×

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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Need help with ASI6200MM

  • Posts: 10
  • Thank you received: 0
My camera ZWO ASI6200MM works, but I can't make any use of it.

Typical session:
* power up all the equipment
* start KStars
* Take a preview image with 1 sec exposure -- works
* Try taking another image with 4 seconds of exposure -- reports "Exposure Failed", retries a few times and gives up
* No more images after that can be taken.
* Restarting the camera driver sometimes lets me take another 1 sec exposure image.
* get upset for 10 months.

I'm running kstars on a raspberry pi 4 on ubuntu 22.04. Indilib was installed as `sudo apt-get install indi-full gsc`.

Happy to do any experiments and collect any kinds of logs.
Haven't tried any other imaging software.

Please help
1 year 1 month ago #90308

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 349
  • Thank you received: 107

Replied by nou on topic Need help with ASI6200MM

Do you have 8GB RPi? Because 4GB are really struggle even with ASI2600 file size. Make sure you disable FITS viewer. Another tip is try to lower USB bandwith to minimum value.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Orfest
Last edit: 1 year 1 month ago by nou.
1 year 1 month ago #90309

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 10
  • Thank you received: 0

Replied by Orfest on topic Need help with ASI6200MM

It's a 4GB RPi.

> disable FITS viewer
done

> lower USB bandwidth
you're genius!!!
What I did:
Camera starts, try taking 5 images of 1-sec-exposure. The camera manages 2 shots and then keeps failing.
Restart.
Change Bandwidth from 80 to 40. Repeat. Everything works. 5 shots of 1 sec, 5 shots of 4 sec, shots with binning.
Download times are higher. 7sec instead of 5.5 sec, but whatever.
1 year 1 month ago #90311

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 10
  • Thank you received: 0

Replied by Orfest on topic Need help with ASI6200MM

Yep, had a good run shooting the comet yesterday. No issues with the camera. The lowest bandwidth setting is now the default in Ekos. No idea how exactly a value becomes the default value, but it has happened :-D
1 year 1 month ago #90351

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 10
  • Thank you received: 0

Replied by Orfest on topic Need help with ASI6200MM

I tried to reproduce that success last night, and it was a disaster.

I set camera to the lowest bandwidth value, which is 40.
Take hundreds of short exposure shots to polar align the mount and for focusing.

But when I do the imaging, the camera stops working after downloading 2 images, 120-sec, binning 1x1, temperature -20. It won't download any more images after that.
Once I was able to do focusing in this stuck state.
Once enabling auto bandwidth unblocked the camera and it kept going to 7 images, when I realized I don't need those images, and stopped. The new imaging sequence couldn't start.

Unblocking the camera is done only by powering it off and on again.

I tried the High Speed Mode - same result
Enabling auto bandwidth helped once, but I guess that was just random.

I can't enable debug information for the driver, somehow it gets immediately disabled :shrug:

The camera is powered by a power adapter 12V 2.5A.

Restarting the camera driver in Ekos leads to KStars crashing in 10-60 seconds.

Please help.
1 year 1 month ago #90387

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

A new SDK v1.28 was pushed to INDI a few days ago. Not sure if it would help in your situation, but worth a try.
1 year 1 month ago #90400

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 200
  • Thank you received: 28
I have your camera as well as the 6200MC. They are on two different set up and have two separate RPi's. When I initially got the cameras I fiddled with a lot of settings and it was hit or miss. When KStars/Stellarmate went to 64 bit (from 32) that helped quite a bit, particularly with one of the two setups I had. I noticed that the problematic set up had a 4GB RPi while the one that functioned well was 8GB - they were otherwise the same. I ended up replacing the 4GB RPi with an 8GB version and things have been working well ever since. These high pixel count sensors can tax the RPi depending on your setup. YMMV of course.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Orfest
1 year 1 month ago #90408

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 10
  • Thank you received: 0
The last night went without troubles.
Now I remember that the first successful night was a few degrees colder than the subsequent failure night. Maybe indeed the camera cooler was working too hard to reach and maintain -20°.
This night I powered the camera directly from a 10A power source, and reduced the target temperature to -15°. No issues at all.
I'm happy.

Don't know if it's related to SDK, probably not. But I did upgrade the libraries :)

> 8GB version
I've always wanted it. I remember I got the 4GB version only because 8GB version was out of stock.
Checked all the shops, ... and it's still out of stock. I'll keep looking.
Thank you for the suggestion.
1 year 1 month ago #90415

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 10
  • Thank you received: 0

Replied by Orfest on topic Need help with ASI6200MM

Guess what.

It stopped working, again.
This time I got 3 frames out of a camera before it got stuck.
Tried multiple power cables, tried changing multiple options, tried disabling the cooler, tried increasing binning.
It just stops managing to download an image after several shots.

I'm lost. The only actionable suggestion is to try a better RPi4.
Actually, I have a more powerful single-board-computer lying around: odroid n2, but it also has only 4GB RAM.
I wasn't using it because I couldn't install MountWizzard4. Will give it a try.

The only thing I'm certain about so far, is that the camera works on the even-numbered days, and doesn't work on odd-numbered days:
Tuesday - didn't work
Wednesday - worked
Thursday - no luck
Friday - no issues
Saturday - stuck again
Last edit: 1 year 1 month ago by Orfest.
1 year 1 month ago #90439

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 349
  • Thank you received: 107

Replied by nou on topic Need help with ASI6200MM

Can you try normal PC?
The following user(s) said Thank You: Orfest
1 year 1 month ago #90448

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 10
  • Thank you received: 0

Replied by Orfest on topic Need help with ASI6200MM

> Normal PC
Trying it now and it seems to work. Took 10 60-sec exposures in a row without a problem.

But, the normal PC (Linux laptop) cannot slew the mount. When I used Rpi4, I always connected it with an ethernet cable directly to the mount, and they had their own tiny private local network.
Don't have this setup on my Laptop, and was surprised to find out that the laptop can get position from the mount, but can't control the mount.
Which is why now for the test I'm having both the laptop and the Rpi controlling different parts of the telescope :-D

I also am trying a different USB3.0 Type A cable. Maybe that's also helping? Maybe it's all random and tomorrow it will stop working again? :shrug:

Would be great to figure out how to either replicate that local network setup the Rpi has, or to learn to control the mount via a wireless connection.

Next step: connect the camera to the Rpi4. Wish me luck. Doing it now
1 year 1 month ago #90491

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 349
  • Thank you received: 107

Replied by nou on topic Need help with ASI6200MM

If camera work only with laptop and mount only with RPi4 it is still usable like that. indiserver can be chained together so you can have one indiserver that control mount and then second indiserver that control camera and connect to first server. Then you connect to this second indiserver with Ekos and can control both devices.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Orfest
1 year 1 month ago #90493

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Time to create page: 1.092 seconds