scripts and it just worked! No messed up frames, no lost connections, it just works. Very happy, so my advice to everyone is to get the 224mc over the 120mc.

Over and out!
5 years 6 months ago #29290

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