Gilles, I got much further today trying to get the driver working under indi:
1. It is not possible to use the driver with the current debian stable (jessie) as the other packages are just too old. I managed to compile the ftdi library and then to compile indi and then the driver and then I stumbled... ekos and the newer kstars need qt5 which debian jessie does not have. So I had to abandon this approach as it was getting too messy.
2. I got new system running debian testing (stretch). Your driver compiled with stock FTDI and indi packages and I copied the executable indi_cam86_ccd to /usr/bin. I also copied the indi_cam86_ccd.xml file to /usr/share/indi. Was this the correct?
Note: Can you please update the indi_cam86_ccd.xml file on github to say Cam86 instead of Cam84 in two places (name + binary).
3. kstars recognised and "connected" to the driver. Note that it "connects" to the driver even when the camera is not connected so I don't really believe that is connected.
This is where my success ends. The indi control panel does not work/open for Cam86. It refuses to do anything with it. I am not sure what to do next. I never used indi before so that may be my mistake. But the simulated CCD works.
Gilles, I got much further today trying to get the driver working under indi:
1. It is not possible to use the driver with the current debian stable (jessie) as the other packages are just too old. I managed to compile the ftdi library and then to compile indi and then the driver and then I stumbled... ekos and the newer kstars need qt5 which debian jessie does not have. So I had to abandon this approach as it was getting too messy.
2. I got new system running debian testing (stretch). Your driver compiled with stock FTDI and indi packages and I copied the executable indi_cam86_ccd to /usr/bin. I also copied the indi_cam86_ccd.xml file to /usr/share/indi. Was this the correct?
Note: Can you please update the indi_cam86_ccd.xml file on github to say Cam86 instead of Cam84 in two places (name + binary).
3. kstars recognised and "connected" to the driver. Note that it "connects" to the driver even when the camera is not connected so I don't really believe that is connected.
This is where my success ends. The indi control panel does not work/open for Cam86. It refuses to do anything with it. I am not sure what to do next. I never used indi before so that may be my mistake. But the simulated CCD works.
Any hints?
Thanks
Luka
=> xml file is ok now
you don't have to install everything, just run the driver localy in your build directory in a console, e.g. :
Then, select "client" in device maganer of Kstars
Add a host (localhost port 7624), and connect to it
If you want to run it with other drivers, it's this way :
(here : cam86, eqmod mount, asi ccd, and a focuser)
This is where indi is a killer app : run your drivers on a raspberry installed under your mount, and stay in your living room using Kstars (even a android versions exists, it works quite well). The goal is to run a least a mount, a ccd and a focuser (even a fake one) in order to open "Ekos" : killer of the killer app !!! May i also suggest to try Astrometry.net, hard to setup, but once it works, OMG...
In my driver, error handling is not yet propagated to indi : running the command line driver you will be able to see the console log, and most probably connections atempts failing. Did you install the udev file ? this is very important to tell kernel to unmap ft2232 from 2 serial USB (in fact exactly like in Windows, where you tell to unload serial COM ports)
You might also have permissions problems, try to run the driver as root to check.
If so, you may add your user to "dialout" group
I did not see the udev file, copying that file solved the problem. And I kept wondering before how the driver was detecting which serial ports the cam was using
Manually running the server like in your instructions works. I can connect to it from kstars and I get into the CCD indi control panel. I got an image as well
I still cannot start the server from kstars but that could be me not knowing what I am doing
Funny thing, I kept getting white saturated images. I tried switching the light off and so on but the images were always saturated. After eventually giving up I went to disconnect the camera and noticed that it was not even connected
Anyway, it is working now and I will have a play with it tomorrow. Great work Gilles
Thank you again for your help.
(...)
Anyway, it is working now and I will have a play with it tomorrow. Great work Gilles
Thank you again for your help.
Thank you for the report, i'm very happy it's working for you !
i've added yesterday a big set of parameters (LibFTDI panel) to play with baudrates and timers, i'm still searching the good ones to make horizontal lines disapear...
Still need to add :
framing
temperature control
error handling (!)
Edit :
to launch directly from Kstars, you can try "sudo make install", it's working for me : Kstars shows a cam86 item under CCDs
I didn't even noticed you can also see console message from here...
Last edited by gehelem; 09-01-2017 at 02:12 AM.
Reason: Addition
Pat, which operating system were you using with your old computer (that was showing lines) and which one are you using now (computer not showing lines).
Windows 7 (lenovo) with lines and now Windows Starter (toshiba) and still a windows 7 (Samsung) that does not lines.
Not sure what this firmware does but it fixes the temperature sensor reading bug.
(The first firmware came in two versions, one with TEC ON and one with TEC off during the frame readout.)
The viewer software update fixed the bug where exposures over 15min did not work. However, in this version the timer is not very accurate for very short exposures. Take a pick...
A question to the people who have their cam86 working. About 50% of my photos have the first few pixels in the first row set to maximum intensity. The attached image shows a crop of the top left corner of one such image. While this gets cropped out in the processing, these white pixels make it impossible to use the histogram stretching in the acquisition software (APT). Does anybody else have this problem?
Not sure if it is the same problem but the short white line appears only when taking images with APT and not with any other software I tried. And it is always on the top left corner of the image.
On a similar matter, I also tried taking images with nebulosity and there is a pattern of horizontal lines throughout all images when acquired in series capture. However, doing preview images (i.e. one at a time) works fine. Not sure what is going there.
What other software are people using?
(Gilles, I didn't get any time to play with the indi driver yet).
