Thank you very much Hy! I did not get your email, it must have been filtered out by the mail app. It is great you have created a new version of the AP driver, which badly needed updating as the last time I used it it almost caused a pier crash. I will give it a go in about a month's time when I re-unite with my gear (I am away from home at the moment) and see how it goes! Thank you for the hard work!

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Is there any update re: this new driver for CP3 / CP4?

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Thank you Mike. I will give it a go!

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Thank you LinuxUser. I will give it a go next time.

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@Mike - the Onstep is very interesting. I am a tinkerer and some electronic skills, and have previously built various circuits including my own dew heat controller. Therefore I am quite tempted to give Onstep a try - sounds like I can get a lot of what a CP4 or CP5 can do at a fraction of the cost. The difficulty though I suspect, with a project like this, is the lack of documentations - I do not know what stepper motor or geared motor is in my Mach1, and I also do not know the pin out of the various connectors. I suspect this is going to make it hard to adapt Onstep onto the Mach1...

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I like my AP mount and telescope too much to give them up. Before AP I had iOptron which was far from satisfactory and an NEQ6 which was a lot better but still not the same league. So I will just have to suck up and keep using Windows until an open source driver becomes available. Disappointing I know but imaging time is too precious to be wasted due to mount issue and my AP is a keeper for this reason.

AP did say in a technical document (link below) they are prepared to give limited information to allow Mac/Linux users to make something useful. Certainly they gave info to the developer of SkySafari and Luminos such that those iOS app can drive the mount. So may be there is hope?

astro-physics.info/tech_support/mounts/q...t-workflow-guide.pdf

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I have gone through all six pages of posts in this thread. In the middle of this thread there is some comment about the park and unpack state at first boot up. I have come across an PDF from astrophysics which states that for firmware version S and before, the mount will immediately begin tracking upon start up, whereas after that version the mount will not track until it is told to do so. It also states that when you just turn off the mount without parking first the mount will store its current position and on power up resume from the same position. I wonder if this explains some of the confusion mentioned in those posts...

astro-physics.info/tech_support/mounts/p...ositions-defined.pdf

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Thanks Wotalota. I will give it a try.

I wonder if it is of value to monitor the serial communication between PC and mount on a functional Windows set up and see how the Windows driver initiate the mount? It is something I can potentially help with if it will help the driver development.

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I am using Indi with indistarter and ccdciel. I can see that the Mount is initialised with date time and location information. However I cannot seem to unpark the Mount and therefore I do not know if the Mount knows where it is pointing. There is a cold start button on the control panel.

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@wotalota - sorry I think I have mistaken send my post to the thread directly to you earlier.

Hi all,

I am new to this forum and also new to INDI. I image wth with AP Mach1 with GTOCP3 firmware version V2 and I have been using Windows/ASCOM but I now would like to make a move to linux / INDI / CCDCiel. To this end I have purchased myself a RPi4 and put all the required software on it. However, I have since discovered that the mount is not working properly under INDI. Specifically, it will not park to or un-park from Park 3 position. This is how I found this thread.

I am wondering if there is any update to the fix of the driver please? If not, can someone please tell me if there is any workaround to enable me to at least use the mount even with reduced capability? I normally use Park 3 but would be happy to try other park position if this will mean that it can work.

Not sure if it matters from I am from New Zealand therefore I am west of the Greenwich and also South of the Equator, which I suspect will add to the complexity.

Thank you

Henry

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Hello all, I am new to this group and new to INDI. I am still mainly using Windows / ASCOM but I really want to switch to Linux and use CCDCiel or EKOS. To this end I have purchased a RPi4 and have it set up with all the software. However, on testing it seems that the mount is not working properly and specifically it seems to have problem parking and un-parking to/from Park 3. This is how I found this thread.

I am wondering if there is any update about potential fix for the problems with the driver? If one is not forthcoming in the near future, is there a workaround so that I can use my mount with INDI / CCDCiel? I do not mind parking and un-parking to/from a different position if that means it will work. If it matters, I am in New Zealand so I am east of Greenwich and also south of the Equator which I suspect will add to the complexity....

Thank you

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