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Old 04-07-2021, 03:00 PM
Paullus (Paul)
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QHY Woes

Hi all,


I recently purchased a second hand QHY10 camera which doesn't seem to be functioning correctly. I think I know what the verdict is but I'll pass it to the collective brains trust to get some opinions.


All I get is a series of black/grey/white lines when there should be an image, even if it's an out of focus blur. Sometimes I could get the silhoutte of tree branches but the rest of the image is garbage. Almost looks like it's bleeding in from one side. Haven't used it on any astro targets; only a transmission tower several kilometres away and a street light <1km away.


I've tried the following with no avail:
- various gain/offset/exposure length combinations

- various software (EZCAP-QT, EZCAP, APT, SharpCap)
- stopping down the aperture on the scope (8" newt with small cap removed from the larger tube cap)
- use with/without telescope attached
- LPS filter (to filter UV)
- Ha filter on the street light.



The only time I got a semi reasonable image was using the Ha filter on the streetlight but even with an exposure of 1ms the light filament was still blooming. Seems that it's not exposing correctly, but given this is my first dedicated astro camera (my guiding ZWO ASI120-MC doesn't count), any thoughts before I pull the trigger on a new ZWO 294MC Pro?



Cheers
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  #2  
Old 04-07-2021, 03:08 PM
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xelasnave
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I have no idea but try new usb cables...
Seems to be a fix most everything with ZWO cameras.
Alex
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  #3  
Old 05-07-2021, 12:15 PM
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Mmm...are the drivers loaded properly and have you tried a different USB port and cable?
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Old 05-07-2021, 04:58 PM
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multiweb (Marc)
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I reckon the cooling is not working properly.
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  #5  
Old 06-07-2021, 05:59 PM
etill (Elliot)
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I have a QHY10, hopefully some of this may be helpful. I'm not suggesting it will fix anything but at least you should be able to verify some functionality.

Also these cameras have some different methods of reading the sensor depending on the exposure length. I can't remember the exact numbers but it depends on the download mode plus exposure length. Very short exposures are read from the sensor in two halves, which I think happens up to 9 secs or so. I have read reports of this causing problems but not seen it with mine, I don't use bias for calibration because of it though, just flats, darks and dark flats (30 second flats took some careful setup of the light box)

Anyway try this out, I've attached some screen shots.
1. Get NINA, just because the latest version has a QHY SDK included that I know works with my QHY10.

2. Connect the camera and power it up. You should be able to select the QHY10 directly without using the ASCOM driver. The driver info should be QHYCCD SDK and the driver version something similar to the attached image. It refers to the SDK versions here: https://www.qhyccd.com/html/prepub/l...tml#!log_en.md

In my case its 21.03.13 - make sure its after that one, previous versions had an issue in the USB driver for older QHY cameras for a few revisions. Version 20.06.26 has it listed in known issues in the release notes so don't use that one obviously..

3. Set the cooler temperature (I use -10 in the example). Note that the details on power level and chip temperature are generally wrong until you set it and turn it on.

4. Once you've hit the target temperature put a cover on the camera to take some darks, in the camera settings you can enable and disable the overscan area (see pic). Take a 60 second dark with it on and then with it off, you should see the difference in the images (in the examples attached its the area down the right side of the image). In mine I had the lights on and don't think the cover was that light proof, sodon't worry if you don't get the same purplish color as mine.

If all goes well and you can see the overscan area when its enabled and not when its not then at least the camera / driver is working.

Hope it works out, other than the incredibly slow download of images (21 secs per image in standard mode with 1x1 binning), its a nice camera. 6.05um pixel size and aps-c sensor suits my setup and the usual conditions here in melbourne pretty well for me.
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Old 07-07-2021, 07:35 PM
Paullus (Paul)
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Thanks for your replies. To sum up:

- I've tried the USB camera that came with the camera, and a new, longer one.
- Have tried both USB2.0 and 3.0 ports (device is USB2.0)
- Camera cools down to the set temperature of -10.

and still no joy.

I did take a few more shots that I was going to post, but I will persevere with Elliots suggestions first. I installed NINA (HF3) and the Driver Info appears as 'Native Driver' (got V10-11-8 installed - latest I could find @ ~2013) and it does display the SDK version further down, but not as the 'Driver' like in Elliot's screenshot.

I then did a full uninstall of everything QHY, including the drivers and installed NINA, and even the QHY All in One setup (designed for newer cameras) but the device appears in Device Manager without a driver (previously it was installed with the V10-11-8 driver). The camera does not appear in the list of cameras in NINA without a device driver being installed. So my question to Elliot is what's the version of driver are you using?

Cheers
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  #7  
Old 07-07-2021, 08:01 PM
Paullus (Paul)
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So anyway I reinstalled the V10-11-8 driver, and took a couple of shots with/without oversampling on and you can see the difference between the two. Camera is attached to a small refractor with the cap on and a towel over the end, so realistically these should be darks.


When pointed back at the street light, it exhibits similar images to those in this thread with green and magenta streaks: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/3...10-bad-images/. I am shooting through a tinted window though. The outcome of that thread was camera replacement
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Old 08-07-2021, 06:32 AM
etill (Elliot)
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That's just one version newer of NINA than mine. You have the same SDK that ships with HF2 - it's in a subdirectory of the NINA install itself. You can change it easily with NINA by just copying a different SDK version over the top and restarting but it doesn't seem like there is any problem with it in your case.

The driver I have is the same and appears to be working as expected and communicating with the camera, so it's probably not a USB cable or drvier or anything like that.

Unfortuantely looks like you have a hardware fault in the camera of some kind.

Since the TEC and other parts appear to be working if it turns out to be a faulty sensor and you get rid of it PM me, I might be interested in buying a faulty camera for any spares it may have to keep mine working a little longer, they are getting quite old now..
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Old 08-07-2021, 06:43 AM
garymck (Gary)
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I think the problem is a dud 9 pin cable. I had the same issue with an old QHY8. When I replaced the cable it was fine. It may also be a problem with the DC201. Have seen the same problem years ago when that failed.
FWIW
Gary
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  #10  
Old 08-07-2021, 06:59 AM
etill (Elliot)
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Definately possible, it's going to need a reference voltage somewhere between the sensor and getting a digital reading out of it and a dud power supply could affect that.

I can measure mine later today to see what you should have on each pin. From memory its going to be +/- 15v and 5v.
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  #11  
Old 08-07-2021, 07:19 AM
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multiweb (Marc)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by garymck View Post
I think the problem is a dud 9 pin cable. I had the same issue with an old QHY8. When I replaced the cable it was fine. It may also be a problem with the DC201. Have seen the same problem years ago when that failed.
FWIW
Gary
+1 that's why I said it's probably cooling. Those first pictures are the hallmark of a hot sensor. Same happened with my QHY8 once and it was indeed the cable.
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Old 08-07-2021, 07:41 AM
Paullus (Paul)
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Perhaps I should have mentioned this earlier, but when I first received the camera the TEC/cooling would not switch on at all. After quite a bit of troubleshooting I figured out a fault in the 9 pin connector at the camera end. It must be held at a particular angle for the cooling to work (i.e. cable strapped back relatively tightly onto the camera body).

Once I got the cooling working I thought I'd be on the home straight, but perhaps there are still other faults in the connector. I've got a new 9 pin mini DIN connector to replace it so sounds like I've got a fun soldering job coming up .

Without knowing the schematic/pin out of the connector I'm bit limited on how far I can test, but happy to swap connectors first, and then replace the cable and DC201 (if I can find one at a reasonable price). Then it becomes a trade off of how much more I invest that may not solve the problem vs putting money to a new unit. Edit: seems that both the cable and DC201 are available from Modern Astronomy for 95 GBP + postage.

Happy to keep testing/troubleshooting in the meantime, and thankful for the collective brains trust thus far.

Cheers
Paul
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Old 08-07-2021, 09:51 AM
etill (Elliot)
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I wouldn't go so far as to say it's not a cooler problem but it has me intrigued at least, so I've popped mine open and got the NINA source code out. I hate c# but I can follow it easy enough.

There isn't much to the DC201, but the main regulators I can identify are 7805, 7815 and 7915 types as expected. I would have originally guessed the +/- 15v is for an opamp or some other analog part of the circuit, but they are quite large regulators and a typical opamp doesn't need much. Maybe they were just cheaper than the SMD versions at the time (those rails are generated from a single +12v and if they do have anyhting to do with the sensor or an amp of some kind could be at fault if any of those components had failed). I can't find an ICX494 datasheet but similar CCD sensors from Sony appear to use a single rail supply, no idea about this one.

I'd guessing based on the rest of the DC201 circuit board the camera may have some kind of serial communication with the power supply or something like that to control some function of it. My scope can decode most serial protocols so if I have time I can probe around and see later on, I only took a brief look this morning.

Looking at the source code (the relevant parts you are after are in NINA.Equipment/Equipment/MyCamera/QHYCamera.cs and NINA.Equipment/SDK/CameraSDKs/QHYSDK/QhyccdSdk.cs) it appears the SDK allows you to set a target temp, and possibly PWM parameters. I can't see anywhere this code does much other than read the max and min PWM values and sets the current value to zero when disabling the cooler. It sets the target temp and the reads the PWM values back to display the power level.

I have to put "---" either end of the code snippets below otherwise I suspect lack of formating may make this hard to read.

This task sets the desired temperature every 2 secs according to the comment:

---
// QHY cameras have two eras of firmware when it comes to managing cooling.
// "Old" camera firmware requires that the target temperature or PWM be set at regular, constant
// intervals, usually every 2 seconds. "New" camera firmware does not have this requirement, but
// there is no programmatic way to determine which firmware is old and which firmware is new. As
// a result, QHY's own suggestion is to just treat every camera as if it is running old firmware
// and set the target temperature every 2 seconds.
//
// To manage this, we will create a task to run constantly in the background while CoolerOn = true
---

This is the task that sets the temperature every 2 secs per above:

---
private async Task CoolerWorker(CancellationToken ct) {
try {
bool previous = Info.CoolerOn;

Logger.Debug("QHYCCD: CoolerWorker task started");
while (!ct.IsCancellationRequested) {
if (Info.CoolerOn) {
Logger.Trace($"QHYCCD: CoolerWorker setting camera target temp to {Info.CoolerTargetTemp}");
Sdk.ControlTemp(Info.CoolerTargetTe mp);
} else if (previous == true) {
Logger.Debug("QHYCCD: CoolerWorker turning off TEC due user request");
_ = Sdk.SetControlValue(QhySdk.CONTROL_ ID.CONTROL_MANULPWM, 0);
}

previous = Info.CoolerOn;

/* sleep (cancelable) */
await Task.Delay(QhySdk.QHYCCD_COOLER_DEL AY, ct);
}
} catch (OperationCanceledException) {
Logger.Debug("QHYCCD: CoolerWorker task cancelled");
}
}
---

This gets the current cooler power:

---
public double CoolerPower {
get {
double rv = double.NaN;

if (Connected && CanSetTemperature) {
if ((rv = Sdk.GetControlValue(QhySdk.CONTROL_ ID.CONTROL_CURPWM)) != QhySdk.QHYCCD_ERROR) {
/*
* This needs to be returned as a percentage of Info.CoolerPwmMax.
*/
return (rv / Info.CoolerPwmMax) * 100;
}
}

return rv;
}
}
---

So based on that and the screenshots you sent of NINA showing power and temp curves that appear to be consistent with a correctly functioning TEC and temp sensor in the camera it would require a sequence of faults I think is probably unlikely to make it look like its working to the SDK / software when its actually not cooling / working at all.

This doesn't rule out the DC201 being at fault. Based on my very limited knowledge of old CCD sensors and how the circuitry that reads them works I'd guess if it were a fault with the power supply it could be something like gain gone wild rather than a heated up sensor, or maybe something to do with power to the sensor itself.

The good news is at least if its the cable or DC201 power supply you can replace that a lot easier or cheaper than fixing the camera. I'd loan you mine to test before buying another, but you never know when the clouds will clear and its the only one I have.
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Old 08-07-2021, 11:12 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Paullus View Post
Perhaps I should have mentioned this earlier, but when I first received the camera the TEC/cooling would not switch on at all. After quite a bit of troubleshooting I figured out a fault in the 9 pin connector at the camera end. It must be held at a particular angle for the cooling to work (i.e. cable strapped back relatively tightly onto the camera body).
Well if the socket in the camera is damaged and doesn't make proper contact I'd start looking into that first.
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Old 08-07-2021, 01:27 PM
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Going by my experience with my QHY12 (similar problem, lots of lines across the image).

It was a trip back to the mother ship and QHY reported the PCB was corroded and replaced, cost me $65 plus freight both ways.

Anyhoo, I have the circuit diagram for the DC201 for those who are interested.
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Old 08-07-2021, 04:08 PM
etill (Elliot)
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Nice, it certainly matches. I didn't catch the CPLD on it, just assumed it was a micro of some kind. I figured the camera must be telling the power supply to do the PWM for the TEC, couldn't find any mosfet in the camera to do it (at least that I could identify, they obfuscate some of the components with some kind of paint).
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Old 08-07-2021, 05:49 PM
Paullus (Paul)
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Another observation: when the camera is plugged in via USB, and then when the 9 pin cable is connected to the DC-201, the 15+V LED lights up (this is before the 12V supply is plugged into the DC-201). Is this normal?
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Old 09-07-2021, 12:59 PM
etill (Elliot)
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Yes, mine does too. Just the +15v light.
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Old 09-07-2021, 06:19 PM
Paullus (Paul)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by etill View Post
Yes, mine does too. Just the +15v light.
Ok good to know. Double checking it's not a symptom of the issue.
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Old 21-08-2021, 10:09 AM
Paullus (Paul)
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Hi all,

Thought I'd close out this thread with an update of how things have progressed and been resolved.

I lodged a ticket with QHY support who instructed me to do some troubleshooting, mostly checking voltages and waveforms on the main board in the camera using an oscilloscope. The DC-201 is ok, but I wasn't getting the right signals on the main board. My electronics friend spotted a broken track running from one of the ICs to a connector, so he jerry-rigged a new connection using thin copper wire. Much to our delight this mostly resolved the problem to a point where I was able to take images, but I still wasn't convinced it was fixed properly. The exposures still weren't quite right and daytime targets were a bit flared from memory. There was some noticeable corrosion in a few spots on the board which may have lead to the broken connection.

I requested a replacement board from QHY which arrived within a week for the sum of ~$180AUD. I finally replaced it yesterday and whilst I haven't tested it at night, daytime tests and exposures appear to be much better and the camera appears to behaving as it should. I sprayed the new board with a protective lacquer to hopefully prevent any new corrosion.

Hopefully I can put it through its paces soon

Cheers
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