In the above picture, I manually set the temperature to -20. Before that, it was 0, but the cooler automatically started cooling to -20 as you can see in the second picture.



What I am seeing:

The cooler temperature is saved by INDI, but not shown. When you set a temperature, it is shown for the current session. If you save the options, the cooler will come on and cool to the setting the next time you start the driver, but it will show as unset instead of using the saved value even though the cooler starts to cool. The condition is then reflected in Ekos as not being set, even though the actual temperature is dropping. This becomes a problem if you then click the checkbox in Ekos to monitor the chip temperature. Ekos will respect the field that does not reflect the actual cooler setting, and turn the cooler off until it warms up to 0.

What should happen: Properly use the stored cooler temperature, and display it in INDI so it can be used properly by Ekos - OR - remove the storing of the temperature in INDI so that the cooler does not come on automatically, forcing the user to set it either in INDI or in Ekos, but the first option would be preferred.

If this makes sense, I can open a ticket. In my case, ASI cameras are doing this, but those are all I have.

Anyone else seeing this behaviour?

Jim

Jim,

Not sure I would describe this as a bug, more a feature request.

In the first case entering -20 does nothing until you select [Set] after which it will instruct the camera to reach the requested temperature. Whether it can actually achieve that is another matter.

In the second case selecting the [tick] box will instruct the camera to reach the temperature in the preceding field (which is shown as zero).

In both cases it should attempt to do what it is instructed to do.

The real requirement is that you already have a target temperature set in the first screen and you want it to be prepopulated in the second.

You need to be cautious making any changes here as the loading of a saved profile will also populate that field and you want to keep that but do not neccessarily want the camera to start using that until you start the script.

Paul

Thanks for the reply Paul. What I am seeing is not what you describe in your second sentence, however. As soon as I connect to the camera, it begins to cool. This happens without doing anything except connecting to the camera. Yes, when you put in -20, and hit set, that sets it a the INDI layer, but it appears it is already getting that value set, and just not reflecting it correctly to the user. It should either reflect the setting that was loaded to the user (preferred), or it should not start cooling until commanded to do so, either through the INDI control panel or through Ekos. If set in INDI, it should be reflected in Ekos, and vice a versa.

Steps:
1. Set a temperature in the INDI control panel by hitting set. The camera should start to cool as evidenced by the Cooling Power(%)
2. Click the Options tab in the INDI driver config and then Save
3. disconnect from the camera
4. Shut down INDI, Ekos, and kstars
5. Restart Kstars, Ekos, and INDI
6. Connect to the camera and observe Cooling Power(%) as well as the actual temperature as seen on the CCD tab of Ekos. In my case, it is already cooling at this point.

Step 6 is reproducible for me, and causes the INDI control panel to be out of sync with the camera cooling operation.

I hope this helps describe what I am seeing.

Jim

Jim,

What you are describing is not the behaviour I see.

After connecting to the camera the cooling is always off.

It may be that setting a temperature and saving the camera settings at that point is producing your behavour, but I cannot be certain, and I don't want to try it in case I have trouble reversing it.

Paul

I dont think the correct way to do things is to set the temp in the INdI panel, it should just be set in ekos each time you use it...I have never even considered to set in INdI and save and expect it to start automatically each time...so this is new to me...will be interested to here what @knro has to say....

The cooling feature of the CCD is considered a dangerous item, in the sense that it is dangerous for the device to continue cooling without supervision.

This is the same for instance for the mount, which should stop tracking when it is not used by any client. So if you see that sensor cooling is disabled when reconnecting, that's actually a Good Thing.

Also, I would say that the expected behaviour for the INDI driver is to never enable cooling when not explicitly told to do so. Setting the temperature can arguably be considered as "told to do so", but strictly speaking, setting a target temperature should be followed by a start-cooling command to actually boot the fridge.

This said, there could still be problems when Ekos is supposedly controlling the device and the device is manipulated independently. This requires a full-duplex management which may not be implemented.

-Eric

I see the same behavior with my ASI cameras. As soon as I connect Ekos, the camera starts cooling to the temperature set the previous time Ekos was used. This has been discussed on this forum before and it is NOT an Ekos setting but the temperature is remembered by the driver.

Wouter

Thank you for the discussion everyone. The driver seems to have the safety baked in already. It does not cool even when the camera has power, unless the client connects to INDI. The client, in my case, is almost always Ekos. When Ekos is disconnected, the camera stops cooling. I agree the safety should be there, but my request is only to have the user interface reflect what is actually going on with the equipment. The safety conversation will be easier if the user interface is accurate.


For safety and convenience then, how about this:

1. INDI should store and display the temperature setting, making it available to be displayed by clients. (currently, the driver stores the temperature, but it is not displayed, and it is not displayed in Ekos either)
2. INDI should not start the cooler on connection (currently, when Ekos connects, the cooler is started)
3. INDI should need to be asked by the client to start cooling.

The temperature setting will then be seen in Ekos when connected. The client, whether manually by the user, or automated by the sequence, can trigger the cooler start. Only when triggered to start by a client should the cooler power and start to try to achieve the displayed temperature.

This seems to be specific to ASI driver as my ATIK camera doesn't start cooling upon connection and the temperature is not saved to the configuration file either. Unfortunately both my ASI cameras are uncooled so they don't have it in the configuration file either. But it seems both the atik_ccd.cpp and asI_ccd.cpp are trying to save the cooler state for some reason in saveConfigItems function, even though the cooler state is defined as write only and temperature and power are read only, which does sound like an unwanted feature.

I think it's a "remembered" setting.
If you shut down Ekos with the cooling still running - it will be ON when you start INDI/Ekos again and will cool down to the temperature it was set to before.
If you turn off the cooling before shutting down Ekos - it will be OFF when you start INDI/Ekos again.

At least that's my experience.

IIRC this automatic cooling start comes from the ZWO binary driver, not from INDI. It somewhere stores the last state, and automatically reverts to this when you connect.

Also, it's not completely true that the cooling only starts when you connect to the camera. Just plugging in power and USB, without starting a driver, you can see that the camera draws power in that state. IIRC it was some 0.3-0.4 amps when I measured it (ASI1600). And if you leave it in that state for a while you can easily verify that when you connect to the camera, the chip temperature is already several degrees below ambient....

Whether or not 1. is feasible depends on whether the driver is capable of revealing that info. Apparently, as Max wrote, you can switch off the cooling manually before stopping INDI. You then need to enable it manually again when INDI gets started.

What should happen if you do use other software to control the camera in between INDI runs? If INDI stores the temperature from a precious run and the driver stores it as well, they may be is disagreement.

I rather like the fact that cooling starts automatically when INDI is started so I prefer the current behavior.

Wouter