laptop/stellarium control of LX90 GPS

[astroturf (Bryan)]

Hi everybody
its been a long time since i graced these pages
kinda lost interest due to the light polluting new houses being built around me (new neighbour has about 50 lights around his house that turn on when it gets dark) & being to busy to head for the darker skies periodically

the good news is I'm probably going to move out of Sydney to a rural location where the cosmos will once again appear for me unimpeded

I have a new laptop now and have lost all the software that was loaded onto the old one that would control the scope via stellarium by our dear friend Barry Gerdes

can anybody give me a step by step guide on the finer details of the required parameters for ascom platform, and stellarium scope and of course the suitable versions that i should be downloading

thanks in advance

Bryan

[Scorpius (Dave)]

Suggest you look through the Projects and Articles folder. Though as far as I can seen there is nothing about interfacing using Windows 10. A number of issues have been found with windows 10 and conflicts with Ascom/EQmod/CDC setups. There also appears to be issues in W10 with Stellarium.

I have been out of action for quite some time and finding that I just cannot connect my SW EQ6Pro to a new Dell Laptop running Win10. This also has been an issue with other software. MS removed a load of DLLs from Win 10 although some have been addressed by private individuals.

You may find this article of interest or, if it works? I am getting a bit old in the tooth to care much these days


http://forums.dc3.com/showthread.php...7734#post67734

Dave Perth WA

[gaseous (Patrick)]

I'm in a similar situation to you Bryan - I can use Stellarium on a W10 laptop when it's connected to the scope with cables, but I've recently bought a Synscan Wifi adapter, and with trying to get the wifi adapter, the required ASCOM driver, Stellarium and Stellariumscope to all play nicely to allow wireless control, I'm about ready to heave my scope onto the roof.

[astroturf (Bryan)]

thanks Pat and Dave
its starting to look like w10 is the culprit
I have tried different versions of ascom drivers for my scope and different r232 adapters to no avail

its really annoying to know that it worked wonderfully on my old clunker (laptop) with windows xp

I'm a bit challenged as far as altering things on w10 goes, so i'll just have to go with it, & look at books when I want to find something via the handset

cheers
Bryan

[madwayne (Wayne)]

Welcome back to the fold Bryan. Nice to see you posting and getting back in to it. If you want a taste of regional living you can always come down to Robertson, plenty of serenity down here, for a visit. Bring your laptop and LX90 and we can have a crack at getting it going, shouldn't be too hard.

We've got a small group going down here that get together from time to time. When it is clear of the mist and cloud down here it's cracking particularly South over Babe's Farm, our back neighbour.

Wayne

[gaseous (Patrick)]

Originally Posted by astroturf

thanks Pat and Dave
its starting to look like w10 is the culprit
I have tried different versions of ascom drivers for my scope and different r232 adapters to no avail

its really annoying to know that it worked wonderfully on my old clunker (laptop) with windows xp

I'm a bit challenged as far as altering things on w10 goes, so i'll just have to go with it, & look at books when I want to find something via the handset

cheers
Bryan

Hi Bryan, my setup is different to yours (goto dob), and before the recent purchase of a Wifi adapter I'd never used any ASCOM drivers, but the most recent version that I've seemed to get working is 6.3. I believe there were other peripheral things I needed to download as well, which you should be prompted for on the ASCOM site. You might also need to make sure your W10 has all the recent updates - I found the latest version of Stellarium has some sort of MS Visual C++ error (whatever that is), before I updated Windows for the first time in ages. I could do up a list of the steps I've taken to get my scope to connect wirelessly to my laptop via Synscan Pro (the wifi adapter app)/StellariumScope/Stellarium if you like, but I'm not sure how much would be applicable to an EQ mount. It's a trial and error process and I've only done it inside (without star alignment), but I can control the scope via Stellarium wirelessly at least.

[ChrisV (Chris)]

I might be able to help. I'm not using an lx90. But am using onstep which uses the meade lx protocol in stellarium - via ascom and stellarium scope.

I'll pm

[astroturf (Bryan)]

Originally Posted by madwayne

Welcome back to the fold Bryan. Nice to see you posting and getting back in to it. If you want a taste of regional living you can always come down to Robertson, plenty of serenity down here, for a visit. Bring your laptop and LX90 and we can have a crack at getting it going, shouldn't be too hard.

We've got a small group going down here that get together from time to time. When it is clear of the mist and cloud down here it's cracking particularly South over Babe's Farm, our back neighbour.

Wayne

Hey Wayne long time
hope you dont live to far from that great pie shop in the sky
thought you ended up in Bargo for some reason
I'll drop you a pm soon


on the topic , I should mention all ascom & stellarium software seems normal
when I get to the point where I connect it says" com1 (or 2-15) does not exist "

Cheers
Bryan

[Scorpius (Dave)]

I am not sure if this is related, but I have 3 FTDI cables 2 actually from FTDI and one using the FTDI module I got from the UK They are looking into my issues there. So may be some interesting info.
However I noticed that in addition to locking my computer the EQ6Pro Syn scan system was affecting/being affected the lock up. This evening I set up My 10" DOB on the EQ6 and it was behaving rather strange. making strange noises when only partially moving in a direction. I removed the scope and went through settings and noise stopped and movement was full arc. BUT!..
Now when I try to goto the Moon from Park it goes to the Zenith (I am in Perth Western Australia) way off course I was checking it out for the eclipse tomorrow.(31st) And yet going to Orion stars OK and M42 from Park is OK also going from Orion to Acrux. Strange.... I have downloaded the firmware etc from Skywatcher Web site and will Play some more tomorrow morning.
Hopefully this interfacing issue has not caused and damage to the Synscan board. I had to replace that earlier in the piece when a Voltage reg blew on the board. Hopefully those boards are still obtainable?

[Scorpius (Dave)]

Update: I went into the Skywatcher Website and downloaded firmware/software for the SynScan controller (V3.*) and setup on my Dell780SFF computer and plugged in a new cable I got from the UK which has USB in encapsulated FTDI module and long 3 pair cable terminated in an RJ11 plug. Following the Skywatcher instruction PDF I plugged the cable into the Dell and into the RJ11 socket on the handpiece, powered by a 12V source.
Device manager said cable was on COM6 and working. Running the SW installer app, it found the cable, port and firmware. I then installed the latest V3.* Firmware.
At the same time I have also checked out the two other FTDI cable I have and they also worked with the SW sotware/firmware. So in fact ran the updates 3 times.
Installing the Handpiece back onto the Synscan controller, is a bit tricky as the new firmware has a preconfigured solar function which auto boots initially. Juggling the esc/setup/enter buttons resulted in bringing up the Setup menu. I have not found any "New Instructions" but going through the Utilities there are many new functions, including a "Factory Reset" Plus a long winded warning on precautions using the device for solar viewing. (Do not use this function without the right protective gear!)
In summary these cables do work! as shown by the above and this leads me to think that the issues of not finding the drivers and unable to connect normally using WIN10/Ascom/EQmod/CDC or Stellarium Appears to be in the WIN10 setup because in WIN7 I experienced no issues with the earlier FTDI Cables.

Using the SW Updater App is a good way of electronically checking the cables even if you do not update.
Link to Skywatcher software etc. http://skywatcher.com/download/software/

Dave.

[madwayne (Wayne)]

Hi Bryan

We have a bakery in the main street that has far better pies than the Pie Shop. They're not open on Sundays but this is going way off topic. Did I mention the great pizza place in the main street too

I think your connection issue is something to do with the properties in device manager. I assume you're looking to connect LX90 to laptop wired ie no wifi unit? I drive my goto dob with the Orion wifi interface and it is the only way to go. Using Sky Safari Pro I can keep all my observations recorded. Don't do any astrophotography anymore. The observing side of things is so much more sociable not too mention completely hassle free. Plonk the dob down in the driveway and observing in a minute or two as dobby lives in the garage.

Shoot me the pm, I'll give you my address and you can bring your gear down and give it a whirl. Are you still a member of SASI (I'm not but still in contact via Facebook with most of the crew)?

Wayne