The main practical advantage is that we can use cheap USB A to B cables instead of the expensive / proprietary EQMod cables. Using standard USB cables makes it easier to find the right cable length, which improves cable management. Beside the cost/availability benefit, EQMod cables have an odd shape USB connector, and they don't always fit into my USB hubs correctly. Plus, RJ45 connectors have a nasty habit of snagging on everything.

I suspect there are other benefits. I like that it runs at 115200bps instead of 9600bps, but I'm not sure how much that really matters.

All that stuff seems kind of stilly, but I've found that there are a bunch of real world benefits, especially when I'm sitting in freezing temperatures after dark in the middle of nowhere trying to get my equipment up and running.

Nice find! I had an ASAIR that wasn't working and I could not tinker with it like I could with astroberry, which led me down exactly the same path as you.

Astroberry before rpi-update:
[ 5467.485644] usb 1-1.2: new full-speed USB device number 10 using dwc_otg
[ 5467.619027] usb 1-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=067b, idProduct=23d3, bcdDevice= 4.05
[ 5467.619047] usb 1-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 5467.619060] usb 1-1.2: Product: USB-Serial Controller
[ 5467.619071] usb 1-1.2: Manufacturer: Prolific Technology Inc.
[ 5467.619082] usb 1-1.2: SerialNumber: A8COb19B616

Astroberry after rpi-update:
[ 391.746973] usb 1-1.5: new full-speed USB device number 4 using dwc_otg
[ 391.880389] usb 1-1.5: New USB device found, idVendor=067b, idProduct=23d3, bcdDevice= 4.05
[ 391.880417] usb 1-1.5: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 391.880433] usb 1-1.5: Product: USB-Serial Controller
[ 391.880448] usb 1-1.5: Manufacturer: Prolific Technology Inc.
[ 391.880463] usb 1-1.5: SerialNumber: A8COb19B616
[ 391.984895] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
[ 391.987019] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for generic
[ 391.993006] usbcore: registered new interface driver pl2303
[ 391.994878] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for pl2303
[ 391.995467] pl2303 1-1.5:1.0: pl2303 converter detected
[ 391.996487] usb 1-1.5: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0

I spent three days tearing my hair out pleading with ZWO and SkyWatcher support for them only telling me to change the baud rate.. very frustrating.

UPDATE: After using astroberry I am quite interested now to look at what appears to be a more polished stellarmate. Hoping ASIAR will let me return the controller. KStars is amazing!

Hi starsyphon,
I'm glad this helped!
Open source and full INDI compatibility has been a big selling point for the Stellarmate. I'm definitely glad I went with it, especially as I started adding more equipment to my astro-rig.

Interesting thread... good to see that a solution was ultimately available.


What an interesting design choice, though. It's kind of half-assed, really.

If I were designing this, I would have designed into the mount a powered USB 3.0 hub, then take an internal USB connection for the USB-serial connection of the mount controller. Then they'd be left with 3 USB ports that can be set aside as USB sockets on the control panel to connect other devices to. Or they could create a second hub to provide a total of 6 USB sockets.

That’s thinking in a practical way. But thinking in a commercial way, you would have designed the mount exactly like this so people would need to buy additional hubs to get all hardware working. It’s all about the money

I have mixed feelings about incorporating fast moving technology into long-lived technology. I expect I could get a 10-20 year life out of the EQ6R, but I'm confident most of my equipment will be USB-C a few years from now.

As an aside, I learned that a USB type-B connector will fit into the hand-controller slot, and that it'll short the slot out. I really appreciate the Pegasus UPV right now.

> I found this document suggesting that 23d3 support was added in Linux 5.5

I was debugging the very same problem for days and looking for this very information. This line is the very reason why I am still sane (not completely though)!

Thanks.

You definitely don't need to compile it yourself. `rpi-update` and its pre-compiled kernels is your friend and worked very well for me.

I explained and listed all of the steps I took here, hope it's OK to share;

How to connect EQ6-R Pro to AsiAIR (inc. other Raspberry PI solutions) through USB type B cable

I also updated StellarMate to Kernel 5.10 and would release an updated image in a couple of days.

Yay! Thank you so much Jasem! I'll be very happy to be back on a stable/supported kernel.

Hi Astronoob,

Thank you for documenting that process. I'm happy the information was helpful!

Hi , because of this error 3 times integrated değiştirdim.Ve I bought 3 new cards.3.I got my card 2 months ago,it worked well from the beginning.On the night of my vacation, he started not seeing a usb connection.Asi air does not see the connection after the last update, How do we handle this core business,I do not know about it,I am very depressed, the sky is open for 5 days and I can not shoot