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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Avalon mzero Stargo with lx200 protocol

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Hello Wolfgang,
I am not at home, I am at office, but I think I use the lx200 basic driver.
To use it, first, I use the stargo-BT application on a smartphone, to get position from gps. I put the position in the mount. Then I synchronize the mount.
After, I connect to Kstars-Ekos to perform a goto.
I do several trial, and I think the process with the Stargo-BT is required.

Excellent idea to contribute to a driver Avalon-StarGo for indi. But I have not the specification. Perhaps you can ask it to Avalon. They respond to question.
I find some information on the lx200 protocol. For example : www.meade.com/support/TelescopeProtocol_2010-10.pdf
I only modify the lx200 driver and tell the modification to Jasem.

I'm interessed with your work. We stay in touch.

Tonight, I tell you exactly which driver lx200 I use.
6 years 1 month ago #23684

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Hello Jean-Jaques,
this week I am on ski holidays, so I do not have any access to my telescope.

One interesting thing I found in the manual (see pages 62/63 of rev. 3):
After the connection is made with SkySafari, an inital sync must be performed using the "Align" function of Sky Safari. Position the cursor on a star on the meridian and close to the southern horizon. Without moving the mount from its Home position, perform a sync to that star. This is equivalent to performing the “Sync Home Position” using the StarGO software as described in section 3.2.5 and will transmit the point where the mount is really pointing at that moment (i.e. the Celestial Pole) to the StarGO.

Maybe this works in general, not only for Sky Safary? Fiddeling around with several devices is not that nice...

Cheers
Wolfgang
6 years 1 month ago #23703

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Hello Wolfgang,
The driver indi I use is lx200-basic.
I try to use sky-safari syncronization, but the gotos were bad after. Why ? I don't know ? Perhaps I do not perform good actions ?
But I try to synchronize with the application stargo-bt on a smartphone.
I can use the mount with differnet deives : kstars, the white keypad, ... no problem.

Good holidays.
Jean-Jacques
6 years 1 month ago #23714

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Hi Jean-Jacques,
hm, did you try an initial home sync with the StarGO app from a Windows machine? When I do this, gotos afterwards are really fine.

Cheers
Olfgang
6 years 1 month ago #23715

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Wolfgang,
Yes, when I synchronize from a windows machine or a android one, gotos are good.
With the lx200 basic driver from indi, I don't try to synchronize. So I do before using kstars a synchronisation with the smartphone android and the application Stargo-BT.
I think it will be good to have a driver for avalon-Stargo mount that perform the syncrhonisation directly.
6 years 1 month ago #23732

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Jean-Jacques,
yes, having a dedicated avalon driver seems the best solution. In the meanwhile: after an initial home sync from a windows machine through StarGO, following syncs through the INDI lx200_basic driver works fine for me. I need StarGO under Windows only at the beginning and at the end when I want to slew to home. The rest of the time I drive my scope entirely through INDI on my Raspberry PI.

Wolfgang
6 years 1 month ago #23746

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I have started working on a dedicated Avalon StarGO driver. I am a bit confused as to how I should handle the AUX control for the focuser since it shares the same serial port. Since this will be my first INDI driver there is a bit of a learning curve but I think after reviewing the lx200 drivers and what not I have a pretty good handle on it.

If you post the exact features you are looking for I can target those once I have the basic features done.
6 years 3 weeks ago #23827

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I have a working focuser driver. It is very young and was mostly written to help me understand better how INDI works. You can checkout the code from: github.com/CanisUrsa/indi/tree/canisursa/avalon_work .

You should be able to use that to perform relative and absolute motions as well as abort any active motion. I tried this on my Avalon M-Zero and Avalon Focuser (connected to AUX1) and it works well. I do experience a timeout every now and then but I'd like to make sure someone else can get their focuser working. I'll be adding the sync capability next and trying to resolve the timeouts. Once that is working well enough I will move onto writing an Avalon mount driver.
6 years 3 weeks ago #23855

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Ah, good to know that there is a working focusser!
Yesterday I worked on setting up my development environment and making first steps with the existing lx200_basic driver in the debugger.

Wolfgang
6 years 3 weeks ago #23864

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Hello,
Oh good CanisUrsa to write a avalon driver.
I have no focuser, si I am only interessed with a mount driver.
The thing missing, for me, in the lx200_basic_driver, is the synchronisation at the beginning of the process.
So I use for that fonction the android stargo-bt application.
When you will have a mount driver in beta-test, I am candidate to test it, if you agree.

Jean-Jacques
6 years 3 weeks ago #23869

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Hi Jean-Jacques,
there is a workaround for the synchronisation at the beginning of the process using INDI: Position the cursor on a star on the meridian and close to the southern horizon. Without moving the mount from its Home position, perform a sync to that star. This is equivalent to performing the “Sync Home Position” using the StarGO software.

I tried it yesterday and it seems to work. But that is not a very convenient solution.

I am starting to write my own telescope driver.

Wolfgang
6 years 3 weeks ago #23870

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Wolfgang,

I have been utilizing usbpcap to capture the traffic between the StarGO windows application and the mount. I have found a number of commands (including the sync home position). A lot of the LX200 commands work but it appears Avalon added their own set of commands to do very similar things. For example there are ways to get the RA/DEC of the mount in a way that provides more digits of precision than the LX200 method. I'll generate a google spreadsheet when I get home with the commands I have learned so we can work together on defining them for use in the INDI driver.

Another thing I am slightly concerned about is the shared use of the serial port between the focuser and mount. My job has me writing code in windows so I am not sure how to handle that shared resource within linux. I was thinking of taking a naive approach first (don't try to protect the resource) and seeing how bad things go.

CanisUrsa
6 years 3 weeks ago #23875

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