DIY ICX453AQ, Sony sensor CCD camera - Page 33

pat30 (Patrice) · #**641** 02-03-2017, 04:24 PM

error

pat30 (Patrice) · #**642** 02-03-2017, 04:25 PM

Yes the scroll-bars do not serve, it takes too much room unnecessarily.

For the TEC the ideal would be to be able to regulate the starting power and the maximum power (I do not know if it is possible), like that, each person would make its adjustment according to its TEC.

Thank for you work.

luka · #**643** 02-03-2017, 05:28 PM

Brilliant idea Patrice, I will look into limiting the max cooling power as well. It seems possible...

This will be another major software change...

pat30 (Patrice) · #**644** 02-03-2017, 08:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by luka

Brilliant idea Patrice, I will look into limiting the max cooling power as well. It seems possible...

This will be another major software change...

To go even further and have a much better cooling, it would also be necessary to add an adjustment for the frequency of the PWM because 1hz is too little and there are losses.
Normally a TEC should never operate at a frequency lower than 45hz.

I make the difficult

Sorry I do not know how to program, I looked at the source code to try to learn with my little notion of ARDUINO but I did not understand even the name of the exit doors

, so I only have the ideas .

luka · #**645** 02-03-2017, 09:37 PM

Hi Patrice,
Unfortunately the pulsing of the TEC is done as software loop with adjustable on/off switching and not as hardware PWM. I already had a look and it is not possible to convert it to hardware PWM as the pin B0 does not support PWM. So we are stuck with software on/off switching.

Now, while ATmega can probably handle the software switching frequency of 45Hz, I think that 45Hz is too low. The thermal stress on the TEC during the on/off switching is high and the PWM frequency should be faster than the TEC's thermal time constants. To avoid premature death most of places recommend PWM of at least 300Hz, some even suggest using between 5KHz to 40KHz.

Changing the timings of the loop is possible but it will have to wait because I don't even have a working cooling on my camera. Plenty of other things to fix at the moment

pat30 (Patrice) · #**646** 02-03-2017, 10:11 PM

That's what it seemed to me, but I did not want to say nonsense, but we just have PB1 and PWM in it, but nothing urgent, being able to set the starting and maximum power will already be a Enormous advanced

luka · #**647** 02-03-2017, 10:45 PM

Working on it, working on it. Have to completely change how settings form interacts with the main ASCOM driver... again.
It may be linked to the bug you found.

gehelem (Gilles) · #**648** 02-03-2017, 10:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by luka

Working on it, working on it. Have to completely change how settings form interacts with the main ASCOM driver... again.
It may be linked to the bug you found.

Again... thank you !

luka · #**649** 02-03-2017, 11:03 PM

By the way, here is the description of the ASCOM camera interface. If you look carefuly you will notice that gain is supported but offset isn't. In other words, the imaging software (APT for example) can read/change the gain but not the offset. In principle APT should not be changing either of the two but if ASCOM provides gain, why not offset as well

luka · #**650** 03-03-2017, 01:14 AM

Just letting you know that the driver won't be finished today. It is close but not there yet. Also the more I change the more I want to change

Time for

pat30 (Patrice) · #**651** 03-03-2017, 02:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by luka

Working on it, working on it. Have to completely change how settings form interacts with the main ASCOM driver... again.
It may be linked to the bug you found.

It is true that I ask a lot .

Quote:

Originally Posted by luka

Time for

No, defended to sleep, at work faster than that

, it should have been finished yesterday

Joke of course !

Quote:

Originally Posted by luka

Also the more I change the more I want to change

I see that I am not alone to have ideas

luka · #**652** 04-03-2017, 01:32 AM

New driver is in the usual spot, version 0.6L and also the new firmware 0.3L.

Changes:
Humidity/dew point information (untested)
Option to enter TEC starting power and TEC max power (untested)
Warnings about possible condensation
Complete rework of how settings work behind the scenes
Added about box
Bug fixes etc...

As before I could not test anything that involves cooling, including any of the new options. I will leave that to the guys with working cooling.

I had a last-minute idea to add warnings when the sensor temperature gets close to the dew-point. There is a box on the top of the settings window without a label with "5" in it. That means that you will get a warning if the sensor temperature is less than 5 degrees above the dew point.
I will need to rework the interface to fit this and a label for it somewhere but not tonight, need to get some rest. Also this value is not getting stored if you close the program (yet), as I said, last minute addition.

So, can you please test everything, and especially things that involve cooling. Again, lots of things were changed so don't rely that anything that worked is still working.

I think we are close to the final version... hm, don't I say that with every new version

P.S. I rearranged files on our GD. Everything is still there but it may have been moved.

pat30 (Patrice) · #**653** 04-03-2017, 02:02 AM

THANK YOU VERY MUCH luka

, I download and test tonight.

luka · #**654** 04-03-2017, 02:08 AM

Just to warn you to expect bugs

TOO MANY things were changed not to have any

pat30 (Patrice) · #**655** 04-03-2017, 03:16 AM

Luka, a first quick test shows some bug:
I do not have the DHT22 just 18bs20 but the temperature and humidity displays Hallucinating values and alert displays.
The Max setting of the TEC is not right there is an offset (set to 80%, stop at 82%)
The gain and offset settings are not backed up correctly after has reopened the box, error of 1 or 2 different, not always the same value (example setting gain 16 offset -17, after Reopening the dialog box gain 15 offset -15)

The departure of the TEC works well and read time also.
No OK button, is it normal?

Here is a first return I continue my search...

Screenshot with error here

Edit: It seems that if you go through the properties before connecting the camera (shift-click) everything works correctly, the settings are saved, and there is the OK button going through there; The bugs are just going through the APT button setting.
The Min setting of the TEC is really useful, descent much faster

.

Great job Luka THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU

About the cooling power setting, it acts on what in reality because it is not on the frequency and you said above that PB0 is just a switch ???

luka · #**656** 04-03-2017, 04:47 PM

Thank you for testing the driver Patrice. I have uploaded the new version, 0.6.1L. The firmware is the same, v0.3L.

I almost had a heart attack when I saw the list of bugs... luckily it was all caused by one problem which was copied and pasted to multiple places. Imagine holding the offset up button so offset goes from 0 to 127. As it increments by one, normally it would send 127 messages to the camera to increase the offset by one - slow and not very good. I had to slow them down using timers and there was a problem there. Of course the same code was reused for multiple parameters (gain, offset, reading time, cooler start and max, slow cooling setting and the condensation warning).

Here is what is going on, I should have probably explained this earlier:
- There is only one settings window now. The parts of the window get hidden, depending if it is opened from ASCOM properties or from the imaging software.
- The missing OK and cancel button when opened from APT is fine as they are not used.
- When opened from APT, the settings are updated "almost" immediately. I said "almost" because, for example, we don't want to change gain half-way through taking an image.
- The result of this is reduced imaging time per image by about 0.2s.
- Note that if you type any values into any of the input fields, you will need to press enter or to click somewhere else before taking a shot. To give an example, if you go to offset box and type 5 and then click "shoot" in APT, the Windows will first start the shooting and then immediately change the gain. The result is that the image will be taken with the old gain and then the next image will be taken with the new gain of 5. This is a Windows thing. You should enter 5 and then press enter and then click on "shoot". Alternatively using the up/down buttons, no enter is needed then.

New additions:
1. I made the software remember and restore the position of the settings (only if settings are opened from APT). I got annoyed with continuously having to move the window out of the way when it got opened.
2. I finished the condensation warning code so it checks for errors now. You should not see false warnings any more. I have also noticed that occasionally the humidity reading returns weird values, probably because we don't have the humidity sensor installed. Not sure.

By the way, the ROI (Region of interest) option in APT is working since I fixed the binning bug

Can you please check for bugs again and if it is working fine redistribute on the webastro so they can do more testing.

pat30 (Patrice) · #**657** 04-03-2017, 04:57 PM

OK, I try again.
Maybe with the MAX setting of the TEC I can remove the regulator for it? How does PB0 work?

pat30 (Patrice) · #**658** 04-03-2017, 05:22 PM

It looks good, I had a small problem with the cooling, the power dropped instead of rising but after I stopped and started again it works, so do not take it into account now.

I give on Webastro to know if someone can test with DHT22 otherwise I would put one.

Thanks again

luka · #**659** 04-03-2017, 05:56 PM

Ah, sorry I forgot to answer that. The TEC settings are percentages of full power. So if you set max to 80, the power will be limited to 80%.

Regarding the PB0, one loop = 1020ms. Within a loop the software:
1. calculates the cooling on and off times using a PID loop. Then
2. Sets PB0 = off
3. Waits the calculated off_time
4. Sets PB1 = on
5. Wats the on_time
repeat

For example, if the cooler is calculated to run at 50% the on_time and the off_time will be 1020ms/2 = 510ms.

Now, in theory we could reduce the time of 1020ms for one cycle to something smaller and this should increase the TEC switching frequency. In theory... but the resolution will suffer. For example reducing this 10x will only give us 10Hz and 100 step resolution. It may be possible to change delays to us... ask me once the main code is done

edit: just saw your messages that arrived while I was typing my message. Regarding power going down, can you try to reproduce what you did when you got a moment and see if it happens again.

gehelem (Gilles) · #**660** 04-03-2017, 06:14 PM

thank you Luka
i can't make deep tests atm, it' my wife's birthday, 65/70 friends at home tonight...
Just a quick one :
i use Nebulosity, it claims the driver is incompatible :
http://www.webastro.net/constellia/i...hp?photo=58347
Where is this log file located ?
But it works under APT :
http://www.webastro.net/constellia/i...hp?photo=58348
I can't test cooler regulation, but DHT22 seems to give good results :-) (same reading under Camview)
Gilles.