Rob,

Everything is now working as it’s supposed to!

My alignment/plate solve issues came from multiple causes. Due to driver issues, I couldn’t manually enter in RA and DEC position to sync a more accurate position that would allow for a successful plate solve. With my new EQDirect cable and using EQMOD, the mount now accepts the synced coordinates. With a better understanding of how alignment works, I made sure my Park position was set to Polaris, I always start each session pointing towards the pole, and I always end each session by re-Parking the mount. Alignment is super accurate now - repeatedly down to 7 arc seconds error.

The reason my mount would randomly stop slewing was because I had inadvertently set my battery pack to “pass through” power from the battery charger. Because the mount requires at least 3 amps, and the battery charger can only deliver 2 amps at most, this was causing the mount to undervolt and abruptly stop during high speed slewing.

I have not yet tested the newly compiled DMG for improved QHY driver performance. My recipe for success to get back to business here is to take a big step back, then take some baby steps forward, and solve one thing at a time. Trying to immediately use all of my equipment at once was spelling disaster for me. Best thing to do is to get one Ekos tab working at a time. Now that I can successfully work the alignment tab well, maybe next time I’m doing this I’ll take another look at autoguiding and play around with the QHY again.

Here’s a test image of M42 I took a could couple days ago, after a successful alignment. Thanks everyone for all of your help!! Sorry I was so frustrated. Glad to be back at it again!

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