I am hoping somebody can give me some advice here, this is my first thread.
I purchased a Vixen GPD2 mount with the SkySensor 2000 hand control through the IIS classified adds some time ago. Everything was working well initially and was aligning the scope with good accuracy. After lots of cloudy weather and an overseas holiday it was some months when I finally got my scope out again and I took it into the country. However since my last session, the battery in the hand controller died and I had to replace it. No big deal as I am fairly handy as the battery requires soldering in place (correct battery Purchased). I reset the time, location and time zone in the controller (double and quadruple checked since) however, when I do a reference star the scope points absolutely no where near the selected star (40+ Deg off). Even manually slewing to the star and pressing "align" (for the 3 seconds until it beeps to accept the star) is of no help as when I chose a second reference star it will go in the opposite direction to the second selected star. Is there something obvious I am missing or other additional information that needs to be reset in the hand controller?
I have been through the SS2K user guide and checked everything I can but there are some settings that I do not understand and are not explained in the manual. My current set-up is Orion ED80T CF and Vixen VC200L (not that this will make any difference to the solution).
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
I am hoping somebody can give me some advice here, this is my first thread.
I purchased a Vixen GPD2 mount with the SkySensor 2000 hand control through the IIS classified adds some time ago. Everything was working well initially and was aligning the scope with good accuracy. After lots of cloudy weather and an overseas holiday it was some months when I finally got my scope out again and I took it into the country. However since my last session, the battery in the hand controller died and I had to replace it. No big deal as I am fairly handy as the battery requires soldering in place (correct battery Purchased). I reset the time, location and time zone in the controller (double and quadruple checked since) however, when I do a reference star the scope points absolutely no where near the selected star (40+ Deg off). Even manually slewing to the star and pressing "align" (for the 3 seconds until it beeps to accept the star) is of no help as when I chose a second reference star it will go in the opposite direction to the second selected star. Is there something obvious I am missing or other additional information that needs to be reset in the hand controller?
I have been through the SS2K user guide and checked everything I can but there are some settings that I do not understand and are not explained in the manual. My current set-up is Orion ED80T CF and Vixen VC200L (not that this will make any difference to the solution).
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
I have used a Vixen Atlux with SS2K-PC for about 7 years now - so hope I can help you!
Things to check.
Power on settings - you can have 10 defaults (in case you like to go to up to 10 different observing location). Are you just using power on selecting location one each time? I presume you do and then you Press Enter to reset all coordinates (rather than ESC to use last alignment parameters) or doing something else fancy?
On power up the scope should be level and facing dead East at the horizon - elevation 0. Press Enter (rather than Esc) to initiate a new set up. Then go to Setting and wander through location and time first.
Dates - make sure your enter the coordinates in yy/mm/dd format.
Entered your time zone (+8) correctly and local time hh/mm/ss (noting hours is a 24 hour clock so 10pm is 22/00/00).
Location - Longitude and Latitude - make sure your get the +/- for West / East and South / North entered correctly! Enter Longitude and then Latitude - with Southern Hemisphere being negative Latitude and Positive Longitude!
Sydney is 33 South 151 East so is entered +151 10 00 -33 08 00
Perth is 31 55' 33" South and 115 50' 18" East from your avatars location so is entered +115 50 18 -31 55 23
Gearing - mine is -60 180 -60 180 - the minus before the sixty tells the mount which way to spin the gears as we are in the Southern Hemisphere! This tells the controller the motor gear has 60 teeth and the other gears 180 teeth.
Motor settings - if you scope is heavy for you mount - choose option 3 on both RA and DEC! This runs the motors a bit slower and more smoothly on slews. A very light set up might choose Option 1 for both axes.
Polar alignment mode - if its in an observatory and well polar aligned makes sense to run it in polar aligned mode - else select Polar unaligned if you are in the field.
First alignment point - can be the Moon Centre if you don't know the 32 reference stars. Once you have a one star alignment (by dead centre the object on the target and holding the align button for three seconds until the controller beeps) select one to two more well spaced reference stars and then see how close the go to is if you go back to the Moon!
* * *
That is the basics of set up - even 20 degrees off polar alignment once you have 2-3 reference stars both go tos and tracking should be brilliant. Go tos should be within 30 - 60 arc minutes at worst and tracking can be brilliant - unguided up to ten minutes with no star trails.
Provide a bit more detail about exactly what your power on sequence, check list and SS2K settings are and I can possibly help more.
PS
Also check your PSU is delivering at least 12V and 2-3 amps - I use a regulated Lab power supply to give 15V and 5 amps - overkill but my unit only draws what it needs!
Seems strange David as these are usually bullet proof , I think you would get a better response to your query in the 'Equipment Discussions' section .
One thought , does the settings state , D/M/Y ( day/month/year) like we use or M/D/Y like the Americans use ? lots get caught out by that .
Brian.
Thanks for the thought Brian. The SS2K lists Y/M/D and this has also been quadruple checked.
My brother has listed this on equipment talk on my behalf.
Ahh , so you are Pat,s brother I look forward to meeting you.
Also have a look at Yahoo groups 'Vixen" , They will be able to help you these groups are like IIS and I am sure they will have heard of this problem before.
Good luck.
By the way I love your set up , very nice.
Brian.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ilife13
Thanks for the thought Brian. The SS2K lists Y/M/D and this has also been quadruple checked.
My brother has listed this on equipment talk on my behalf.
Matthew
Thank you so much for spending the time on your extensive response, I really appreciate that. I think you may have hit the nail on the head regarding the gearing as it was at +31x144 (I assume a default setting from the battery failure). I entered what you said and I think one of the motors kicked in suddenly after pressing "enter". This, I assume would also explain the scope coming to a stop and reversing (without any danger of the scope hitting the mount) as it did the other night.
Thanks again, I realize you put some time into your response. I am now looking forward to tonight.
I will keep you posted.
P.S. Just to explain, my brother (Blink 138) posted this on equipment discussions on my behalf as I only posted it on beginners talk.
Matthew
I have the MT-4 motors which after checking online has 144 teeth which is as it was set up. I am not sure about it having 31 or 60 teeth on the motor however. I will do more research on that. The set up was still plus instead of minus so fingers crossed for tonight.
Thanks again
David
Thanks Lewis for your help. It sounds like the original gear settings where correct except the plus and minus. It is actually 36 teeth on the motor (my mistake when I said it originally showed 31).
Thanks Brian, I will check the Yahoo groups as you suggested. I am sure I will meet you soon.
I will post the (hopefully positive) results tomorrow.
Matthew
I guess I got a bit excited thinking the issue would be resolved with the gear setting. It didn't work. So my settings are as follows.
Mount pointing South (I have holes in the paving outside for the tripod legs, the scope in the horizontal position and pointing East ( 0 deg el).
It should be noted here that I use a side by side plate but the scope is still pointing East as per users guide.
On powering up I select "0" default value then "enter" which has my home coordinates set. Date and time are set as YY/MM/DD and using 24 hour format and +08 time zone. Location is set at +115 48' 53" (Lon) and -31 55' 35" (Lat). Gearing was checked with my manual at 36 x 144 for both RA and DEC ( note that when I changed the + to a - the motors the slewed the wrong way). I had to revert back to positive for correct rotation. Motor parameters are now set to 3 as per your advice on heavier equipment. I am in "unaligned equatorial" mode.
My first ref star for alignment (Rigel Kent) was way off but I used the hand control to centre the star and pressed align until it beeped. I then pressed esc to choose a second ref star (Antares) which again went no where near but the mount slewed in the correct direction. I persisted and centred Antares and pressed align until it beeped but this time it still said "one star align" and not 2. My third reference star was Vega and when I pressed "goto" the scope slewed in the opposite direction to Vega and stopped pointing almost 180 deg away (South instead of North). At this point I went back to Antares which was fairly accurate ( very close to centre in the eyepiece). In the set up menu there is "PC Protocol" which gives me the option of SkySensor 2000, Ultima 2000 and LX200 and several values for "Baud". In my frustration I tried all 3 options and reading some blogs online it appears that it should be on LX200 (not SkySensor 2000) and 9600 Baud. My mount is Vixen GPD2.
Any further thoughts?
A few things, is it a SkySensor2000 or a SkySensor2000-PC?
If it has a port on the hand controller thus allowing you to connect it to a PC with the right cable then I'd say it's the PC version, in which case always select the LX200 protocol and 9600 baud and it will likely be picked up on your controlling PC on COM1 port.
What EPROM version are you using - when it powers on it should say something from Version 2.05 -> 2.10. Which version are you on? Version 2.04, 05, 06 and 2.10 use MT4 motors, versions 2.07, 08, 09 use MT3 motors.Latest update EPROM is 2.10, however 2.10 cannot be used with the MT3 motors.
The versions prior to 2.08 were a bit buggy with reliably establishing the PC connection, whereas I have never had a fail connecting since upgrading from version 2.06 to 2.10. A guy in Hawaii still has spare of the 2.10 EPROMS if you wish or need to upgrade I can pass on his contact details.
When you issue gotos - do you do it from the hand controller or a connected PC control program? If its not the SS2K itself where you are selecting stars we should know - as this can be confusing things if the astronomy program isn't set up correctly (e.g. location, date, timezone or local time is wrong).
Gearing - for me using EPROM v2.10 it asks on a battery re-instal am I a controlling an Atlux or a GPD2. The gearing comes from that decision point. You can over ride, for a GPD2 I would expect your Gear ratio settings have to be (from page 67 of the manual - which I can send you):
-36 144 -36 144
Get this wrong and everything you have encountered is to be expected. Triple check this with others and the Yahoo group please! Re-reading your experience makes me initially think the mount believes it is in the wrong hemisphere - for reasons I am trying to understand given your Latitude is correctly set as South denoted as a negative number. Please recheck you don't have Lat and Long entered as each other - that too would account for the strange behaviour. The tracking being correct for a negative Lat with a positive RA gear ratio doesn't make sense to me - again a sign of hemisphere reversal.
Your first slew should not be be "way off" - can you please qualify - how off is it and in which direction? If your first slew was to the Moon - how far off would you say it is.
I generally doesn't choose a reference star near the South Celestial Pole, Antares might be a better first alignment point. With a One star alignment - if you go into settings, Polar Axis Direction - what does El (elevation - which should be your latitude ~31) and Az (Azimuth) read.
Also in Settings please check that Encoder Menu settings are selecting Internal (I) encoders not external Encoders (E). It should read I (+0400 +0400). If you set External encoders the SS2K ignores the position read outs of the mounts internal sensors!
Matthew
PS
Really dumb questions here, to rule out the naivety errors sorry - I am just trying to be exhaustive in my check list - not offensive! So:
1. When you say the Scope on set up is facing due East - you do mean the front of the scope where the light goes in correct?
2. The Mount is level and the head of the mount is elevated to around 31 degrees above the horizon correct?
3. The Mount is pointing South - so the rear (lower end of the Mount head) is facing due North and the high end of the Mount head looks due South?
4. In your settings menu - Telescope Configuration, Motor Key Direction Up arrow, down arrow Left and right are respectively mapped to N S E and W?
Just took down all my settings - compare if that helps:
SkySensor2000-PC Settings
Power on Shows SS2k v2.10
<ESC> takes you to Setup
<0> <Enter> takes you to Default settings showing Location and time first screen is Location showing Longitude Latitude
Long Lat +151 08 00 -33 47 00 ..............................NB +151 07 09 and -33 47 28 are the correct values!
<Next> takes you to Date YY/MM/DD HH/MM/SS Time Zone
14/09/20 12:46:07 +10 ................................... .....NB PC 10 secs slow, SS2K 2 mins 10 secs slow!
<ESC> takes you up a menu level, <Next> takes you to Telescope Config
Setup Categories Telescope Config
Encoders I(+0400 +0400)
Gear -060x180 -060x180
Motor Parameters RA = Set 3 Dec = Set 3
Polar Axis Direction El=(33.7) Az=(180.2)
Alignment Point 2: Spica 1: Rigel Kentarus
0-433 +315 +000 +000
ETC Key Definition Sky Tour Mode
Init Motor Ctl Mode RaDec
Spd: Fast Med Si 0000-1200/4/4 32 2.0
Key Ctrl N-S E-W
Backlash RA=000 Dec=040
Mount mode Polar Aligned Equat.
PEC On 0.5 Execute
Autoguider On RA=+0.5 DC=+0.5
PC LX200 9600
Matthew
Just got home so I will deal with your first reply first.
By the way, if you ever come to Perth I owe you a night on the town (as small as it is). I really appreciate your time and effort on this as it is driving me mad. The worst of it is, I sold my Celestron CG5 mount to get this one. The CG5 mount would not polar align and I finally got confirmation from Celestron that the CG5 had issues in the southern hemisphere. I fought with that mount for nearly 2 years as the polar alignment is critical for astrophotography. I am starting to have flashbacks of that mount. Sorry to ramble on.
1. It is the SkySensor 2000PC. Although it is not connected to a PC except for guiding. PC protocol LX200 and 9600 (although I did try all of them in frustration)
2. It is the version 2.10
3. Stars are selected from the hand controller (I usually select the stars from Stellarium prior to starting).
4. I have checked the gear ratio from the user guide (page 64 in my book) which says +36x144 +36x144. Interestingly when I changed these values to negative the motors slewed in the wrong direction on the first reference star so I reverted back to +.
5. The first reference star was Rigel Kent. The elevation was far too low and Dec probably 40 deg out. It did head in the right direction but no were near far enough.
6. I will take it out tonight and advise later on Antares as the first reference star.
7. Confirming internal encoder and I+400 +400
8. Also confirming the scope pointing East as you say.
9. The mount is levelled with spirit level and elevated approx 32 deg.
10. The mount is pointing South with lower end pointing North.
11. Motor key control exactly as you stated (up, down, left, right, North, South, East and West).
Matthew
I fear the problem may be severe.
The set up configuration are as follows.
Encoders I(+400 +400)
Gear +36x144 +36x144 (a minus value slews the scope the wrong way)
Motor Parameters RA = Set 3 Dec = Set 3
Polar Axis Direction El=(32.0) Az=(180.0)
Init Motor Ctl Mode RaDec
Spd: Fast Med Si 0000-1200/4/4 32 2.0
Key Ctrl N-S E-W
Backlash RA=000 Dec=040
Mount mode Polar Unaligned Equat.
PEC ? (cannot find in the menu)
Autoguider On RA=+0.5 DC=+0.5
PC LX200 9600
When using Vega as first reference star the scope points SSW instead of North and elevation was around 45 deg (far too high). At this point I decided to "trick" the scope by loosening the clutches and centreing Vega in the scope and pressed "align" until it beeped. I then went for a second star (Antares) and the scope slewed to North-West with an elevation of around 50 deg instead of West. Then when I tried to use the direction keys to centre Antares the motors were very inconsistent (at one point while pressing one button the second motor kicked in and it slewed diagonally and on another occasion it would only slew in Dec even when pressing the RA buttons.
Interestingly, the coordinates in the hand control for each star matched those on Stellarium in every case. The clutches are tight and I cannot detect any slipping at all.
When I did manage to centre a second star (with excessive correction on the controller) the scope still said one star align and not two. If I move away from my one star align and go back to that same star it does it with fairl good accuracy (although not perfect).
I am totally lost and very frustrated.
PEC won't appear I believe unless the mode is set to polar aligned.
Such wrong slews at the beginning point to something well out of order. The only thing that makes any sense to me is thinking Lat and Long is wrong. Now if your Gearing has changed to needing +ve instead of -ve values on the gears have the signs changed anywhere else?
Your set up seems textbook. I would recommend:
1. Checking how it tells you to enter Lat and Longitude settings
2. Do a full reset - on power on hold all four direction buttons down for 5 secs until it beeps and then re-enter all values
3. Post on the Yahoo Group SS2K - get Chris Erickson or Laurie Yates attention - they are the best
Do a test for me later on.
First
When the moon is in a convenient location - say 45 degrees above the Eastern horizon - do a goto and align on it first and note how far off is the set up.
Second
Go to a star say 5-10 degrees away from the Moon - see if it moving in the correct direction by the correct amount.
Using this information let's see if we can diagnose if its something very simple like the initial orientation on start-up is somehow is confused (for whatever reason)!
For instance if goto on the Moon (or any star) elevated to 45 degrees above the East does anything else but raise the mount in RA by 45 degrees gives us something to think about.
* * * * * * *
If the first goto from a 45 degree elevated due East target moves in the wrong direction or wrong amount it will tell us a lot. If the magnitude of the move is correct but the direction is wrong / inverted it tells us the location data is inverted / screwed! If the magnitude of move is wrong then things are worse - it would indicate data on star's position appears wrong / corrupted.
When you set the Mount up to be due East and level - and control everything from Stellarium (it can do this) or the freeware CDC (Cartes Du Ceil) and you issue commands from the PC does it seem to run things correctly? If you say elevate 25 degrees, move East 30 degrees, descend 10 degrees, move West 50 degrees etc - does the mount respond correctly?
If a PC program talking to the SS2K-PC controlling the mount all works fine that is more data we can use.
If all gotos are correct in magnitude but inverted or wrong in a consistent direction - then that is location / set up data to correct. If gotos are random or wild - there is a deeper problem with the SS2K (and I would send it to Chris in Hawaii as he would be your best chance of fixing things).
I know how frustrating this is and feel for you. These things are tanks that are supposed to never fail! That has been my experience once you get the hang of it.
Love to have a beer or two with you if I ever get to Perth!
Do you have a cable to control the SS2K-PC from your PC - will see if I have a spare if you don't.
Matthew
PS
The tests on moves can be done roughly during the day with the mount facing direction. If the mount thinks its aligned and pointing at a subject - anywhere - and you wish it to move say 10 degrees up and 5 degrees West (controlled either by PC or from the hand controller) by selecting the right targets - what does it do? If gotos appear precise (even if inverted) - we just have to work out what the correct start up orientation would have to be and use that.
It could be a simple as you (somehow) have a version that requires the mount to face due West on first start-up (the way folks in the USA must) and all might be well.
PPS
Confirm how you are powering it - a decent power supply is a must. And check the connectors polarity is correct - the SS2K's 12V power input is unusual compared to everything else on the market (cigar lighter with positive centre I recall - need to check that)!
PPPS
Post a picture or two of your rig!
PPPPS
If you align on any star - then use the RA DEC display to point the mount to where it thinks due East and Elevation 0 is - where is it actually pointing?
Did the original owner of this gear report any similar issues? Was the SS2K originally using the V2.10 EPROMS or did he upgrade it? (Just checking he didn't upgrade V2.07 - 2.09 to 2.10 - as that would be mixing MT-3 motors with the MT-4 controller - a big no no!)
Matthew
I will check all of this as soon as I can.
It is very interesting what you said about the mount being set up to point West (although I have never heard of this before) because whilst trying to goto the first reference star I actually thought that if the mount was pointing West instead of South it would actually be close.
I will try the full reset as you suggested as a first step.
Thanks
David
Matthew
The SS2K will not reset. Is there any other way?
When I power up and press all 4 direction keys the motors start up but nothing else happens even after 20-30 secs.
I will re-check the manual - did you have all four buttons pressed before you powered on?
Normally just disconnecting all power for 5 minutes trips the first level of reset from memory - but doesn't clear config settings - its the first level of protection.
SkySensor 2000 poor alignment issue
Seems strange David as these are usually bullet proof , I think you would get a better response to your query in the 'Equipment Discussions' section .
Ahh , so you are Pat,s brother I look forward to meeting you.
