Raspberry Pi remote control

[cfranks]

I currently control my (2x) mount, cameras and focuser etc from a laptop and NUC close by. USB and RJ12 cables from the computer to the cameras and focuser. I communicate from inside the house to these computers with Radmin which works flawlessly. Now, I want to get rid of the cables as much as possible by mounting the NUC or a Raspberry Pi on their respective mount. Laptop and NUC currently use Win 7 but I'm upgrading (Ha!) to Win 10. The RPi currently runs Raspbian Jesse but, again, I'm thinking of Win 10. I can still use Radmin for the NUC but need a similar communication SW for the RPi as Radmin doesn't support it. Any ideas would really be appreciated.

Charles

[Octane]

I think you'll be stuck with something like VNC or Remote Desktop. Teamviewer also doesn't have a remote client for the Pi, but, I believe they were working on an ARM version. Not sure where that's up to.

H

[rally]

Hi Charles,

Remote Administrator is Windows centric
What you need is something that is cross platform.

RealVNC runs on almost everything - Mac, Win, Android, IOS, Linux - the basic version is free as far as I know.
If you want the server version which also has all the bells and whistles I think there is a small fee.

There is an RPi version.

Rally

[rmuhlack]

i reckon you're best bet is to run an INDI server on the RPi located at the mount, and then connect to it using an INDI client (eg Ekos, or the new INDI client for Pixinsight). INDI server is available for Raspian Jesse.

See http://indilib.org/ for more details

[torsion]

I am completely out of my depth here, no experience with a Raspberry, but I have been looking at Raspberry Pi USB IP, see https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=36851 and other 'Raspberry Pi USB IP' google searches.

The idea is that the Pi forward it USB connections over the network (cable of WiFi) to a windows machine. The project has some sort of server on the Pi and a client on the windows machine, which makes the Pi's USB's locally available on windows.

I don't know how stable or reliable it is or what the limitations are.

cheers,
Bram

[cfranks]

Thanks gents.
I'll have a look at your suggestions, especially Rally's RealVNC. Richard, I've played with the INDI modules in PixInsight but they are fairly sparse at the moment. I note INDIMount has just been released but it has only partial control of the mount yet. No guiding or focusing control yet either. Bisque though, say they are close to releasing a RPi version of TheSkyX which could be very useful although they hinted at a very expensive price.
Anyway, thanks for the suggestions. They'll keep me occupied for a while.

Charles

[rmuhlack]

FYI KStars/Ekos provides a full INDI solution, including autoguiding, autofocus, sequencing, auto meridian flips, and plate solving.

[lazjen]

And it's free. :)

[JimsShed]

A word of warning re the Raspberry Pi. If you're not familiar with the Linux OS then get ready for an extended learning curve. I have an RPi3 on my desk right now and it's taken a lot of tinkering over 3 weeks to get it to a point where it is running Lin_Guider and PHD2 (gonna test both), and talking to a ZWO camera. Success finally came when I ditched the Raspbian OS and used Ubuntu Mate and compiled the programs on the Pi. You wont find any setup.exe loveliness in the Pi world. If I had my time again I'd have bought a NUC and run Windows.

[lazjen]

Btw, there's a supported RPi image using Ubuntu (It might be "Mate" I think) that has the Kstars/Ekos/INDI on it.

And personally I find just as much fiddling around on Windows as one would need to do on Linux - it's just what you're more familiar with that seems to make one easier than the other.

[phomer]

I have a Raspberry Pi 2 (Raspian) running INDI to control my QSI583 camera and PHD2 to control my Lodestar guide camera. There is an Ethernet connector through which I connect the Pi to a wireless router. I then VNC into the Pi from a Mac. It is possible to do this with a USB WiPi but the range is more limited.

Once running, I can shut the VNC connection down and INDI and PHD2 continue running on the Pi. I reconnect to see how things are running or to change the setup.

In this way I can run everything off 12 volts for 1 to 2 nights.

Regards

Paul

[cfranks]

A couple of days ago, I read a post by Juan Conejero of PixInsight who said there would be no port of PixInsight to the Raspberry Pi in the foreseeable future so I installed Win 10 onto the RPi and will play with that for a while. It has no GUI and also says I'm not authorized to use the Command Line so I haven't got very far yet! If I can get wINDI on it I could be OK.

Charles

[Southernastro]

I have recently been playing with setting up a pi3 for similar - headless remote control of telescope - I installed the UbuntuMate image which has many of the necessary packages (Indi, Ekos, PHD2 etc) available.

Couple of things to watch for :

If you plan to use a powered hub to connect multiple devices then it is recommended to draw power for the pi3 off the same hub so that you don't end up with grounding issues.

I originally set up the pi3 using HDMI to a tv and usb mouse/keyboard. Once I had VNC installed and running, all was good when I did the initial test connections, once I went to run as headless then I found the screen resolution through VNC had drastically dropped - it detects wether HDMI is connected or not and sets resolution accordingly - took awhile to track down a fix for this so that the VNC connection displayed at a usable resolution.

[The_bluester]

Easiest fix for that (Most devices will do it) is a HDMI "Dummy" plug. Basically it emulates a display connection so you can select whatever resolution you would normally have on a connected display.

I found that one when trying to run a NUC headless as some programs I wanted to use would not run at the VGA default that you get without a HDMI device connected. The mob that make the FitPC make them. Cost me about $30 including freight from memory.

[cfranks]

I hadn't heard of the HDMI 'dummy plug' so thanks for that. I was testing the NUC headless the other day and had problems that I couldn't understand. Such a plug might help there so I just ordered a couple from ebay.