Quote:
Originally Posted by Drac0
Sorry Martin, I think you are a little confused about how the drivers work and the number of drivers you actually need/have available. This may get a little long winded, I apologise in advance!
Doing it the way you are now, trying for a different driver for each separate camera (it is confusing, complicated & unnecessary), you actually have FOUR drivers available. You have the 2 ASCOM ASI drivers in the selection list, but the single ZWO listed actually provides 2 instances of the driver. I connect both my imaging & guide cams with just the ZWO driver, I don't use the ASCOM ASI drivers at all. All I do is when I change profiles I double check that the correct camera is selected as shown in the attached image. As long as the correct profile & camera are selected there are no issues. (I stopped using the ASCOM drivers a while back as my guide cam kept dropping out, haven't had the issue since I switched to the ZWO driver.)
Additionally, APT uses the native Windows driver for your imaging camera, it doesn't require an ASCOM driver at all. So you could always remove your imaging camera from the ASCOM driver & use that for your extra guide camera. But if you install the ZWO ASCOM drivers the imaging camera will automatically connect & show up as a compatible camera choice in PHD2, under the ZWO driver. So if you connect a ZWO imaging & guide camera, both will be listed under the ZWO driver like in the image.
And I think that is where at least part (all?) your issue is coming from. I believe at times PHD2 may have your imaging camera selected to use as the guide camera - of course the dark library won't match! Might be worth checking.
Now a quick note on the drivers themselves. They aren't linked to any particular camera. They just connect to the next compatible camera you plug in. With the ZWO drivers, which camera gets which driver (1 or 2) depends mainly on which USB port they get connected to - I can change which camera gets which driver simply by switching where they are connected.
My suggestion/s?
If you want to keep using the ASCOM ASI drivers, change your imaging camera to a guide camera instead - the imaging camera will automatically connect to the spare ZWO driver anyway. When using the 3rd guide camera on the ZWO driver, just be sure to check that the guide camera is selected when connecting, not the imaging camera.
My preferred way is to just use the ZWO driver and forget the ASI ASCOM drivers totally. Simply setup profiles for each camera/guide scope/mount combination you use (I have 6, 2 cameras for each guide scope/OAG). Then when connecting just check that the imaging cam isn't selected as the guide cam. As the dark frames are stored separately in each profile, as long as the profile & camera match there shouldn't be an issue. I find it easy this way.
Hope that is of some help.
Cheers,
Mark
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Thanks Mark
I’m reading to many posts on CN
I think I will start from scratch , delete all my profiles and start again
One camera at at a time when I use each rig, name profile , enter settings , set dark library, set BPM and calibration etc...
And yes I will use the ZWO native driver for all guide cameras but I still like using the Ascom for main imaging camera
It’s been 4 years since I’ve touched anything
Thanks again
This should be a sticky as CN is riddled with posts about folk who have issues with PHD2 using 3 and 4 cameras !!
Cheers
Martin