I ended up buying a Pegasus FocusCube 2 which works great with Stellarmate.
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Hi,
When updating Stellarmate yesterday (KStars Build: 2022-01-23T11:52:31Z) the parking behaves really strange.
I set the parking position like this:
Hi,
I was in contact with iOptron support. They recommended me to upgrade the mount firmware.
So I upgraded from 210105 -> 210605 and can now confirm that it works fine with Stellarmate v1.6.1
So it turned out to be a bug in the mount firmware - good to know for any CEM40/45 user out there!
Thanks for your support in this forum!
Cheers, Åke
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Maybe this helps someone; I had the exact same issue with my CEM40 and spent many hours trying to figure out why the write error suddenly appeared.
It turned out it was the USB cable that came with the mount that was bad. Since I replaced the USB cable I've never had an I/O error.
I have seen posts in the FB iOptron group where people have had the same issue/solution.
Cheers, Åke
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I agree, It's probably not Ekos.
I'll try to get in contact with iOptron, and keep you informed here.
Thanks a lot for your support.
// Åke
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OK, so I have made several tests now and have come to the conclusion that the mount doesn't persist the meridian limit I set with the hand controller.
So if I set a new value, e.g. 6 deg (Ekos 2 deg as always) and start tracking somewhat west of the meridian, the it works as expected and Ekos flips when it passed the meridian by 2 deg.
If I then turn off and on the mount, check that the hand controller still shows 6 deg, start a tracking west of meridian, then the mount decides to flip exactly at the meridian. I.e. as I would have set it to zero deg...!
If I then again change the value (arbitrary, let's say 5 deg) and do the tracking again, then it works as expected (i.e. Ekos flips 2 deg after the meridian).
So I need to always have the hand controller connected and always change the flip limit in the hand controller before the session for it to behave as expected.
To me this looks like a bug in CEM40, right? Shouldn't the mount persist the value from the hand controller? Or at least use the current value in the hand controller?
Any thoughts?
Cheers,
// Åke
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Hi Wolfgang,
Thanks for the reply.
What you see is exactly my problem.
The slews and parkings are made manually by me (from within Ekos), not by Ekos nor the mount itself.
I slew to a position near (1 or 2 degrees) and west of the meridian. then, after a few minutes, exactly when the mount reaches the meridian, it stops tracking.
So Ekos correctly haven't yet seen the necessity to do the flip.
The mount is configured to stop 5 degrees after the meridian and Ekos 2 degrees after the meridian.
In the CEM40's hand controller there is no way to disable the meridian treatment, I can only choose between STOP or FLIP and choose degrees between +0 and +14.
I even tried +14 but it doesn't help, the tracking still stops at the meridian.
I will check if it makes a differens to choose FLIP instead in the hand controller.
I will also test to set everything and then disconnect Ekos and see if it the mount behaves differently when it's "on its own".
Cheers, Åke
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Hi Ron,
It's not exactly the same problem I have, but I recognise yours since I had similar issues earlier.
For you I guess the time and/or location are different in KStars vs your mount. Please make sure you let Kstars update both of those.
My problem is that (it seems) the mount stops the tracking each time it passes the meridian, even if I set it to stop 5 degrees past the meridian.
I hope someone has a clue why this happens.
// Åke
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Hi again,
A quick update; I thought I solved the problem, but unfortunately not.
I did a complete reset of the mount with the hand controller ("Reset All Settings"), set home position and so on.
Then I got the meridian flip to work - only once - but then it behaves like before again... I'm going crazy on this!
// Åke
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Hi Wolfgang,
I've changed to "KStars updates all devices".
Three times in a row the same thing happens, that is when the target hits the meridian Ekos stops tracking (mount is set to stop when HA > 5 and Ekos flip when HA > 2 degrees).
Please see the attached logs. All shows 'Mount status changed from "Tracking" to "Idle"' when the target hits the meridian.
Please let me know if there is any other setting you want me to try out.
Cheers, Åke
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OK, so I reproduced it today. And even more strangely, I've set the mount to stop when HA > 10 deg and Ekos to to a flip when HA > 2 deg.
So the mount stopped moving when Ekos said "Meridian flip in 00:08:01 (see pic)
As you also can see in the other pic taken a few minutes afterwards, the scope has stopped before the meridian while KStars continues to track the selected star.
I also set the mount to update Time and Location in KStars and I also verified that this was the case before the flip. Both time and location were in sync.
Attached is the debug log file.
Grateful for any help.
Cheers, Åke
OK, so I reproduced it today. And even more strangely, I've set the mount to stop when HA > 10 deg and Ekos to to a flip when HA > 2 deg.
So the mount stopped moving when Ekos said "Meridian flip in 00:08:01 (see pic)
As you also can see in the other pic taken a few minutes afterwards, the scope has stopped before the meridian while KStars continues to track the selected star.
I also set the mount to update Time and Location in KStars and I also verified that this was the case before the flip. Both time and location were in sync.
Attached is the debug log file.
Grateful for any help.
Cheers, Åke
I'm almost certain, but let me double check tomorrow when I will try to reproduce the behaviour.
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Thanks for the reply Wolfgang and for some good advice.
I've just done some experiments, and it seems the recommended +3 degrees (added to the Ekos HA limit) on the hand controller is on the verge.
When I set HA > 2 degrees in Ekos and 5 degrees in the mount, the mount performs the flip when Ekos says it's 8:01 minutes left to the flip.
Turning up the limit in the mount to 10 degrees works flawlessly.
Cheers,
// Åke
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