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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Update Rainbow Astro RST-135(E) driver to allow syncing of star alignment.

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Just had a chance to load the nightly build and test out the new functionality using the RST-135E. In short: perfect!
 
- Enabling Star Alignment in the new Alignment tab does exactly what is expected. Each Sync command from Ekos is not registered in the mount as a 'star match'. With 5 star matches, all 6 modeling parameters are presented (see picture).

  


- Pressing ESC to get out of this menu does give the blank screen as reported by others. Pressing it a few more times will get you back to the main screen
- When disabling the Star Alignment option, new sync commands do not add to the star matches.
- The automatic mount model (Ekos makes a grid of e.g. 6 points and runs them sequentially) did not work. Often after one or two stars, the remaining points would auto populate, and ekos would then hang and ultimately crash. This may very well have to do with the fact that testing was done with the CCD simulator. Remains to be checked 'under the stars'
- Building a model by running manually 5 or 6 goto-sync cycli is a matter of maybe 2-3 minutes, so very fast.
- The new options under motion control to set slew speeds, guiding speed, etc work well too. These are not values that are changed often, but it is nice to have them available when needed.
- A new (?) tab General info shows firmware/serial number as well as voltage and temperature of the mount. By default this is disabled. Is there any harm in enabling it? Perhaps enabled would be a good default.

   

All in all this looks very good. Thank you so much Stephen and Christopher for pulling this together!

Best regards, Willem Jan.


 
The following user(s) said Thank You: Jasem Mutlaq, Stephen Wong
Last edit: 2 years 4 months ago by W J Drijfhout.
2 years 4 months ago #77949
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Thanks for testing, Willem.

Regarding "automatic mount model": Am I assuming correctly you're using the "Mount Model Tool" which can be started in EKOS Align Tab by the button "Mount Model"? I tried this with CCD simulator as well and I did not observe any issues. But I will test it again tomorrow. Did EKOS crash or the hand controller?

Regarding Firmware Version: There's obviously a small bug in the data field. It seems to append the serial number of the mount which is not intended. This did not happen during my tests but to be honest, I somehow deleted my mount's serial number. I will try to fix this issue – but most likely will be difficult since I'm not able to test it live.

Regarding pulling of V&T: I made this optional and turned off by default because I was not sure whether everyone is interested in this information and if active in sum three serial commands are being continuously sent (limited by set pull rate) additional to the mount's more important data like RA/DEC & ALT/AZ positions. Unfortunately I did not figure out how to store the setting in the driver's config file yet – this would be the most convenient solution.
Last edit: 2 years 4 months ago by Christopher.
2 years 4 months ago #77951

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Indeed, it is the “mount model tool” I am referring to. It almost seemed like a timing issue, that’s why I thought it might be the CCD simulator. If you have no issues with it, perhaps it is some setting I had not correct in the current test setup. Will try again when there’s some clear skies.

Ah, yes, I see, in log files you would flood important pointing info with unimportant V&T info. We can easily leave it as it is. If you want to know the info, it immediately populates as soon as you enable the pull V&T.

Thanks again for all your work.
2 years 4 months ago #77952

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"If you want to know the info, it immediately populates as soon as you enable the pull V&T." >> Sorry, have to ask one more thing: Enabling the pulling of V&T does immediately populate the serial number in the firmware field? Or immediately populates the log files with the V&T data?
Last edit: 2 years 4 months ago by Christopher.
2 years 4 months ago #77953

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Enabling pull V&T immediately populates the log files with V&T data. Serial number is in there regardless enabling/disabling pull V&T
The following user(s) said Thank You: Christopher
2 years 4 months ago #77954

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Great development! Thank you very much!
One question - does this new star alignment feature need the hand controller to be connected or it's all happening in Ekos?
Thanks!
-- Max S
ZWO AM5. RST-135. AZ-GTI. HEQ5. iOptron SkyTracker.
TPO RC6. FRA400. Rokinon 135 and other lenses.
ZWO ASI2600MC. D5500 modified with UVIR clip-in filter.
ZWO ASI120MM Mini x 2. ZWO 30F4 guider. Orion 50mm guider.
ZWO EAF x 2.
2 years 4 months ago #77969

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I've checked the command works well, even without the iHubo controller. But I would recommended connecting the hand controller - when a star is aligned, there'll be a beep sound from the iHubo and you can see the number of stars aligned from the HC display. At first I thought the HC is kind of bulky, but later I've found it's handy on certain commands. Like I want to HOME the mount I just press and hold ILL.
Last edit: 2 years 4 months ago by Stephen Wong.
2 years 4 months ago #77975

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Willem, I gave the mount model tool a detailed look. I was observing a single (non repeatable) crash of Ekos/KStars as well when using RST-135. Interestingly though is that a crash can be repeatably forced by either hitting "pause" during the automatic alignment routine or hitting "stop" no matter when. I tried it with simulator drivers only (no real hardware connected) and the same behaviour was observed. Can you please test this as well? It should occur by just opening the mount model tool and then hitting the stop button on the very bottom-right corner.
Ekos Debugger shows this when it happens:
Thread 1 "kstars" received signal SIGABRT, Aborted.
__GI_raise (sig=sig@entry=6) at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/raise.c:50
#0  __GI_raise (sig=sig@entry=6) at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/raise.c:50
#1  0xb3a01230 in __GI_abort () at abort.c:79
#2  0x00816b3a in Ekos::MountModel::resetAlignmentProcedure (this=0x343b0c8) at ./kstars/ekos/align/mountmodel.cpp:992
#3  0xb4579380 in QMetaObject::activate(QObject*, int, int, void**) () from /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libQt5Core.so.5
#4  0xb4ded104 in QAbstractButton::clicked(bool) () from /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libQt5Widgets.so.5
#5  0xb4ded340 in ?? () from /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libQt5Widgets.so.5
Backtrace stopped: previous frame identical to this frame (corrupt stack?)

I noticed a function "abort()" getting called in KStar's mountmodel.cpp "MountModel::resetAlignmentProcedure()" as well as in "MountModel::startStopAlignmentProcedure()" when hitting "pause". Maybe abort() is a little too harsh?
@Jasem: Any ideas on that? I think there's a bug in the mount modeling tool.
 
2 years 4 months ago #77986

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Christopher, yes, the same thing happens here. Just pressing the stop button in the mount model tool crashes KStars. Makes no difference if I have the RST-135E selected, or using the mount simulator.
Same happens on Ubuntu as well on Mac. Both running Kstars 3.5.7 Beta.
2 years 4 months ago #77997

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Just noted another strange thing. Under the Connection tab, there are no options to configure which serial port to use. It connects well, perhaps because the required info is still in the configuration file?
Is this something that could have changed due to the update? Is there something I may have missed?

 
2 years 4 months ago #78021
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This does not look like that on my system – all normal here. Steven, can you check please?
2 years 4 months ago #78033

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Mine looks like this.... appears to be normal.

Willem can you try at the Options Tab, and Purge Configuration once, and restart INDI and see if the port comes back?
 
2 years 4 months ago #78034
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