Astroberry-RPi4-Kstars-Ekos ----back to drawing board!

[vin_ap]

For the past week nearly two, I've been re doing my setup to go standalone, so my entire setup can be run from a battery.

This got me exploring Astroberry on a RPi4. This was the cheapest under $150 computer and also the lightest option.

Setting up the Pi4 was simple and easy as I have done this many times before with Ubuntu/Linux packages. Once installed I came across kstars\ekos which is the main imaging package and INDI drivers(similar to ASCOM).

From this point the setup was not simple by any means, getting all the USB's to work on the Pi connected to all the equipment was at least 2-3 day worth of reading and trying different things. Eventually yesterday I had everything working and got to a point I understood 90% of the available setting was confident that I could complete a imaging session.

Now I had my mount polar aligned and setup the telescope, the fact that there was only two cable connected to the power(battery) was a joy to see and experience. Powered up and I was connected to all equipment the felt so good how well the system was working.

Slewed to the horsehead nebula and started to frame the target, this is where things got difficult. Being used to framing in (spoilt) NINA, faming my target was very difficult (not impossible). Unless you have a motorised rotator in your setup might as well forget it. Anyways now realising I was not going to be able to continue on my current project I decide to burn the rest of the night exploring and getting trial images.

Slewed to M45 and framed it to some level and started, Autofocus routine plate solving, guiding and capture. Every one of these routine threw rocks at me but eventually got it to work.

I tried a few different targets and did some trial runs. Everything worked but not without issues. Tracking would stop then I need to chase a setting that fixed it, then PHD2 guiding would stop then troubleshoot that etc.

Finally it was time to pack up. Reflecting on this experience I can say that the Astroberry RPi4 setup was great and the ability to control so much of your equipment was awesome as much as it was overwhelming when things didn't work. This setup has great potential and the ability to keep your setup simple, but I think the software and the development has atleast another year to go before it can catchup to something like NINA/SGP. The software reliability is a 4/5, planning required prior to setup 2.5/5 (needs a lot of planning). For me given that I can only do a few hours of imaging a night and returning back to the same target and being able to frame that target pretty accurately is important, I've decided that I am going back to NINA on a laptop.

I will still keep exploring an setting up the RPi4, because I think it could be work for me one day but for now back to the drawing board. :)

[Outcast]

Have a look at Stellarmate; similar to Astroberry in that it uses Kstars/Ekos via Indi based software but, I think it's more mature & has better documentation & support.

It's author, Jasem has helped me out a few times when I've had issues....

I'm about to start over with it as I've changed to an Ioptron mount from a SW so, got to figure the mount part out again...

[mswhin63]

I had quite some time with my Raspberry Pi4 8G, I instead installed a automatic focuser using a TIC 825. I have some issues, although after returning to Windows and APT, it appears is my equipment not Astroberry.

The only think that I am not happy is that the Developer of Ekos Indi is the same developer for for Stellarmate.

I get the feeling that Stellarmate may end up being the effort that will convert Indi to a non open source solution. In the meantime, one I get my hardware sorted I will revert back to Astroberry and continue.

Astroberry give the ability to do all I want in a full remote system.

[kens]

I don't have any concern like that. There are actually many developers for Kstars/Ekos/INDI (and I count myself as one) and we all have copies of the open source code. Even if the main github repository were removed, any one of those copies is publicly available with fully up to date version of the code. And that same code could be used as the basis for future versions. To be honest, I think the software is so extensive that it is beyond the ability of any single person to maintain and support it so to be viable it really needs to be open source.
What you are mainly buying with Stellarmate is the initial system setup and guaranteed support, rather than the code. Anyone could build a DIY Stellarmate equivalent and many do. But when you do that you rely on yourself and the community for support.

[phomer]

Caleb,


One minor thing to note is there is no requirement to use a rotator, the framing works in any orientation.


I would also point out that success with INDI is dependent on getting the settings right and there are quite a few.


Paul

[vin_ap]

More reading today and I've been playing more with the settings and going to give it another try. :)

Paul,
could you please show me a workflow for framing. The problem is, I have a 1" 183 sensor and with most targets with my setup doesn't leave me with too much area left to crop hence the rotation is critical to be within 0.5 deg, which I can easily & repeatedly achieve with NINA. With Kstars I can get the location right with the ASTAP solver but no rotation indicator or I don't know how to proceed. Without this when I setup over multiple nights my rotation could be slightly off every night for the same target which would be a major issue.

Caleb

[phomer]

Caleb,


Not sure I can help with workflow, I just let the scheduler deal with that.
If I do it manually I focus, frame, guide and then capture.


There are two important things.


1) Ensure you have the files loaded for your field of view
2) Make sure the focal length is set correctly


Paul

[Andy01]

Joining the party tonight (& tomorrow night) with a recently acquired Rpi4 (from the classifieds here on iis) Stellarmate and my macbook pro. Desperately, hoping to get everything working. :)

I have used KstarsEkos for the past 6 months on the macbook, guiding, focussing, capture, FW all good, but for life of me I could not get platesolving to work - even using the new stellarsolve - guess I probably have a setting wrong somewhere? :help:

I'm hoping that a freshly paid download & install of Stellarmate on the pi will resolve this once and for all. :thumbsup:

[mswhin63]

I just recently located the hardware issue on my system and it appears that using a webcam for guiding on Linux was my main issue, I reverted back to Windows and APT to resolve and now returned to obtain great results.

I did have a Kstars crash once but on this occasion PHD2 did not crash, so my upgrade to an ASI 120MM for guiding did resolve the PHD2 crash. The upgrade worked so well, I now have completely reversed my use on webcam for guiding.

The main advantage of going to Indi was that it was the only one that had drivers for the TIC 825 stepper controller that allowed me wonderful autofocus capability at a much reduced cost.

After the first crash I managed a good image of the Tarantula nebula with my cheap filter giving me great star but questionable colour balance.

I hope to post more on Astroberry in the future.

[pmrid]

I have gone through several phases of trying Pi-based astronomy and then back to Windows. But every time, I have not been able to commit to the Pi solutions. Whether it is Astroberry or Stellarmate, both come down to the EKOS KStars apps and in that sense, both are pretty similar. The issues that tend to drive me away are generally compatibility - I can’t get my Starlite focuser to work or my SBIG CCD (an STF8300). I spent a lot of $$ on Pi systems and accessories but have ended up regretting it. Even the Pi4 with 8GB of RAM cannot overcome those compatibility problems.

Some of the best things you can do with Pi4 gear is convert them to USB boot and attach a SSD as the boot drive. It speeds the system up enormously. But ... if the thing won’t talk to my equipment, it is of little real use to me.

Peter

[mswhin63]

I think you are right, for me it is experimenting to get thing stable, but so far it appears to be drivers that are the issue. ASCOM has many more years of development under their skin and so the drivers are more refined. I still have had some issues with ASCOM but nowhere near enough. I also believe that every time the Linux OS needs updating the other products suffer.

I am confident now that I can get my system up and running now, but once complete I intend on leaving it alone while stable. At least with Windows based systems updates are not so fussy.

Personally as a side project I hope to create an ASCOM driver for my focus motor and then possibly go back to Windows and APT.

[Andy01]

Progress report: with special thanks :thanx: to my mate “The Bluester” here we updated the pi with the latest build of Stellarmate 3.5.0

It connected via indi/ekos to microtouch focuser, QSI camera & FW, Sx Guidecamera & temma mount ok without too much drama.
Screensharing with my macbook pro also works ok. :)

We then loaded an image of M42 & it slewed to target so all good!
Took it outside last night & again, plate solving, slew to target, meridean flip, autofocus, guiding & image capture all good too- fantastic! :thumbsup:

Still an issue to resolve when using kstars though, as it’s super slow when searching for a target to sync & slew too- so that may be resolved by direct connection via ethernet. :question:

Hoping to get the macbook to do most of the heavy lifting instead of the pi, so still sorting that out.

Oh and for reasons unknown the Temma thinks it’s parked when the counterweight is 90 degrees east (or 6 hours ahead)- very weird- must google! :shrug:

[The_bluester]

We will have to enable verbose logging of everything under the sun next time, to see if I can work out what is hanging it up, but a very promising start to say the least.

[kens]

With Stellarmate you can also get support from IkarusTech (Jasem) since that is included in what you paid for

[kens]

What is hanging up? I've had issues with my RPi3 stopping responding periodically. I have narrowed down the problem to Temperature and/or Voltage regulation. I have so far resolved it by removing the USB drive I had been booting from and reverted to SD card boot and switching off the driver logging to file. I suspect a beefier, better regulated power supply would also have helped.

[The_bluester]

We were finding when using it all on board via screen sharing (Using it's hotspot mode to a Mac laptop a couple of feet away) that it would be great for a time then suddenly get very very laggy and non responsive, particularly if you pulled Ekos down out of the way and tried to search an object in Kstars. If you connected to it via the smartphone app it appeared OK via that route but you would have to reboot it via the smartphone to get it to respond again in any other way. At one point we had it guiding and while it was non responsive, you could hear the mount guiding still.

That is using an SD card to boot it (Pi4) and a genuine Rpi power supply, I doubt it would be heat, it was doing it in about the same amount of time between the (Warm) garage and when we did a test under the stars last night. The temp was low enough outside to have us in jackets and beanies! The Pi was in a FLIRC case that is supposed to double as an effective heat sink. Logging was per the out of the box configuration so I might have to look at that.


The next step will be to put it in direct connect mode and set the Mac up with the right IP address so we can eliminate anything to do with screen sharing bandwidth limitations over wifi. Regardless, it was a very promising start with it up and running and connected to all Andy's gear successfully and plate solving and pointing working. One other issue for us to look at is probably more related to the Indi driver for his Temma, the park/initial position is given as pointed at the pole, counterweights down, but it actually seems to be pointed at the pole, counterweights east and it is a bit nerve wracking due to the relative RA and Dec slew speeds of the Temma, some slews to and from the park position take the camera nerve wrackingly close to the pier! It is supposed to be able to be set to a different position within Ekos, but once done it would head on back to the original position regardless!

[AnakChan]

I’ve managed to put Astroberry on my ASIAir Pro and got the DC ports working even.

However what is the actual usage difference between the Astroberry and Stellarmate? Both use EKOS/KStars.....I understand the packaging may be a little different (i.e. INDI drivers support, etc.) but from a usage perspective both are VNC access too? Or does Stellarmate have an ASIAir-like tablet client app that doesn’t need an entire screen to be VNCed/RDPed back to the client?

Edit: question answered. Just watched the Stellarmate App V2.1.0 demo.

[kens]

The RPi wil start to throttle down from CPU temp somewhere around 80C but it can get to that pretty easily under heavy load. You can check the temperature - the command depends on the OS. In Raspbian its using vcgencmd and on Ubuntu I use "cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp"
I found the unattended-upgrades process was a problem as it put a big load on the system. But the main issue was that under load it was drawing to much current when adding in the wifi, USB drive and the mount (the only device I have connected). So even though I had a 3A buck converter supplying it the voltage dropped enough to kill the Pi (or at least its USB hub). My mount also kept tracking so I just had to reboot to get things working again.
But the solution so far has been to minimise the power load which is why I removed the USB drive (draws up to 220mA). Plus I run Ubuntu server only (no desktop, no VNC) and by turning off driver logging that means minimal IO to the SD card. To be fair, some of this I've also done as I'm running a Pi3 (in fact a Pi2 right now) so I wanted minimal CPU load anyway just for performance.
I believe the official RPi power pack is rated at 3A so with several USB devices connected its rating could be marginal when the CPU is under load.
And if I understand right, with Kstars/Ekos running on the Pi that could be loading up the CPU. Easy to check through the system GUI tools or with the "top" command.
Another thing you could try is to run a bash script that pings the Mac every few seconds and logs the time and result to a file. That way when you reboot you can check the log to see if it was still pinging but had lost connection or had actually shut down. I've got a script if you want to try that.

[The_bluester]

I did read the suggestion elsewhere to run the USB devices through a powered hub not direct to the Pi as it can cause issues, that is probably the next thing to test. I had imagined that would only be an impact for devices powered by the USB connection, there is only one, the guide camera, but it also currently has a keyspan device for the mount and an inbuilt keyspan or similar inste the microtouch focuser controller, maybe they are too much and we should move all to a powered hub. In one way that would actually be handy as it would allow the Pi to sit down on the tripod where we currently have it mounted up top and that would make it easy to use a direct ethernet connection instead of the wifi.

[Sunfish]

I am using a Rock64 Pi copy with Debian and kstars ecos. It seems to run two cameras filter wheel and mount fine through a targus hub without the power . Runs the Osc ,guide camera and mount direct USB fine without the hub on a 2amp Li battery.

In the previous old Ubuntu laptop with less memory, the osc colour files when looping or displaying slowed the system and so I think the full display of each image chews up available memory and I was was forced to set the system to skip display of each full osc image while imaging .

I have noticed that any change in the method of network control during a session creates chaos. Direct Ethernet or wireless network connection through a router using VNC control is more stable.

Possibly, If I could wirelessly connect a large enough touch screen for direct control of the Rock64 that would avoid any latency problems and make the system network free. Expensive though.

[The_bluester]

We did a bit more fault finding tonight, with the Pi direct connected to Andy's Mac it is a little more responsive screen wise (As expected)

The issue seems to be one with Kstars, open it and it seems OK, but a couple of minutes and it goes non responsive, hitting the search button produces a two minute wait before it pops up and the only fix is a reboot (Which can be done by the web dashboard, which stays responsive) the web dash reports plenty of free memory, free disc space, low CPU utilisation and about 40 degree system temp.

I am wondering if we mis-configured something, I am thinking the next step might be to re flash the memory card with the OS image and try again.

[Sunfish]

Have you looked at this ?:
The astropi script for setting up kstars and the forum comments?

https://www.indilib.org/forum/general/5524-astropi3-scripts-revised.html?start=0

[kens]

Could be network. If the background DSS imagery is enable in Kstars it gets it from the network. Network hang ups always stuff up a system.

[Andy01]

Solved! :D
I used VNC instead of the built in mac screensharing.
Combined with a direct ethernet cable to the laptop.
Boom! :thumbsup:
Blazing fast searches, plate solving, go-to’s etc. all good. :)
Of course, now it’s going to rain for the next week! :lol:

[Sunfish]

Great.
VNC Works for me too over Ethernet cable or wireless .
Sometimes takes a few minutes after boot to settle in to the connection which is where an inbuilt lcd would help to see when the connection was solid before connecting with VNC

[The_bluester]

That would probably why I did not spot the issue earlier. The early setup was done with the Pi ethernet connected to my home network and using VNC from my PC, which is also hard cabled. It also explains why when we were having trouble out under the stars I could still hear the mount guiding when it was non responsive, the Pi was working away in the background, we just couldn't get at it.

The next test will be if the VNC connection is stable over wifi, if it is then we do a bit of wifi enhancement at Andys place for imaging at home so his laptop can stay inside the house, he can use my wifi if he images here (I have a good network at home with a dedicated AP I use to cover where I image from so my own screen sharing over teamviewer is good) and use the Stellarmate hotspot when at a star party, bob's your uncle.

[mswhin63]

I use VNC Predominantly over WiFi. I have zero issues with connectivity. I have the visual setting to the highest quality.
I don't use noVNC, Although this is Astroberry not Sellarmate, I do not know if they it used.

[pmrid]

Curse you! All this talk has made me try again. Just got the current Stellarmate OS and App for my iPad and loaded it up on a Pi4 with 4 GB and a M.2 SSD as boot drive. The current EKOS now seems to have addressed many (but not all) my previous problems. My Feathertouch (Optec/FocusLynx) focuser is now on the list as is my SBIG CCD and STi guider. That’s a big step forward. Sadly, there is no SBIG FW listed so that’s a stumbling block.

The IOS App found the Stellarmate HotSpot and logged me in OK but it feels clunky and I plan switching to using a lappie and direct connect via ethernet cable.

But I have to admit this is feeling a lot more positive.

Peter

[The_bluester]

If I was not well invested in the flexibility Voyager brings to the party using the dragsripts, this would be tempting to me too.

Next up is to get a real time clock module and fit it to Andy's Pi (A prebuilt Stellarmate includes one) so there are no date/time issues to contend with at star parties. I believe for the common one you have to solder the header pins to the board to use it so that will be a job for me.

[pmrid]

I just installed a RTC a DS3231 in my Pi 3B. But putting one in a Pi4 is problematic because the 4s require active cooling and access to the Pi’s GPIO 5 volt and ground pins while the RTC also wants similar access plus SDA and STC pins. So. RTC is not an easy fit - particularly if your Pi4 is in a case. And finding an easy way to adjust the Pi’s clock has so far eluded me.

[kens]

You can get the Pi to sync its time from whatever computer you are running from. But that computer needs to be set up as a NTP server.
So I have an Ubuntu box that connects to the Pi hotspot with a static IP address 10.42.0.100 and runs chrony as an NTP server
On the Pi (which is running Ubuntu server) I set the NTP server as 10.42.0.100 in timesyncd.conf

The config specifics will be dependent on which time sync service you are running on the Pi, and you may need to install some sort of NTP server on your other box. This should not be difficult

[The_bluester]

The other way is I believe you can set up the Stellarmate to work from a GPS device? I would assume it should be able to pull time from that.

[pmrid]

Good point. I have one I can try.

Just tried to direct-connect via ethernet cable. No joy so I'm going to have to go back to the proverbial drawing-board.

[The_bluester]

Is that with Stellarmate? Maybe not your issue but you need to flip it in to direct connect mode with the app (It may be doable over a screen share but I have not got one here to test) then change your PC to IP 192.168.100.2 subnet 255.255.255.0, gateway of 192.168.100.1 (the Pi) it also had some DNS server addresses to put in but looks like Andy got his running on the Mac without as it did not show a DNS server address entry in the screen Andy was on. Presumably that would mean for VNC etc you need the IP address 192.168.100.1 rather than using a host name.

[pmrid]

I’m a bit stumped with the “flip to direct mode” thing. Haven’t been able to find where or how to do that. Any clues?

[mswhin63]

I personally use the Host name method, as this is interchangeable when using it via my WiFi router or when I take it to dark skies and use it in standalone method. I then do not need to remember IP Addresses. I do not know if stellarmate does the same as I use Astroberry. At home I primarily connect to WiFi router.

[The_bluester]

The easiest way I found was through the web dashboard, so you would connect to the wifi hotspot to get to the web dashboard then use that to flip it in to direct connect mode on the ethernet side.


Regards using host name, I found that to work on my PC but we had issues with that on the Mac when Andy was at my place, but we did not have much time to play with it, and we did not try host name by direct connect ethernet as it was at that time hooked up to my ethernet setup at home and not in the same room to direct connect it.

[pmrid]

I found the "DIRECT CONNECTION" option and managed to get Pi and PC talking last night. I just need to remember how I did it. Altering the properties on the network adapter on the PC of course is necessary - as previusly mentioned here. KStars comes up by default when the Pi stars up and I then start it on the PC as well. Then I started EKOS on the Pi and the PC. The trouble is that in order to start EKOS on the PI it needs a KB, Mouse and Screen connected which rather defeats the purpose of having the Pi at or on the scope. Still working on that!!

But progress all the same.

[The_bluester]

There must be a configuration difference between yours and Andy's if we remote in to the Pi and start Ekos (Kstars starts up by default, like yours) we get a message that there is already a session running and do we want to kill the already running one.

I think we are probably going to get Andy going using the Pi to run the entire show for now, screen sharing in to it to drive it with hopefully nothing but file transfer to do in the morning. Once he is comfortable with that we will see about splitting the grunt work of capture with Indi on the Pi dealwing with the gear and Kstars/Ekos on the Mac.

If it proves reliable I can see advantages to letting the Pi do all the work, it means the Mac is free to use for something else as soon as the session is set up and running, more or less what I do with Voyager, it is all self contained in the NUC I use at the mount, barring problems I do not need to interact with it at all once it is up and running for the night.

[vin_ap]

I use Astroberry and have the Pi running the show. My laptop is connected to the Pi via Pi hotspot and use VNC to monitor and control the programs on the Pi.



In the Astroberry the Indi server is running separate to kstars-ekos. So in the ekos profile setting you have to select remote host not local and press the scan to find the IP of the Indi server. If you have it set to local and start the connection it will ask to terminate the Indi server that is already running and ekos will start a separate local Indi server.


Last night I gave the Kstar-Ekos another go and had problems plate solving and the mount was pointing west when the goto message was to north. Would dearly love to get this setup working correctly and every time, I face different problems...marching on.. fingers crossed if this setup works it would make my setup and pack up easier and more portable for dark sites.

[kens]

Is your Pi connected to the internet or does it have a Real Time Clock? If neither then its internal clock will be wrong every time you boot it. That would mess up the mount coordinates and plate solving

[vin_ap]

Ken,

Makes complete sense, even though I can connect it to the internet I don't purely to keep the system setup to take to remote sites. As part of my work flow I change the location and time in kstars after bootup. Yesterday I was trialing with GPS simulator and that could have stuffed up the clock settings.
I have got a gps dongle on its way so that should fix the problem in the future. Alright, I feel so close to getting this setup running good... thanks heaps for your help. :)

[mswhin63]

I thought there was a driver to allow the use of the mobile phones GPS for updating. The only way it will be a problem in a fully remote application, but for personal use the Mobile driver, I thought addresses the method of location.

I will be looking into this more as I wait till i have completed building my hardware.

[Sunfish]

Direct cable connection for me also has been pernickety. Ethernet and wireless through the router is fine.

I think have this working fine now and connecting through RealVNC with all of the laptop settings on auto and only the SBC ipv4 settings set up to manual address for either direct cable or network .

It will be interesting if the wifi hotspot on the laptop will work as a connection method.

[The_bluester]

I will have to do a bit more digging in ANdy's setup to see if it behaves the same way and needs a "Remote" profile on the local setup. After we get his working self contained I will look in to splitting the work with the Pi just providing an Indi instance to connect to the equipment and the rest on the Mac. But the totally local setup has the advantage of being self contained, once we build/sort him a battery backed up power system at the mount it would image on through power outages like mine does.

[pmrid]

I’d be interested to learn what sort of battery setup you use. I recently bought a power backup thing from Jaycar just to run a Pi Stellarium setup. It had a USB C and 2 USB 2 outlets - the former supplying 3 Amps and the others 2.something. The Pi4 with 4 GB has a SSD boot drive and it will generally but not always start and usually runs. But my Pi4 with 8 GB will not start at all. It is in a case with a built-in M.2 SSD so maybe it demands a bit more juice than my 3 Amp outlet can supply. So please post your own solution when you have one.

[vin_ap]

Hi Peter, Iam told the RP4 requires a constant 5.1V and 3 A available to run kstars properly without errors. I power my pi using a 5V 2.1A powertech battery jumpstart system and works really well, haven't seen drop-outs yet, I use this to run my entire system mount, cameras, heaters and the Pi . Some powerbanks that I have tested tend to drop voltage below 4.8V when the charge drops below 80% and this affect the RP4 from running or booting properly. :)

[vin_ap]

Absolutely! The being self-contained system is where I am going with mine. I can run mine without any connection to AC power, only need to get kstars and imaging workflow to work for me. Eventually would like to upgrade to a 100Ah deep cycle battery, currently running off 17Ah which works for 4-5hour without significant voltage drop.

[vin_ap]

Will have to look into this as I haven't seen this solution but would be easier, not connecting to the internet is a pain sometimes with the pi as it can and I have run into this where different times and dates are read between different devices.

[pmrid]

Is your Pi a 3B or B+? That might account for the 2.1 Amp connection. It doesn’t look like a Pi 4 would start at all under 3 Amps.

[vin_ap]

Mine is a Rpi 4 4GB ram...

[mswhin63]

The RPi 4 8G has a maximum 3A required, it does not necessarily need all 3A to run as it will depend on the application, I believe mine runs at approx 1.2A @ 5V. 3Amps is a buffer for some really intensive clocking and tasks.

While I was testing before i got my RPi 4 I used my Raspberry Zero W. It worked well in the remote application but failed on PHD2. For some reason PHD2 wouldn't start and was not from the power supply either.

RPi Zero also couldn't work well with Ekos and Kstars running.

[luka]

The RPi foundation recommends a 3A power supply for the RPi 4. However, 1.2A is reserved for the various USB peripherals (see this (https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/power/README.md)). That leaves 1.8A as the maximum consumption of RPi 4 itself. This is consistent with the maximum power consumption tests that can be found on the net (see this (https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-4-firmware-update-tested,39791.html) one for example).

In other words, RPi 4 will never use more than 1.8A and so it will happily run from a 2A power supply. But, if you start attaching cameras etc to its USB ports you may need a larger power supply.

[pmrid]

But a Pi 4 won’t even boot unless it has the power it needs 5.1 volts DC. at 3 amps.

[luka]

Not quite Peter, RPi 4 will boot and work with less than 3A. The early versions of the RPi 4 had a design fault (incorrect pull-down resistors on the USB-C socket) and would not work with some power supplies even though the power supplies were more than adequate. Maybe that is the reason why yours would not work with a smaller power supply.

The link I posted above is by the RPi Foundation, i.e. the people who design and make Raspberry Pis. They say that 1.8A is the maximum power used by the RPi 4 (without extras). Interestingly you don't even need the recommended 5.1V as the voltage has ±5% tolerance. The undervoltage warning icon will show only if the voltage drops below 4.63V.

[Sunfish]

Hi Peter ,

I don’t know if this helps but in order to get my direct Ethernet cable to laptop connection to SBC working I need to configure the direct link Ethernet connection with a different address from the network Ethernet, so rather than ending in 11 say, I created a different manual ipv4 address in the SBC for the direct link ending in a 12.

VNC then connects once the connection is established using the configured name option, in my case Rock64:0 I do not understand why this is, some others more knowledgeable might know, but it appears to work.

R.

[Andy01]

Progress report:

I have a RPi4 running Stellarmate 3.5.0 and a macbook pro (2011HighSierra) Got everything working using the pi & vnc on the mac direct connection via ethernet.

Plate solving, flipping, calibration & guiding (phd) auto focus & filter changes all good.

Unfortunately I made some guiding & sequence adjustments (aborted a sequence, reset then checked dither& settle) later on the fly which upset the system and it stalled out after the first sub post flip. 😔

Nevertheless, progress! Was pretty cool watching it auto flip, re-solve, lock on target, guide & image again 😎

Next night ekos remembered my dither/settle settings & kstars remembered my location on startup - a port issue remains unsolved, Keeps ‘forgetting’ port settings on startup- Every time I start it up, it connects camera, FW & mount, then looks for ports and reckons there’s only one available for both the focusser & mount. I can manually fix this with the web serial port manager, so it sees an additional port, but it’s time consuming - any thoughts? (it still requires manual slot mapping with the serial port assistant each time.)

Post flip though, the sequence aborted again, “cannot capture while focus module is busy” which was odd, as I didn’t set it to refocus post flip. Did I get that wrong?

Anyway, I then manually set it to refocus, then restarted the guider (PHD2) & restarted the sequence- all seemed ok after that.

Nearly there now :)

[pmrid]

Beware the power supply.
I recently bought a Powertech MB3806 - a 15600 mAh supply to run a new Pi4(8GB) board with Stellarmate. It purports to supply the USB -C with 3 Amps. I use it with a Pi 3B and a Pi4(4GB) with no issues. The Pi4(4) is in a sexy case with dual fans and is booting off a SSD. But I bought a sexy special case to go with the 8(8) - one with a good fan and a built-in M.2 SSD. ARGONone M.2. It’s a great case and the Pi runs beautifully on it BUT when I try to run it on the Powertech, it refuses to boot. After much backward and forward with Core Electronics, we have isolated the cause to the active cooling fan which seems to draw an unacceptable amount of power from the Pi at boot. As Core told me, the Pi will settle to run on less once its booted but it needs the whhole bag at boot.

Pity because I wanted to run this as a remote system at the scope and do the whole thing on battery. So read the specs on your powervsupply closely.

[mswhin63]

The ArgonOne M1 and M2 use a softswitch to power on the Pi. The Power bank usually does not turn on when it up against a minimum load at startup. I have the ARGONone M1 and will be upgrading to an M2 later. The soft switch will require a constant voltage current sink of a minimum current level to run it and I don't think the power bank can sense it, so it effectively think there is nothing connected and turns off or never turn on the 5V properly.

I am consider getting a QC or PD Power Bank and buy a trigger that senses the voltage required and immediately switches it to the right voltage and current. I can then supply up to 20V when needed.

There are 20Ahr/20000mAhr that have QC 3.0 or PD so for me I hope to run everything of the power bank. Still investigating it though, looking for any issues before spending the dough.

You might be able to disable the softswitch and start it up. I have not checked but it may have a way of disabling the softswitch.

[pmrid]

Malcolm, that’s really interesting. I just switched the jumpers on the M.2 from the default to the “always on” setting and now the Pi/M.2 boots and runs just fine. The jumper controls the softswitch it seems and this lends strong support to your analysis.

[muletopia]

A late comment on Ken's post of 30/12/2020.

I find a more convenient way to display core temperatures in Ubuntu is the command "sensors"

The invocation and result is shown in the attachment. If you do not have "sensors"installed
sudo apt install lm-sensors
sudo autoremove


I installed it as running my multi threaded number crunching program all corers can go to high. So just tun down the number of threads to use.


Chris

[mswhin63]

Appreciate the feedback. I do not need it as yet. I am working on a different method of supply, just putting my modified rig through some simulation to check before placing outside.

Managed to strengthen the rig, built my DIY Tube Rings and mounted the RPi on top to reduce the cable run and be able to run the whole thing from a single supply. I now have only a single power cabling from the top right through to the tripod and cable snags are now a thing of the past.

Currently running everything from my Lab power supply drawing 1.57A from 12V that includes everything RPi, Camera, Mounts Focus motor. So I can get a very accurate supply requirements now.
One thing I find with Power Pack is the Current Rating are based on what? Battery Voltage, Output Voltage. Watt Hours is the best method for rating the batteries.

[kens]

You might be interested in my hack which was to fix a slip ring to a surplus polarscope adapter so the mount can rotate without any movement of the power cable. I also run a second Pi on the RA axis with the mount driver only. So the only bit of cable that moves is the power cable where it spans from the RA to Dec axis

[mswhin63]

I had considered slip rings, but I decided not to over complicate the rig. I find now based on all the deflection I have reduce flexure massively in the new setup. Even the cables running past the Dec axis is few and very minimal deflectection. Also used a different alternative to Spiral wrap going for weave tubing instead.

I hope one day to post more information.

Run a full simulation last night with Astroberry with zero problems. Now taking a few more hours, then place it outside tomorrow.