Shiny New Black Box - Page 2

Nico13 (Ken) · #21 03-09-2012, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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

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 (Bob) · #22 04-09-2012, 05:31 AM

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 (Ken) · #23 04-09-2012, 09:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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

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

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 (Brendan) · #24 06-09-2012, 08:35 PM

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 (Ken) · #25 06-09-2012, 09:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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.

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 (Bob) · #26 07-09-2012, 07:07 AM

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 (Brendan) · #27 07-09-2012, 12:30 PM

Thanks Gents...sorry the link went missing, here is is again. 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 (Ken) · #28 07-09-2012, 01:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wasyoungonce

Thanks Gents...sorry the link went missing, here is is again. 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.

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

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

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.

Cheers

Nico13 (Ken) · #29 08-09-2012, 10:54 PM

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 (Brendan) · #30 09-09-2012, 06:23 PM

Thanks for the update Ken.