Hi Peter et al,
Thanks for your observations. The client is working as originally intended but based on your comments and observations I could see room for improvement and the scope for some additional functionality.
To this end I have put my coding hat back on and have performed a few modifications which I hope you will like
Addressing points 1 & 2 :
The absolute position is now 'live'. Every second the position is updated and will reflect the absolute position including changes made using the manual control and/or temperature compensation. The manual control is intimately hooked into the software. When the manual control is used the PIC firmware moves the motor by the user selected number of steps. This information is also stored locally in EEPROM and reported to the PC driver via the USB connection. Once a second the client polls this information from the driver and the corrected position is reported to the client via the ASCOM API and subsequently displayed. Something similar occurs with temperature compensation but is quite a bit more involved.
API - Application Programming Interface.
Addressing point 3 :
The temperature window is now also 'live' and reports the temperature once per minute. If the 'Temp Now' button is pressed the current temperature will be displayed immediately.
The 'Go' buttons will take you to the value associated with that button irrespective of temperature compensation. The idea is you Go to a filter position, check & fine tune focus and then enable temperature compensation if required. I always use my luminance filter as the reference position and therefore would hit 'Go reference' if I wanted to return to the luminance filter.
New checkbox feature :
I have added a temperature compensation enable/disable checkbox. This checkbox is only available if 'temperature compensation available' has been checked in the driver. If you check/uncheck the enable/disable button on the client this state will be mirrored and remembered in the driver and visa/versa.
The new V1.6 version of the client is available for download via the website:
www.dt-space.co.uk/SharpSkyClient
I hope I have explained operation clearly ? If there are any questions, additional questions or bugs found (perish the thought
) please let me know.
Cheers & clear skies,
Dave