PHD2 running on Raspberry Pi Zero W

[petarm]

Hi All, i have been building up power efficient arm based devices to auto guide and run planetarium software on.

So my projects so far have been:
1. Rpi2 running lin-guider and StarsPi on an android phone.
2. Rpi3 running ubuntu mate 16.04LTS with indiserver remoting to my laptop that ran kstars/ekos/phd2 to control everything.
3. Asus Tinker board (this thing is fast!!!!) running Lubuntu 16.04LTS to run kstars/ekos/phd2 to control everything.

But the best one of all has been PHD2 and running on Raspberry Pi Zero W.

Last night I compiled PHD2 on my Pi0 W (512Mg ram single core 1GHz processor) that runs on about 1Watt of power.

And it works very well. This is probably the ultimate standalone auto guiding setup. The Pi0 W isn't powerful enough to run planetarium software on, but for guiding its good.

You just remote to the Pi0 W via a VNC (I use my mobile phone) and run PHD2 as you normally would.

I'm calling it the PiHD2 auto guider.

If anyone is interested, please let me know.

regards

some pictures:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1on5j8v9kuhlskf/20170811_100429.resized.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/j65q0zf3o1kje9e/20170813_202141.resized.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xen8drb9hyfv84t/20170813_202237.resized.jpg?dl=0

[pluto]

Very nice!

[Camelopardalis]

Cool! I've been meaning to spin up an imaging ensemble on my Pi3 but haven't found my round tuit...

[petarm]

Thanks for the compliments.

My aim when I started this project was to create the most power efficient mobile astrophotography rig I could.

My rig consists of a HEQ5 goto mount, my guide scope and camera (ZWO ASI120MC), my imaging camera (Canon EOS M running ML), my Raspberry Pi (either the pi0w or pi3) and two dew heaters (guide scope and imaging scope).

All up, everything running (i.e. I have setup, aligned the mount, picked my target and started the guiding and imaging session) draws 12VDC@1.8A (~22Watts) of power.

I run my rig off a 24AH SLA battery. Last session it ran for over 6 hours and the battery was still OK when I finished up for the evening.

regards

[tileys]

I bought a RPi zero W (on a whim) with the intention of playing around with some iOT project and then got to thinking about using it for remote running of some of my astro s/w but I quickly got distracted by the potential of running everything on a RPi 3 instead due to the Ubuntu Mate support it offered. Are you planning on doing anything with the zero other than running PHD2 ? how about a stepper motor type focuser or similar ?

Trying to think of what to do with mine now I have an RPi setup as well.

Cheers,

[TonySize]

That sounds Awesome, I have an old Digic 2 camera that doesn't like capturing to a laptop anyway, if i could ditch the Laptop and just setup guiding on a tablet that sounds great. I'll need to get one.

I have a SSAG for guiding now and i intend to get a ZWO buy the end of the year what are your thoughts on image capture with a seperate Pi 2 or 3 is that doable. running everything all night off my jumpstart battery sounds good.

[tileys]

Kstars on a Rpi 3 will enable you to capture to the micro SD card - I have done that myself using capture settings of Large JPG but have not performed an extended session - more of a test for now.

[Trekrider]

I have been trying for a few weeks to get PHD2 or Lin_guider running on a PI 3 without success. I have been able to get both programs running on the PI under Raspbian but neither will recognise my ASI120MM no matter what drivers I have tried - both applications give error messages that there is no driver detected for my camera. I have been reading today that the USB 2 version of the ASI120 doesn't play well with either Linux or Mac. Are you using the USB 3 version of the ASI120?
Thanks

[kens]

Install indi: apt-get install indi-full
You'll need to set up the indiserver or the indiwebserver to launch automatically.
Then connect to the INDI driver in PHD2

[Trekrider]

Thanks Ken, I will give that a try

[Trekrider]

Tried that - I get the error message "Unable to locate package indi-full". Google has thrown up a few links to this issue - trying to work through and find a solution.

[luka]

Unfortunately the USB 2 version of ASI120 does not play well with Windows either, Windows 10 in particular. Tons of people on the net complaining about split frames after upgrading from Win7 to Win10. I got a recent Win10 laptop and it is impossible to use the ASI120 for guiding as every now and then the frame is "split" and the guide star jumps. No such issues on my old Win7 laptop.

[Trekrider]

That's interesting - I was advised to get the USB 2 not 3 version if I was using Windows 10 by the sales guy. Have to say I've had no issues with it on a Win 10 laptop running PHD2 though.

[kens]

D'oh!! Forgot you need to connect to the PPA. Instructions here should work on the Pi.
http://indilib.org/download/ubuntu.html

[Trekrider]

Thanks Ken, I'm now going back to square one and installing Ubuntu Mate (have been running Raspbian until now) then build it up from there - gives me something to do on these cloudy nights :lol:

[Trekrider]

I think I got closer this time, but not quite. I installed Ubuntu Mate, set the repositories for indi and PHD2 and installed both, all with no issues.

When I start up PHD2 and select 'INDI' camera the 'INDI Configuration' shows that it is 'Connected' as does the mount - it also recognised that I have an ASI120MM (in the 'Driver' drop down menu). When I start looping, the capture screen remains black and after 16 seconds I get an error message that the camera has not completed a 1 sec exposure.

Not sure now if the problem is the fact I have the USB 2 version of ASI120MM or something else.

With apologies for hijacking the thread - should I start a new one or take this to another forum?

[luka]

Barry, you need to upgrade the firmware. In the firmware update package you will see two firmwares for each model. The "compatible version" solves the black screen issue for the USB 2 version of ASI120 by tweaking some USB data transfer parameter. Otherwise the firmwares are identical.

[Trekrider]

Thanks Luka, I have been reading about that but wasn't sure of the details as the link I have from ZWO gives a 505 error and I haven't been able to find it in google. I was a bit worried that the update might stop it working on my Windows Laptop.

[Trekrider]

After more searching, I found the upgrade tool, did the upgrade and woohoo it's now working. All I need now is a cloudless sky to test it :stargaze:
Thanks for all the help guys :D

[luka]

Excellent, don't forget to let us know how well it works.

[Trekrider]

Well, here it is running headless and guiding using VNC Viewer from my Mac. My mount hadn't been set up properly as I was trying to get my new scope working but it looks like it will work just fine.