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