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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Multiple USB Serial Devices (FTDIs and such)

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As I continue to build out my observatory and add devices, I'm getting swamped by all the gadgets that use FTDI serial devices (or something equivalent) yielding an arbitrary "ttyUSB??" device assignment. I know how to use udev in Linux to create symlinks by serial number (which many do not have) or by physical port number, but is there a way to tell the various INDI drivers to look at a specific device name (/dev/focuser, for example, being a symlink to ttyUSB2)? Or is there some other way to disambiguate these devices so that everything works properly? My workaround is to add more Pi's, NUC's, etc. for these gadgets, and that just gets old, and somewhat klunky!
5 years 2 months ago #34217

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Yes, just enter those names instead of the ttyUSB ones in the connect tab, and maybe disable search. That's what I do, /dev/focus, /dev/eqmod etc. - works like a charm.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Doug Pontius
5 years 2 months ago #34220

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Do you know if this works for remote INDI connections as well? I had seen that and tried it, but it seems most of the time it just ignores the "SET" button when I click it and does nothing. I guess I need to find the error logs and see if I can figure out why.
5 years 1 month ago #34354

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The SET command should update the field alongside the one edited in the UI, but does need to be followed by a SAVE in the options tab.

indilib.org/support/tutorials/157-persis...al-port-mapping.html

Example adding each device to /lib/udev/rules.d/99-observatory.rules.
# focuserPro - Moonlite Focuser (QinHeng Electronics HL-340)
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="1a86", ATTRS{idProduct}=="7523", MODE="0666", SYMLINK+="focuser"

# Mach1 Mount (FTDI FT32 Serial UART)
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0403", ATTRS{idProduct}=="6001", ATTRS{serial}=="A105Q7RY", MODE="0666", SYMLINK+="mount"

After definitions, reboot to make effective, the devices can then be referred to as:
/dev/focuser
/dev/mount
/dev/roofCtrl
etc.

More unlikely your problem but an unresolved issue I have with using mapping.

Created udev rule & changed from /dev/ACM0 variable device id to /dev/roofCtrl
ls -l /dev/roofCtl should show a link to something like /dev/ACM0

Works okay but at some point connection fails and then find the link has changed to:
ls -l /dev/roofCtrl /dev/roofCtrl -> bus/usb/001/006

A reboot fixes it, but it keeps on happening, find it easier to reassign the USB or ACM device numbers when
needed.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Doug Pontius
5 years 1 month ago #34377

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I have some issue I think related... (or not ;) )
My emodmod mount (NEQ5) works well alone
My focuser "arduino" works well alone

Together, ( I have done some symlinks with udev too) -> it's a mess... sometimes it's working, sometimes not...

For the moment, it's connected to a raspberry pi3. I will try to a PC... in order to know if it's a "linux" issue (kernel/usb stack) or a raspi Usb HW issue...
5 years 1 month ago #34456

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disable the search function. That messes up more things than it solves. (Since it opens ports already open by another driver and sending the handshake command, many devices get confused. There should be a lock or unique access on the tty devices opened to avoid this)

Paul
5 years 1 month ago #34481

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Sorry for the slow follow-up. This looks like exactly what I need.
5 years 1 month ago #34576

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Yeah, I hadn't found that tutorial before; That looks like the info that I've been missing. I do have udev rules set up on my systems, but getting the INDI config to save my overrides seems to be the crux of my issue.
5 years 1 month ago #34577

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Okay, everyone, thanks for your help and for the info. I finally got it working. I have a Unihedron SQM on one of my machines and for the life of me, couldn't get it to come up properly. That is, until I went into the SQM config XML file in ~/.indi and did the following manual edits:
- Change the device name from /dev/ttyUSB0 to /dev/sqm (my udev symlink name)
- Change the AUTO_DETECT selections from ENABLED to DISABLED
- Change the baud rate from 9600 to 115200

Perhaps if I had known about the baud rate up front, the auto-detection may have worked. I did not go back to retest.

I don't even know yet what device I have camping on ttyUSB0, but that's the point of this whole discussion, I needed to reference my SQM device symbolically (via udev) so that I could find the correct port; auto-detection was not working, and setting port settings via the GUI did not seem to work no matter how I tried.
The following user(s) said Thank You: djibb
5 years 1 month ago #34764

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Thanks a lot, changing baud rates did the trick !!!
5 years 1 month ago #35125

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