×

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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Problem (?) with lx200ap_experimental driver

  • Posts: 47
  • Thank you received: 2
Hello,

I am having a problem initializing and un-parking from the
Ref Park 1 position (northern hemisphere, OTA on west side
of mount pointing north). When the mount is given a command
to slew or track, it rotates in the wrong RA direction, as if it
expected the OTA to be on the *east* side of the mount. I am
using a Mach1 equipped with a GTOCP3 at firmware version V2.
I am using the recently released INDI version 1.7.0 on Ubuntu
18.04 on an Intel i7-based machine.

I downloaded the source to examine it and see if I could spot
the problem. In preparation for doing this, I re-built the driver
per instructions with the DEBUG flag defined, and installed the
resulting driver (obviously larger since debug information was
included), just to make sure I could reproduce the problem that
way. Oddly, the problem disappeared, and the mount un-parked
correctly!

I can continue working this way, but the behavior seems odd,
since supposedly the lx200ap_experimental driver was just
re-released, and should reflect the current source code (?).
There is certainly a problem with the current 1.7.0 binary release
code (installed with apt-get).

Greg
5 years 9 months ago #26400

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 57
  • Thank you received: 12
You didn't happen to capture any logs from both working/unworking sessions did you? The developers would find them very helpful.

You can click on the Logs button next to the Start button and select "File" as location, then select Mount in both the Ekos and Drivers section. The logs will be written under the .indi directory.

I had parking problems as well but have been solved by the latest updates. Hopefully your just seeing a packaging problem.
Last edit: 5 years 9 months ago by DAVID J EISENLORD.
5 years 9 months ago #26429

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 57
  • Thank you received: 12
I did some looking on github for you and there were a lot of change to the AP experimental driver made in early May. 1.7.0 of indi was dated April 8th so it's not going to include the changes for parking and guiding.
Best,
David
The following user(s) said Thank You: Greg
5 years 9 months ago #26439

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 47
  • Thank you received: 2
Hello David,

Thank you very much for responding. Sorry you had to do that
extra work, I will develop that skill and check in future.

I suppose I will just continue with the driver as I have built it,
until the INDI release catches up with the relevant code changes.

With gratitude,

Greg
5 years 9 months ago #26445

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 57
  • Thank you received: 12
No problem.

I may be wrong however !!

I dug into this a bit more as I've recently gone from using source builds on a Mac to a rasberry pi / stellearmate via the standard repositories.
It appears that for the AP driver the latest pi repository is @ 1.7.3 found via.
deisenlord@IkePI: $ apt-cache show indi-bin | grep Version:
Version: 1.7.3~201805251740~ubuntu16.04.1
Version: 1.1.0-1ubuntu1

Looking this up on launchpad.net/~mutlaqja/+archive/ubuntu/ppa for indi-bin yields a date of 5/25/2018 which should encompass the AP driver updates.
So if you had done an apt-get upgrade I would have thought you would have had the AP fixes. Since there isn't an official 1.7.3 release in github I'm going to reach out to Jasem and see if this simple date correlation should hold water.

You might try the above apt-cache show command on your system and see if it says 1.7.3
David
Last edit: 5 years 9 months ago by DAVID J EISENLORD.
5 years 9 months ago #26452

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.


You should be using the PPA version here: www.indilib.org/download/ubuntu.html
5 years 9 months ago #26455

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 47
  • Thank you received: 2
Hello David,

You kindly wrote:

> You might try the above apt-cache show command on your system and see if it says 1.7.3

Here is the (partial) output from that query:
Package: indi-full
Priority: optional
Section: libs
Installed-Size: 8
Maintainer: Jasem Mutlaq <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Architecture: amd64
Version: 1.7.3~201805252020~ubuntu18.04.1

So, it looks to be Version 1.7.3.

Does the mystery deepen? :-)

Greg
5 years 9 months ago #26456

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 47
  • Thank you received: 2
Hello knro,

You graciously responded:

> You should be using the PPA version here: www.indilib.org/download/ubuntu.html

As far as I know, that is what I am doing. I am using the "stable release",
not the "nightly build". Should I be using the nightly build?

Kind of you to respond, considering I am actually running correctly
with the build from source, so not a particularly pressing issue for
me at the moment -- but it may be for others not equipped to build
from source.

Regards,

Greg
5 years 9 months ago #26457

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 57
  • Thank you received: 12
So had you installed originally using apt-get install and had apt-get upgrade before you had the strange behavior? How did you come up with you were running 1.7 of indi?

Another thing to double/triple check is that your location and time are correct. The park positions require converting from ALT/AZ to RA/DEC which requires your location (lat,long) and time/timezone to be correct.

David
The following user(s) said Thank You: Greg
Last edit: 5 years 9 months ago by DAVID J EISENLORD.
5 years 9 months ago #26458

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 47
  • Thank you received: 2
Hello again David,

Thanks once again for your thoughts on this.

You wrote:

> Another thing to double/triple check is that your location and time are correct.
> The park positions require converting from ALT/AZ to RA/DEC which requires
> your location (lat,long) and time/timezone to be correct.

Thanks for the warning, I will be certain to check that next time I am out,
although I am reasonably certain these parameters were correct.

Something to note in that regard was that, without changing any parameters
or settings, simply swapping in the re-built (from source) driver file and
re-connecting made things work correctly (or at least, as expected).

Greg
5 years 9 months ago #26468

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Time to create page: 0.615 seconds