Hi all,

Hoping someone can help with this little issue I'm having please. I'm a noob to INDI/Kstars/Linux etc and have setup a RPi4 with Stellarmate OS on it. I can connect all my equipment and control it on all pc's at home including a tablet to operate it via the stellarmate app. I can image, I can guide, I can platesolve etc. What I can't do is use the focuser properly from EKOS.

I am using the Pegasus stepper motor that came with the UPB and I can focus using the Pegasus UPB section of the INDI control panel but cannot find anything giving me the focusers current position.

It is when I try to use the focusing section of EKOS I run into problems though......I am able to input an absolute position and click the button to send the focuser to that position, and that works.
If I press the focus in/out buttons it racks the focuser all the way in to 50 (focuser was at position 5000 and step size set to 50)
If I start an autofocus routine the software reports that the focuser is going to be moved but the focuser doesn't move at all and the autofocus routine hangs....presumably because it's waiting for a response to say the focuser has actually moved.

Is there a setting I'm missing somewhere ? Any help greatly appreciated. I am a Noob and can post screenshots if necessary but if you want any techy info from say the command line etc... please just explain how to get that info. I am fairly savvy when it comes to PC's, I just haven't learned all the commands for Linux yet.

Many Thanks in advance
Jack

Hi Jack,

Can you please share the logs? Please check my signature for how.

The setting you need to change is focuser speed. I have a moonlite focuser, and it has to be set to 100% speed or it does exactly what you’re describing. Anything less, even 80-90% don’t work well with a moonlite. Other speeds might be appropriate for different focuser, but the moonlite needs 100% speed.

I've played around with the speed and found 400 is comparable to the speed I was using when I had the UPB and focuser connected to the officai windows app. If I go much lower it is very slow and higher makes it give off an unhealthy noise. The problem still exists though. I think it's something to do with the current position not being reported correctly......current position counter never changes.
Thanks for your suggestion though

Hi Jasem,
Should be a log attached for you.... if I've done it right.....
summary of what I did in this test.....

done during the day while focused on a distant tree so only tested moving the focuser in and out.....no chance of testing autofocus for a while as the weather is awful atm. I focused using the windows app, which is reporting current focuser position properly and opertaing normally.
I then disconnected the UPB from windows, connected it up to my RPi4 with stellarmate OS installed and turned everything on.

directly controlling kstars/ekos with remote vnc viewer connection to equipment via firefox on observatory windows pc (doesn't make any difference if I use the Linux pc in the house)

connected to equipment and opened INDI control panel, synced focus motor to current position in focus tab of UPB (as measured by official windows app)

opened focus tab in EKOS and tried moving focuser in and out. it will move in/out once but if you try to focus again in the same direction, it doesn't move. if you focus in the opposite direction it does move however.....

foucser was synced to 7000 but the current value never changes. if you focus in by 500 it will move to physical position 6500 but the current position reported stays at 7000. If you then focus back out by 500 it moves but it moves to physical position 7500 and the current value remains at 7000.

Seems to me the current position not changing is the issue?? Hope that's some of the info you need to help me on this one, not sure what the log can tell you so figured some background on what I was doing might help ?

Thanks in advance
Jack

added note......

I've played about with INDIGO SKY today and have got the focuser to behave normally focusing in/out in EKOS....daytime so can't test autofocus.
The position reports correctly in Ekos and APT which leads me to believe that the position not reporting properly under INDI is what is causing my problem.
However, in INDIGO there isn't a section to set maximum position limit so APT will not focus out (apparently needs max limit reported or ya get an error messae) so still not 100% sorted in that software under INDIGO. I will test APT using INDI once I've swapped back to stellarmate OS.
INDIGO seperates the focusing side of the UPB from the rest of its functions....is there similar for INDI?

I'm now stuck though.....Unfortunately APT doesn't have support for my flip-flat yet and I haven't figured out how to use it in Indigo yet as it's not yet a fully supported device. This means I can't fully utilise everything. INDI supports everything but the focusing is an issue. INDIGO does allow me to focus properly but I have no support for my flip-flat and can't focus in APT properly. I would like to get everything working all at once but for now....at least I have my usb cables running to the mount still and can connect everything up to windows pc for imaging runs.

If anyone has any suggestions.......please chip in.

quick thought.....if INDIGO is backward compatible to INDI (that's the impression I get when reading the VERY limited resources I've found).....could I load the INDI flip-flat driver into INDIGO ?

I just want ot report that I had similar problems with my UPB focuser. It used to work correctly some time ago but now it misbehaves. I reverted back to my DMFC from before I acquired the UPB and everything works well there. I guess something changed between an earlier version of the UPB driver and the current one but I haven<t investigated it as I had a fallback option. I would prefer using the UPB as that would require less cables but I'll live with my fallback option for the moment.

Thanks for the log, it appears that it is indeed sending the correct command. I will share this with Pegasus and try to find a reason behind this.

I found the issue, it was a stupid mistake by my part in the last update. It's now fixed in GIT and should be in the next nightly release. Please test and report back.

Thanks Jasem, I'll give the UPB a try again, hopefully soon.

Thanks Jasem, I too will give it a try and report back

Tested this morning and it works !

on power up the focuser is reporting its position correctly and I am able to focus in/out repeatedly and by however much I set in the step size box.

obviously haven't tested autofocus yet but as soon as I get some clear skies I'll report back.

Thank-you very much for sorting this out so quickly Jasem. As I mentioned I'm testing INDIGO out too and so far INDI/Stellarmate is winning as INDIGO doesn't support my flip-flat yet and this little issue seems to have been sorted in very quick time. They are writing a driver for me to test though so you both get 100% for support.

quick supplemenatry question......I have Stellarnmate OS installed on one SD card and Indigo sky installed on another. Am I right in thinking that while testing both options out, I'm ok to power down and swap OS's without fear of casuing harm to anything ? I can't see any reason why it should.

Thanks again
Jack