Torben van Hees
Torben van Hees replied to the topic 'Filter Wheel, cannot change filter from EKOS but can from INDI' in the forum. 1 year ago

Yes, I'm on 1.7.5 stable. This is my setup:
A QHY294M and the FW connected to it (not USB), an ASI290MM guider, a ZWO EAF and a RST-135 mount, connected to a RPi 4B with the latest 1.7.5 stable Stellarmate image.
All devices get ample of power from LiFeO4 or mains, through industrial-grade buck-boost converters set to appropriate voltages (15V for the mount, 5V for the RPi, 13.2V for the camera). Ampere limit on each output is 10A (mount, RPi) or 20A (camera). I checked the power quality with an oscilloscope. The peripherals work fine in other software/driver packages with the same cables. The QHY has a huge initial current draw (7A) which prompted me to put it on its own supply. I tried on two different RPi samples. TL;DR: This is not a hardware or power supply problem.

I set everything up and out of the box had the following problems, some of which are not related to the FW issue (so maybe the mods might want to move this):

  • I need to connect the QHY camera to power and wait until the filterwheel has initialised before connecting USB/booting the RPi, otherwise the camera and filterwheel are not recognised.

  • The filterwheel will never connect on the first try: I have to connect the camera, then disconnect everything, then deselect the filterwheel in the "optical trains" dialog, then restart EKOS, then connect the everything again and then select the filterwheelt in the optical trains dialogue again
  • Once that is done, it works from the INDI dialog page of the camera.
  • EKOS only completes one filter change, afterwards it gets stuck on "changing filters". The INDI dialog still works then. A restart of EKOS fixes this sometimes, but sometimes it needs a reboot of the RPi.
  • After a few exposures, the image returned from the camera is all-black and takes a long time (1 minute, approx) to download. There is no error I can find in the logs. This can only be fixed by a reboot of the RPi, not by a restart/reconnect of the camera, EKOS or INDI
    • .
  • In the target section of the app, you can not put in custom RA/DEC coordinates
  • In the guider section of the app, you can not manually select a guide star.

  • You have to manually synchronise the cooling settings between the exposure dialog and the INDI settings, otherwise the camera will switch back and forth between temperatures, eliciting long wait times. Also, there's no way to expose "as is" and not set the cooling.
  • The network settings aren't always retained over a reboot
  • During PA, the refresh will sometimes stop, which needs a full new run
    • .

I then updated with apt-get, hoping this would pull in a more stable version of EKOS/INDI and in addition got the following problem. The other problems were not fixed (although I didn't do much fussing around after this):
  • On connect, the ASI driver will crash. I can not get the guider cam to work anymore, at all.

I tried Stellarmate for the first time three years ago. I have, in the past, wasted a huge amount of time troubleshooting malfunctioning astro equipment and am burned out. If it doesn't work, it doesn't and I move on. I'll leave this bug report here and if you wish, you can work from there - or don't. I don't doubt that this is a project of love with a lot of time and effort poured in, but it's not for me currently.Sorry to be so open, but it was a buggy mess and it still is. I'll check back in another three years if this has changed. Good luck!

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