Report Back. “Shiny new Black Box”

[Nico13]

Well my new SX Superstar guide camera turned up yesterday, Oh look it’s raining again, :mad2: nothing changes. :P

Just thought I’d give a report on my setup with the 5 Port BELKIN LAN USB Hub and the new guide camera.
As it was expected I did have issues using the Belkin 5 port USB LAN hub and those suspicions have been born out.
See the original thread here “Shiny new Black Box (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=95579)”

Last night connected up all the gear and as was thought the new camera and PHD via the Belkin Hub failed to work to the point that the hub rejected it (the new camera) said it was drawing too much current, not so with the Toucam, so I had to connect a secondary powered USB hub to the LAN hub for the camera to be recognised and while not completely crashing the computer like it (the Belkin LAN hub, with Toucam & PHD) did it still caused PHD to stop working as soon as you started capturing.
I did try it with the SX Superstar supplied drivers and also the ASCOM drivers, both would connect ok but as soon as capture started things went wrong, slightly different things with the different drivers but the outcome was the same. :(

So at this stage it would seem that the money has been wasted on this particular hub and that’s a shame as the control software for the hub is excellent and the ability to connect and disconnect individual devices at will is fantastic, it also has no issues with my SLR control software even better, BUT and it’s big but, put it all together and the guide camera just won’t play the game.

Does anyone know of a LAN based USB Hub that will handle everything???
Would love to here from you if you do. :help:

Made lots of additions in the last six to eight months so the budget is being stretched for anything much more, you know SWMBO will be on my tail so I have a couple of other options still open I guess and they would be to,

1 Find a different LAN USB Hub that does work with everything.
(I should have asked more questions here before buying the Belkin Hub)

2 I have a wireless router that will accept the Belkin Hub but it also has a
single USB input for a web camera, don’t know if this would work with
PHD and the SX Superstar though.

3 Steal the wife’s laptop and use it as a remote computer.
( she doesn’t use it much anymore as she has her iPad)

Comments welcomed

Cheers.

[DavidTrap]

It's not LAN based, but I am working with this combination at up to 20metres. I acknowledge these aren't the cheapest USB extensions, but they do work for me at a distance of >5metres at USB 2 speeds.

The Lindy system is advertised at working up to 54metres. They have proprietary hubs, but I managed to use an existing Belkin 4 port powered hub.

Link (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showpost.php?p=723058&postcount=1)

DT

[Nico13]

Thanks David,
I recall you said somthing about these in my original post or I saw your other post.
Do you have this permanently hooked up?
If not and you have to connect each time you setup do you have issues with device recognition and or dynamic port selection causing problems if you don't connect to the same port each time? :question:

[DavidTrap]

The devices are plugged into the same ports of the Belkin hub - they stay connected inside the box that sits under the scope. However, I'm not religious about picking the same USB socket on the laptop. Seems to work reliably.

DT

[mithrandir]

Some of the QHY cameras are a real pain if you don't always plug them in to the same port. My QHY8 always goes in the left hand USB port on the notebook to avoid reinstalling drivers every time I plug it in. Sounds like the QHY5 is better behaved.

[DavidTrap]

To be honest I no longer have the QHY5 - upgraded to a Lodestar.

DT

[hikerbob]

I hope this is relevant to some, I spotted the following earlier which might be of interest to some looking for the kind of functionality mentioned earlier http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=15723

All Linux based but it's a space worth keeping an eye on, I'm going to try out some of the apps on my Ubuntu setup (had a Raspberry on order for a while). I'm especially interested in the Astrometry stuff, something I started to consider trying to do a couple of years ago but didn't know enough to try.

Bob