Autostar USB connectivity problems

[JohnH]

I am having difficulty getting a good connection from my laptop to my autostar, I have a USB converter cable (MCT) that seems to be OK with simple serial devices (eg can drive a modem), it does not appear to be reliable when connecting to the autostar when using the software supplied with the LPI. I also had problems attempting to update the autostar firmware with ASU and had to use a desktop with a real serial port. I have had some success connecting via Cates de Ciel and Guide Dog but I can no longer do that either. Is there a configuration trick I have missed or is it the case that the USB converters do not all work (if this is true can someone recommend one known to be ok with an autostar please?)

[Dennis]

Hi John

Sorry to hear of your troubles. I use the Socket I/O Card on my IBM ThinkPad R40 Notebook and it drives my Vixen GPDX and Tak EM200 mounts using The Sky Pro 6 and SkyTools.

Details can be found here http://www.socketcom.com/product/serial.asp

Hope that helps

Cheers

Dennis

[JohnH]

Holy cow! $236 from Harris technology for a single serial port! There must be a cheaper way. Anyone out there able to reccomend a USB/serial converter known to work with an Autostar (Belkin get mentioned on Weasner's site but before I buy another one I would like to know it work for sure!).

[mojo]

Does it or the driver have a baud rate setting? If so, have you tried lowering the baud rate?

[JohnH]

Yup, I tried that, plus disabling the FIFO buffers and re-installing all to no effect. The only think I have not done (yet) is reinstall Autostarsuite with all the cables in place. I have seen a post or two indicating that you must always plug the serial/usb into the same port or it can fail to be recognised.

[JohnH]

Found the problem after following this testing advice :

http://www.weasner.com/etx/autostar/as_testing.html

Got a good connection now...

[mojo]

But what was the actual problem?

[Mick]

Hello JohnH what about this, Meade USB to Serial (http://www.meade.com/USB_Serial/USB_SER.html) is that what you are after?

Ok I see you found the problem.

[JohnH]

I am not what the issue was but to recover I de-installed and re-instlled the MCT driver from here: http://www.mct.com.tw/driver.html then by shorting pins 2-3 on the cable and using hyperterminal to test it let me prove the cable was ok, then I added each component step by step and tested, the 9 pin to RJ connector, the 4-6 pin RJ cable and finally autostar startup with HT running. Up popped the X and CTRL-F gave me a P - polar - bingo! Now I have to test out autoguiding...