Shiny New Black Box

[Nico13]

Recently I added a five metre USB line as part of trying to improve my system control and have the ability to run everything via one coms link from a distance.
This worked sort of ok for a five metre USB line to a powered USB Hub but was a bit of a handful to get all the Ports to connect every time and caused a lot of extra work plugging in and out to get thing to connect. Not good as a lot of time was lost setting up each time.

So I bought a new Black Box, a shiny new Black Box.

One of these. :D

[Nico13]

Its a Network HUB, 5 Port USB via a LAN link or even a wireless link if you want, so distance will no longer be a problem.

I have connected it to my system with the hub control centre software and it allows you to connect and disconnect at will from your laptop, seems to work a treat. :D

I'll soon have a very controllable system that never gets used, dam clouds. :P

[Screwdriverone]

Nice one Ken,

That looks the business and something that I would use to remote control my gear via wireless to the backyard or even from the deck to the scope if it works that way.

Gunna go check it out, cool!

Cheers

Chris

[Nico13]

Yes Chris it looks the business alright, I'll initially be using it via the LAN cable but may try a wireless link at a later date.
The model number is F5L009ea and surprisingly it's made in Japan not like 99.9% of everything else made a little further West.

I got this one shipped from the UK via ebay as after a bit of a search I couldn't find any here in Aus, the only problem was it came with a plug pack with a Euro style 2 pin connector. Its a 4A plug pack, I tested it with a 2A one I had here, it worked on the test ok but I will be powering from my mount power supply which is a converted computer power supply that I made up and I had added the 5V rail for the original powered USB hub I was using.
35 British Pounds plus postage, I found big price differences advertised around the traps all the way up to $150.

[DavidTrap]

Will be interested to hear if it runs at USB 2 speeds. I looked at that box a while ago (possibly a previous model) and couldn't work that out from the blurbs.

Fingers crossed!

DT

[Screwdriverone]

Hmmm,

Looking at the specs Ken, it seems its only wireless supported when it is plugged into a wireless LAN router via the RJ45 network port on it.

I dont think it is equipped with its own wireless LAN client allowing it to connect to an existing WLAN and therefore appear on the network without having the blue cable on it plugged into a router or switch on the network.

The diagrams suggest this with the dreaded * asterisk.....

Still, if you have a cable to the OBS and want to get to the scope wirelessly, then it still works!

OR, plug it into a wireless extender like I do with my Foxtel box, which uses an RJ45 and I have no cable at the TV, so I put the extender next to it and plugged the IQ into the RJ45 switch on the extender.

Would be nice if it was WLAN equipped though, that would be perfect!

Cheers

Chris

[Nico13]

Yes, sorry Chris :P didn't mean to misslead you there but yes I did know it needed a wireless link fitted to it and I thought if I wanted to go that way I'd just add something like one of THESE (http://www.aliexpress.com/product-fm/555072755-Freeshipping-VAP11G-RJ45-WIFI-Bridge-Wireless-Bridge-For-Dreambox-Xbox-PS3-PC-Camera-TV-Wifi-Adapter-wholesalers.html) for less that $25 bucks it has multiple options to power it, USB, plug pack, or if you have a five volt rail at the mount which I do have then it's an easy add on.
Speaking of add ons as it's a lan hub you can piggy back extra powered or unpowered USB hubs if you needed more ports.

Cheers

[Nico13]

Hi David,
The box and info that is supplied all quotes USB 2 and the quick tests I ran last night it was downloading 20 meg raw files from my SLR pretty quick so it's looking promising. :thumbsup:

[hikerbob]

I've got Belkin Home base which has 4 ports and the wi-fi built in. Took a while to work out that I needed to set the mode on the ports. I'm still trying to work out what works and what does not. Backyard EOS to Canon 550d seems fine, logitec gamepad seems fine, keyspan usb to rs232 adapter is recognised but I've not yet tried to talk to an rs232 device. Mixed results with usb to ttl adapters, they are recognised and can be connected to and some comms work after tweaking. Can't program an arduino via that but it does appear to communicate.

The only item that I've tried which I need and which is not recognised is my Orion autoguider. I've got a query in with Belkin to see if there is any way of adding extra drivers. It does not recognise any hubs I've tried either but I suspect thats common for usb to network adapters.

Still some end to end testing required but the idea is promising.

Bob

[alistairsam]

Nice Find Ken,
Tech specs show it has 5 USB 2.0 ports. Price sounds reasonable as well.
http://www.belkin.com/networkusbhub/
Cheers

[roughy]

Would it be feasible to use two USB hubs wired over a distance of around 20 metres?

[Nico13]

Hi Bob,
Yes everything seems ok but I still have to try my gamepad as yet, forgot to plug that in last night when testing.
The TTL to RS232 worked fine connecting with no issues and then Thesky6 and EQMOD functioned as normal so no problems there at all.
I'm running Win7 Pro on a 64 bit machine.
The port setting issues were handled by windows and also firewall access, just asked what I wanted to do during the software install and like it said on the box it was a three minute setup time and they were correct. :thumbsup:
I'm still waiting on a new guide camera, the SX Superstar to arrive, I have been told there is a couple of issues with drivers for that but have the info required to sort it. Currently I have a toucam and it connected ok with PHD.
My Camera is a Pentax SLR so I'm using PKTether for that, also no probs with connecting or disconnecting and reconnecting as I did have with the plain old USB hub.

Cheers

[Nico13]

Hi Mark,
I think 20 mtrs is fine for a network/lan type hub but you would have to add a LAN Port switch to allow you to connect the two hubs at the other end if you were running cat5 cable or a wireless router, they have multiple lan ports if wanted to go wireless with two hubs.

[Nico13]

Ran some further tests last night with everything connected using a ten metre cat 5 cable and all worked well, had forgotten to plug the wireless game pad dongle in the other night so thought I'd better do that as well just to make sure.

So at this stage of the game everything appears to be fully functional :)

Still waiting for some clear skys, it's been months now, the ground is so wet I think the tripod would just sink in the lawn :lol: oh well can't do much about that but quite prepared for clearing weather when it happens. ;)

[hikerbob]

Ken thanks for the update.
Do you have a process for updating drivers on the device?
I've not worked out if thats possible with the Home Base yet. I think I'm having some problems with the wi-fi router I'd planned to use as well which might be confusing the issue. When I get a chance I'll go backed to a wired connection and test some things again.

Bob

[hikerbob]

Not sure that I'm finished with Belkin yet but I'm getting the impression that I won't be able to run the Orion StarShoot autoguider via the Home Base hub which limits my options.

It will be interesting to see how the F5L009 goes, Ken's tests so far make it sound like that hub may handle add devices better than the Home Base (F5L049). One think I've not explored yet is the large Open Source code file for the F5L049 (a lot of products have similar http://en-us-support.belkin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5094 ). I can't see one for the F5L009 but have not looked hard. I'm assuming that the Home Base runs on a Linux variant and will try and have a look under the covers to see if there is any way of using that to get it all working.

On the other hand my Linux driver development experience is zero.
Bob

[hikerbob]

Hope I'm not spamming the thread. Sorry if thats the case but I'm hoping this is relevant to others.

I've had a look at the code for the Home Base device and it looks like it should be possible to add additional drivers - there are others working on Linux drivers for various guiders and cameras (partly as a spinoff of trying to port PHD to Linux) so it may be possible to leverage off that.

Amongst other thinks I've asked Belkin if there are any plans to release the code for the F5L009. Either device could be a great backbone for telescope control if every device on the scope which needed to go back to the computer could be routed via them. Be nice if Orion would do Linux drivers for their devices.

Bob

[wasyoungonce]

Well done gents...I was building my own +12V/4 USB port distribution box, but this is a lot simpler!

[wasyoungonce]

Just a question folks.

I have seen the F5L009ea. I believe the "ea" designation is a European version, probably European power adapter.

I have seen some F5L009au versions...I'm guessing this is with "Australian" power adapter.

Does anyone know if this is correct...with regard the country designations?:shrug:

[Nico13]

Yes that's correct as mine turned up with the Euro plug pack as I was not aware that was what the "ea" represented.
That's ok though as My power supply for the mount is a modified computer switch mode power supply that I made up and had included a 5V rail output so I'm running it from that, all ok.

[Nico13]

Hi Bob,
Not sure about the drivers update or new drivers, I also had thought about a wifi connection with this new hub but will not try anything until I have it all running smoothly.
You mentioned in a later post here that you were having some issues with PHD well I had the gear out Saturday night for more testing of the setup and everything worked fine until I attempted to make some changes to camera settings in PHD, e.g. adjusting gain or number of frames per sec and it locked PHD up completely.
In the end it wound up with the lappy freezing completely, even the task manager was frozen so it was a matter of killing it, forced shutdown and reboot.
Went through the startup process and all was fine until I went back to the camera setting in PHD and the same again, completely frozen.

My thinking on this is that as PHD will not allow you to close the program while it is capturing is the culprit causing everything else to lock up.
The reason I say this is that as PHD was frozen you could not stop capture and therefore not stop PHD.

I had tried to force a disconnect from the hub but it only succeeded in freezing the hub control program closely followed by everything else, so after a couple of tries at this I decided to leave the camera alone understandably.

With regards to the camera, I'm currently using a Toucam for my guider but have a SX Lodestar on order and it should arrive in a week or two as they have been on back order so I will try it all again when that arrives.

As a comment re the hub I'm very happy with the function of it and its quick setup so will be very happy if the camera issue can be easily solved so will report further a little later.

[hikerbob]

Ken, I had some more play over the weekend with the home base using my version of Eqdirect to an Eq5. The Home Base kept dropping the connection, at one point mid slew. I don't know the cause of that yet. Not usable if I can't sort that out.

I've received some more help with the Orion drivers so will have another look at that during the week.

I assume that PHD does not lock you laptop via a normal usb hub.

Bob

[Nico13]

No Bob, everthing sort of worked ok on the std USB hub it was just the hassle of getting everything working, took a half hr or more to get it stable enough to use due to problems with port recognition and device connection issues every time I used it :mad2: and of course the other thing of distance being an issue when I went over five mtrs in cable length had no connection at all for some reason.

It will be interesting to see how the new hub goes with the new guide camera and its associated drivers, fingers crossed it will be fine, the LAN connection is very reliable so far in testing and my SLR capture software is very stable where I had a lot of trouble with that on the std USB hub having the camera freeze forcing me to physically disconnect it and reconnect to get it working again.

We'll see soon I guess.

cheers

[wasyoungonce]

Hi Ken...just question.

Have you or anyone tried an auto-guider like QHY 5 (Q Guider) with this hub? There was talk that it might be so so in working with things like video/web cams.

Talk on win7 forum shows that this hub has been around for awhile and there could be issues with dropouts in Win7. Appears a driver fix, OEM for chip-set (not a Belkin fix) fixed these issues. You can download updated packaged drivers here.

Probably not a lot of support left for this device due to it's age but still interested in seeing if I can use one as an AIO unit for cameras, guiders etc.

[Nico13]

Gday Brendan,
Interesting comments re the video /web cams compatibility issues.
To answer your question, no I haven't tried anything other than the Toucam I have as mentioned earlier had issues with it when trying to alter settings causing PHD to freeze.
The hub software does show the webcam (Toucam) as may be incompatible when it is connected.
I wasn't aware that it had been around for some time and yes I'm running Win 7 Pro 64, it'll be a shame if that can't be resolved because it works so well otherwise.

Did you mean to attach a link to the updated drivers package as it wasn't there in your post.

[hikerbob]

Brenden, as you may have noticed the Orion Autoguider does not currently work with the Home Base and I've got no idea on the box thats the subject of this thread. I've been trying ti do some sideline investigation of the options for adding drivers for the Orion to the Home Base but have not worked my my through that yet.

It looks like the QHY stuff may be available for some Linux builds (which the Home Base runs on) and that there is a belief that there is little difference between a QHY5 and an Orion StarShoot autoguider except in firmware. I've not sorted that out for certain yet. The Home Base source code is availalable for Belkin's web site but the other box does not appear to be, not sure if Belkin would help out with that or not.

I'm sticking with my Jaycar 10m Usb hub for the moment as its been reliable and will work with a second hub plugged in and will try and see what can be done with the Home Base as I get time, be nice to have the mount running from Wi-fi but thats not as crucial as stability.

Bob

[wasyoungonce]

Thanks Gents...sorry the link went missing, here is is again (http://www.sevenforums.com/network-sharing/2821-belkin-network-usb-hub-f5l009.html). Lets hope this works. Using a Mac ATM and it's driving me crazy, not that it's bad it's just different.

I've had good success with USB hubs running camera, focuser, guider and USB/RS232. But I need another port. LAN to USB hub would be really the Cat's Pajamas for something like this.

I was/am mucking around building a USB/Power hub to sit on the dovetail with +12V, +8V (DSLR) and +5V (USB power) (USB Hub PCB in same box). Using OEM built USB hubs with my own power board. As said works a treat but ..."must have more ports"...and of course the USB lead length is an issue.

edit:
oh driver package on last few pages but best to read the whole thread.

[Nico13]

Thanks Brendan,
I have grabbed the driver download and will have a good read of the thread before I try it over the weekend, looks like the weather is still going to be crap :sadeyes: for a while so will give me time to try this and hopefully it's the answer to that last little bug, or is that a big bug :lol: it's big enough to lock the whole computer up so I guess its a big one ;)
Be very happy if it's sorted, still waiting for the Lodestar to turn up hopefully all will be ok by that stage. :question:

Cheers

[Nico13]

Well I installed the newer version of the Hub controller software and unfortunately when running PHD and trying to make changes to the camera settings e.g. the exposure settings then PHD freezes followed by everything else requiring a hard shutdown and full restart.

Having said that, if you just connect to PHD and start capture and calibrate as per normal then everything runs well.
The hub ports connection speeds reports on the control software for each device some faster than others, apparently it depends on the device itself according to the blurb on the hub control software.

So now I wait for the Lodestar to turn up and hope that it is less of a problem that the Toucam is.

[wasyoungonce]

Thanks for the update Ken.