Hi,

I use Kstars etc on a laptop connected to a remote indiserver on a mini PC on the mount.
All on Ubuntu with latest ap-get versions)

Up till now always with ASI imaging and SX guide camera.

Having down sized my portable setup scopes with 2 ASI cameras, ASI2600MM and ASI220MM, i get guide camera time outs which then hang up guiding.
It can last minutes or hours between failures.

I have tried all combinations of direct USB cable to PC and guider on camera internal hub etc.. No difference.

I wanted to try the single instance driver but can't figure out the correct way to use it with a remote server.

Loading indi_asi_ccd on the remote PC and asi CCD on laptop works but times out.
Loading indi_asi_ccd on the remote PC and asi Camera1 and 2 on laptop works but times out.
Loading one indi_asi_single_ccd on the remote PC and Camera1 and 2 does not connect to 2 cameras.
Loading two indi_asi_single_ccd on the remote PC and Camera1 and 2 does not connect to 2 cameras.

Any suggestions to work round the camera timeout would be very welcome.

(I have tried reducing the bandwidth but it just resets itself to the default after a few minutes.)
(Going back to the SX guider give me a huge image scale)

Thanks.

Hi John, Have you tried running Kstars & INDI on the remote PC? I use it on the RPI4b without any issues. I connect to RPi via VNC so even if my connection to RPi is flaky, the RPi will still continue to do its thing in background. I use ASI533mc pro + ASi120mm and use the INDI_ASI_CCD driver.

John,

On the ASI220 Guide Camera select the Indi panel look for the Controls tab go to Format and set it to 8 bit instead of 16 bit. When my ASI guide camera is set to 16 bit I get dropouts and missed frames at random intervals, with 8 bit selected it performs perfectly.

HTH

Alan

Thanks may be worth a try.

Thanks, may be worth a try.

Sorry, cant seem to be able to quote above.

Thanks Astromuni, VNC may be worth a try.

Thanks Alan, 8 bit is an obvious solution, althought not to me at the time, I wil try that now.

John.

For Information.

I reduced the guide camera to 8 bit, It improved the reliabilty but still times out and hangs up.

I have ordered an Altair Astro guide camera with similar pixel size to eliminate the ASI driver issue.

My lodestar works fine but has a large pixel scale with my intended guide scope.

I will try a monitor/keyboard/mouse out at the scope for elimiation but not too optimistic.

John.

Have you tried using a different USB cable?

John,

Have you tried adding fxload to the remote mini pc, nou's astro soft build has a script that makes this easy. gitea.nouspiro.space/nou/astro-soft-build

I had a USB hub that refused to work correctly, the camera's wouldn't work reliably until I added fxload. I then use the default zwoccd driver for both cameras, I have had issues using the camera1, camera2 setup,

Thanks

Alan

Well to my surprise, running via VLC (or equivalent) seems to have made a large difference, no timouts on a 12 hour run.

Yes I have tried, cheap cables, posh cables, USB2, USB3, Hub, no Hub, Camera Hub....

So if it keeps working I think the transfer of Main camera image which takes 20sec, is blocking the guide camera download, causing a time out then hanging the driver. Running locally on the mini pc reduces the main down load to 2 seconds.

TIme will tell,

Anyway off to dark skies next week and I hope it keeps working.

On a different tack, My new Altair GP130MM backup plan isn't working with INDI/EKOS, black images. But that's another adventure.

Thats good news that main & guidecams are now working. Enjoy your dark skies.