PHD on VM Fusion

Oscar in Bin (John) · #1 06-11-2011, 03:11 PM

I am trying to drive a Taki EM200 using PHD on VMFusion. I capture the images on an Orion SSAG and that works fine. Where it falls over is PHD talking to the mount. It will not calibrate and when you try to use the manual movement commands in PHD again nothing.
So two questions - is anyone successfully using PHD on VMFusion and is there some way you can narrow down the problem eg measure the voltage across the pins on the connection to the mount.

ZeroID (Brent) · #2 06-11-2011, 06:52 PM

I think hardware drivers from a VM to a mount is going to be an uphill slog. I don't think PHD is equipped for virtual drivers via hardware translation. What is the host machine ?

troypiggo (Troy) · #3 06-11-2011, 06:52 PM

I've used PHD in Fusion no worries at all. Guide cam is a QHY5, mount is EQ6 via EQASCOM. In fact all my astro software works fine. Can you control the mount with other Win software within Fusion? What are you selecting as your mount in PHD?

Oscar in Bin (John) · #4 06-11-2011, 08:25 PM

The machine is a Mac Book Pro. I am using SkyX for Go To using the VM side of the machine and that works OK. The camera also works OK in PHD. It is the calibration and mount driving side that seems to be struggling. Maybe it is a driver issue?

Oscar in Bin (John) · #5 06-11-2011, 08:30 PM

Sorry forgot to add that the Mount selection is the 'on camera' option which was recommended in the notes that came with the guiding package.

naskies (Dave) · #6 06-11-2011, 11:42 PM

I use an Orion SSAG + NEQ6 with PHD running under VMWare Fusion with no problems at all (mid-2009 13" & mid-2010 15" MacBook Pro). I have the ST4 cable running from the SSAG camera to the NEQ6 mount, and PHD set to the mount on camera option.

troypiggo (Troy) · #7 07-11-2011, 08:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oscar in Bin

Sorry forgot to add that the Mount selection is the 'on camera' option which was recommended in the notes that came with the guiding package.

So I assume you USB cable going from notebook to camera, and ST4 cable going from camera to mount?

tlgerdes (Trevor) · #8 07-11-2011, 09:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oscar in Bin

The machine is a Mac Book Pro. I am using SkyX for Go To using the VM side of the machine and that works OK. The camera also works OK in PHD. It is the calibration and mount driving side that seems to be struggling. Maybe it is a driver issue?

As you are using the on-camera control and the camera is detected and is usable inside your VM, then it is not a driver issue. I would suspect it is the cable from the SSAG to the TAK EM200.

tlgerdes (Trevor) · #9 07-11-2011, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZeroID

I think hardware drivers from a VM to a mount is going to be an uphill slog. I don't think PHD is equipped for virtual drivers via hardware translation. What is the host machine ?

A VM doesnt need special "Virtual" drivers. The USB HW is presented direct to VM. It is "detached" from the host system and presented to the VM until you remove the USB HW.

The only drivers required are for the correct VM guest OS.

Oscar in Bin (John) · #10 22-11-2011, 05:05 PM

Just want to close this one out in case someone with a similar problem follows this trail in future.
The issue was as suggested by Tigerdes one of cabling. The EM200 has different wiring. Shoestring has a link cable that does the appropriate swapping of wire positions.

Omaroo (Chris Malikoff) · #11 22-11-2011, 07:43 PM

Thanks for that update and clarification. I've just started to configure my new MacBook Air for astro duty, and am running the new Fusion4, Windows 7, MaximDL5 and PHD to drive both my G11 and EM10. The MacBook cranks under Fusion4, it's really very nippy.

naskies (Dave) · #12 22-11-2011, 10:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oscar in Bin

Just want to close this one out in case someone with a similar problem follows this trail in future.

Someone in the future is probably saying thank you!

http://xkcd.com/979/

By the way, in case anyone else is running PHD in a virtual machine on a Mac... if your machine is underpowered and/or you're doing a lot of processing intensive work then it's possible that PHD won't get enough CPU cycles and can't guide as well (it's happened to me before).

Easiest way to check is to run Activity Monitor on your mac (Applications -> Utilities -> Activity Monitor) and make sure the CPU usage never reaches 100%.

If it does, then you can prioritise PHD by increasing the process priority of VMWare (easiest way may be to download a program like atMonitor or use the "renice" command in Terminal), and set the priority of PHD inside VMware to Real-Time using Task Manager.

This way, I can render photos, run Photoshop, have Stellarium open in the background - and PHD still guides quite happily.