Lee Peterson replied to the topic 'Nexdome Beaver will not slave' in the forum. 1 year ago

Fixed! (Also posted on cloudy nights)

It seems that the dome will not start following the mount unless the mount is in its programmed park position. What I mean is that the mount needs to be in the position programmed as "park" in the hand controller. I have an ioptron CEM120EC2, so no doubt this is related to that driver plus the NexDome beaver.

The root cause was that I set that "park" position to west side vertical to prevent mechanical interference with the dome. Its a tight fit. However, I ordinarily start my observing session from the "zero" position since that makes it easier for me to fit into the dome and access my computer. In kstars, when I select my alignment target near the pole, it thinks that the mount is parked. But the dome apparently does not. So when I use kstars to move the mount to a target, the dome ignores it.

Here's what works:

- Assume the mount is pointing somewhere other than its programmed "park" position
- In the ekos dome tab, park the dome
- In the ekos mount tab, park the mount (and get out of the way!)
- In the ekes dome tab, unpark the dome. Now, the dome moves to align with the mount park position
- In the ekos mount tab, unpark the mount (this might work too from kstars, but I haven't tried that one)

Now the dome is slaved to the mount and one can proceed as normal.

If the developers see this, maybe a new feature might be a button under the ekos/dome tab to have the dome re-sync and follow the mount from any state or position. Just a suggestion.

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