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INDI Library v2.0.6 is Released (02 Feb 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

AZEQ6

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  • Thank you received: 3

AZEQ6 was created by Gary McKenzie

Hi,
the pointing of my AZEQ6 is poor when using Indi's EQMod driver.
This appear to be because when the mount is connected via an EQ Direct cable the mount defaults to having it's encoders on, and these have a significant effect on the accuracy of pointing. Essentially if using he hand controller, pointing is good if you select the option to turn off the encoders. If only an EQ Direct cable is used, the encoders automatically switch on.

Is there any way an option to turn off the encoders in the Indi EQMod driver could be added.
Below is some info I got from Andrew Johanson in Melbourne Australia who has done significant analysis of how Synta mounts work:

Gday Gary

> When I use the hand controller my gotos are
> pretty accurate, however when I use computer control,
> the gotos appear to be not as good.

Lots of people have reported that.
Its mainly the encoders arbitrarily adjusting
the microstep count.

> I thought that perhaps the encoders - less accurate -
> default to on when the hand controller is not connected?

Correct. That was the first test you did
where you declutched the mount and then moved
it manually after rebooting with no Hbx connected.
The motor cards always default to encoders ON
when booting, and the Hbx turns them off.
As such, no Hbx means encoders are ON.
In EQMod, they devised a method to boot with
the Hbx and turn encoders OFF
then hot swap to the EQDir.
Then we got a small app to turn them off
before connecting, and now we have added the commands
into EQMod.

If you know the Indi developers, the best bet is to just get
them to add the functionality. It is trivial if they have access to the source.

> Wondering if this is the case whethe it is possible
> to disconnect them by unplugging them from the motor drive board?

That works for EQ8s, but no idea if it works for AZEQ6s

> BTW, did anything come of the testing we did earlier?

Yep. Learned how similar/different the AZEQ6 is to all the other mounts :-)

Andrew

cheers
Gary
7 years 4 months ago #11518

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Replied by Markku on topic AZEQ6

Hi Gary,

I guess you are talking about the auxilary encoders as in the EQ8 ?
If that is the case you can send commands to your mount to disable the encoders if your mount uses the same commandset, after switching off/on your mount the encoders gets activated again.
This is my small piece of code in python to do that.
I run this to my EQ8 but have never tested on another mount so be careful!!

#!/usr/bin/python
import serial
import io
import time

ser = serial.Serial('/dev/ttyUSB0', 9600, timeout=0.2)
ser.flushInput()

time.sleep(1)

ser.write(':W1050000\r')
print ("Result for :W1050000 DisableRA_AUXEncoder :"), ser.readline()

ser.write(':W2050000\r')
print ("Result for :W2050000 DisableDEC_AUXEncoder :"), ser.readline()

ser.close()


Br,
/Markku
The following user(s) said Thank You: Jean-Luc
7 years 4 months ago #11524

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Replied by Gary McKenzie on topic AZEQ6

Hi maxer,

thank you for the code. I will try it, however I'm hoping that an option can be added to the driver so that we don't have to run something seperate. that would make life easy - and it apparently has been done in the Ascom version....

cheers
Gary
7 years 4 months ago #11527

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Replied by Markku on topic AZEQ6

Yes, you are right, I think Jean-Luc or Jasem would be the one to add that option to the driver.

Br,
/Markku
7 years 4 months ago #11547

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Replied by Jean-Luc on topic AZEQ6

Hi,
Thanks Maxer for sending the command, I started yesterday to look at the firmware, but pic asm is quite boring to parse.
I will add it on AZ-EQ6 and EQ8, don't know if the AZ-EQ5 also has encoders and same command set.
Anyway I think to send the commands if the mount is not initialized, and leaves it in its current state otherwise.
I'll warn you when it's done so you may test on real hardware.
Jean-Luc.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Markku, Ollie
7 years 4 months ago #11582

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Replied by Markku on topic AZEQ6

No proplem at all.
I've also used pic asm sometimes but hope that I never need that again :)
I'm not shure about AZ-EQ5 ? I did some googling and found that it might be so.
Thank you for doing that!! I see forward to test that.

Br
/Markku
7 years 4 months ago #11610

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Replied by Gary McKenzie on topic AZEQ6

thanks for looking at this Jean-Luc, and Maxer for the code.

I ended up disconnecting the encoders - easy enough to do. Noticed an immediate improvement in pointing accuracy.
Will reconnect them and try after the driver is updated.

cheers
Gary
7 years 4 months ago #11614

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Replied by Jean-Luc on topic AZEQ6

Hi,
I just push on my fork (in the master branch) an update with auxiliary encoder control.
Aux. encoders are turned off on every connection, you may turn them on during a session if you want to perform a manual move.
Just turn them off and do a standard sync after the manual move.

A great thank to Andrew who saves me the time for searching the right commands in the firmware.

Jean-Luc.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Jasem Mutlaq, Markku
Last edit: 7 years 4 months ago by Jean-Luc. Reason: The editor ;-)
7 years 4 months ago #12001

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Replied by Markku on topic AZEQ6

Hi,
I just compiled on my obsy RPi3 and everything looks fine so now I need some better weather to try it out and report back with results.
Thank you a lot!!
Br
/Markku
7 years 4 months ago #12006

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Replied by Markku on topic AZEQ6

Hi guys!!

I got a opportunity to do a test run last night and it looks good :) If I enabled auxilary encoders I had some troubles getting guiding running smoothly but I could not see a very big difference in accuracy otherwise, and switching off the encoders guiding improved quite a lot.
There is still something I don't really understand, the glitches in the middle of guiding in this image ? they come now and then but are quite rare with encoders switched off.

Cheers and thank you Jean-Luc for your efforts.
Br
/Markku
7 years 4 months ago #12130
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Replied by Ollie on topic AZEQ6

This sounds encouraging! When will the encoder on/off option be made available in the PPA? Will it support the EQ8 as well?
7 years 4 months ago #12509

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Replied by Kevin gurney on topic AZEQ6

Hi all
I am new to Indi and scoping it out with view to migrating from Win 10....
One key thing for me is the ability to run EQMOD driving my AZEQ6 and to do it well by turning off the encoders. (Having recently stripped and rebuilt my mount I have a better understanding of why these might fail now :)
I followed this thread with interest but see no new developments, so just to refresh - has the auxiliary encoder toggle been put into the latest repository version yet?
many thanks
7 years 1 month ago #14368

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