I use mout updates kstars time and location, try that.

I think it should be UTC +60 not UTC +1 or is that what you meant?

For your position, the correct setting currently would be DST=NO, UTC +2h. Otherwise there will be a 15 degree discrepancy upon slewing in the position of the mount relative to the object.

There has to be a simple reason for that mount behavior. All I can say is I used my CEM25P again last night and it flips perfectly fine. My settings (in the hand controller) are to flip (not stop) if mount exceeds meridian by 4 degrees set in the hand controller. In EKOS I have set it to flip if HA>2 degrees (not hour angle). But I am also baffled by the Park position, those two problems may be connected.

Nico, why don't you take your telescope (and counterweight) off so the scope or mount won't get damaged by strange slewing and then figure out where your Park position actually is. Then set it to where you want it to be, purge, RESTART Ekos, set the new position, write and save it.

I remember reading a similar horror story on Cloudy nights once, but can't remember how that got solved. You may want to search there.

All I can say is that is a weird setting problem somewhere, it has nothing to do with the CEM25P itself or with EKOS. Both work perfectly fine together.

Can you also please post a detailed log.



Set the log to verbose. You probably won't have to select guider, fits, filter wheel, etc, but definitely INDI, Alignment and the mount. Then run a session in the simulator. You don't even need to pick a target, just slew close to the meridian (using the mount control panel in Ekos), then let the mount cross the meridian. To speed things up you can set HA to >0 in Ekos so the mount will flip as it crosses the meridian. You can work all this out using the simulator. No need to waste precious observing time.

Jo

The site management tab in the Control panel uses hourly offsets, not minutes, so it has to be +2 for Nico, not +120.

But yes, the HC uses minutes for the offset, so in the HC he would have to enter +120, in the site management tab in the control panel +2.

Maybe that is the entire confusion? It surely would throw off the mount if he has set +2 in the HC, instead of +120.

Brian, yes I meant UTC+60 but typed UTC+1 (I know in the mounts hand controller it is given in minutes not hours). However, switching the setting to mount updates KStars is not working either, same bahavior micro-move and meridian flip failed message. Actually that was the setting that I had before. It did not work with both UTC+60 DST=Y, UTC+120 DST=N and also not now with UTC+60 DST=N.

Jo, yes while you wrote the last post suggesting to enable the logging I was already trying that. However, I do enable verbose logging and set it to file; activate INDI and Mount in the Ekos part as well as Mount in the drivers and say okay. Starting the profile, do the testing, disconnect and stopp the session. But there are no files in the logs directory. I tried it three times now and even watched the tutorial once if I oversaw anything... Any advice here? I guess I will do an update of my RasPi now to bring it all on the latest versions (last update was two weeks ago, so not that late but who knows). Will try after the update again and report back later

We just did a very similar test with our CEM25P. We are in Madrid so in the hand controller we set the DST to NO and UTC offset to +120. Also Mount Updates KStars for both time and location because the CEM25P has an internal GPS. Finally in the hand controller we set the Meridian Treatment -> Position Limit to 05 degrees and in Ekos the Flip If HA > to 3 degrees. The flip went perfectly OK and perhaps our only complaint would be that it happened 20 minutes too early!

Regarding the home position: we did purge the home position, click Use Current and then Write Data. The mount was parked with the counter weight down but the telescope rotated by some 30 degrees towards west. And Ekos never indicated that the mount was parked, like it does with our EQMod mounts. So regarding parking the mount, I guess we will keep on using the hand controller.


Clear skies, Wouter

That is weird, Wouter. I have no issues with parking the CEM25P. Works fine. I also have no problem with the flip. So your telescope ends up 30 degrees displaced in DEC, not RA?
That's got to do with the Parking setting that is saved in Ekos. Perhaps it would be a good idea to use the method given for EQMOD to purge the park setting and then rewrite a new one? I followed that procedure and have no problem with parking.
Jo

Thanks for the help Jo. As I wrote, we did do a purge and that didn't help.

But we have fixed the meridian flip issue now. We switched off only KStars before and then the meridian flip happened exactly when the object was culminating south. Then we switched off KStars and the mount, restarted the mount and then KStars and now the mount starts the meridian flip as soon as Ekos wants it, i.e. 3 minutes after culminating. We also did not do anything with the home position in KStars but we did center the axes again and set the zero position in the hand controller. Now zeroing the mount with the hand controller works again. Our guess is that

• Playing with the home settings in KStars somehow messes up the mount zero position
• The meridian flip settings are only really used after the mount has been rebooted

So, we will keep on using the hand controller for zeroing the mount and we won't touch the home position in Ekos nor the meridian treatment settings in the hand controller anymore and we're sure we'll be good now


Clear skies, Wouter

That's not a solution, we need to find out what's going on really as it might be happening to other members.
Check your hand controller firmware version for example, so that we can compare that with those where it works without an issue.

Good point. The hand controller reports three versions:
HC: 170518
RA: 170106
DEC: 170106

For both the HC and RA board there are newer versions (both 190422) so we should probably update the firmware.

Still no success to get a Log-file... I just checked the version and realize that I have a Beta version on my StellarMate... hmm... See attachments.

About the Firmware, yes I just checked that too - there is indeed a new Version vor the Handcontroller and the RA board available. DEC is the same as we have,

Go2Nova 8408 hand controller firmware (V190422) (Released 1/31/2020)
CEM25 R.A. motor control board (V190422)
CEM25 DEC motor control board (V170106)

Will check how to do that and if I can do it with my virtual Windows (I´m on Mac usually).

Cheers, Nico

For those where the mount parking works, can you please share your firmware version?

We updated both the hand controller and the RA board to the latest firmware and parking still doesn't work. The RA axis goes to the zero position but the DEC axis again gets stuck under a seemingly random angle. We'll stick to using the hand controller.

Worse: now the DEC axis (which we didn't update the firmware for) started slipping. We here a rattling noise when it is moving and the axis doesn't rotate further. We recently added extra washers in the locking shaft (the one that pushes the DEC motor axis to the DEC axis) to give a higher pressure to the spring pushing the ball bearing and it seemed to be working well. No clue why it suddenly started misbehaving. Note that the parking test described above did NOT involve this rattling noise. It only started doing that after we tried several times.

Additional note: we also have an iOptron GEM45 with the latest firmware installed (this is necessary for Ekos to be able to control it) and with that mount parking doesn't work either. We always use the hand controller with that mount as well. It seems to be something in the iOptron firmware. I thought I read somewhere that iOptron said that their firmware doesn't have park positions but only zero positions but I don't remember where I read that.