asgr

All appears to be fixed. ASA sent me a new registration number, and the big jump is no more. The initial magnetic angle find for the RA axis doesn't look that great when it does the initial autostart stepping, but this doesn't seem to have a big impact on the operation. The optimise function seems to get a better setting, but the initial start refuses to use this. Does this matter? And can I force different autostart options? Thanks for everybody's input so far- I'd say things are 99% fixed now!

Thanks, but perhaps I am misunderstanding something here. I am turning the motors on (using autoslew 5.2.1.9) and it does the usual checks on each axis. It is only after it has made a Homefind on RA that it suddenly and violently slews a huge amount. Whatever checks the auto start is making obviously isn't finding the magnetic angle correctly (if that is the issue). My question is how do you find it and set it from scratch? What are the other possible parameters that could be incorrectly specified with the wrong registration code for a repaired mount? Hopefully the solution is is simply to get the new registration code from ASA, so I'll probably wait for them to contact me before trying anything too radical. A

Hi Robert, Thanks for information. Where can I find instructions on how to do this? The mount is back at work, so I can't check the manual and software right now, but hopefully it is quite straight forward to do if ASA don't get in touch with a new code soon (it is the weekend though). A

Thanks! I can't find a new registration code in the returned box or documents though. I'll have to get in touch with ASA.

Hi, I’ve just got back to work today to find a newly repaired DDM60 (I had an issue with the bearings which ASA have fixed- I hope). This afternoon I had a quick check of how things were looking, but unfortunately I’ve hit an immediate issue- when I run homefind as soon as it finds the location on the RA axis the mount rapidly slews round a huge amount (about 90 degrees) and the RA axis becomes unusable until I fully restart AutoSlew. The log displays an RA/AZ configuration error. If I don’t run a homefind then things seem to be working fairly well once the mount is tuned and balanced, but no matter what I do I seem to be getting this error with the homefind. I’ve even done a factory reset and removed all files related to Autoslew in the ProgramData folder, but this didn’t help either. I’m assuming this is some sort of software issue to do with the old configuration settings and the repaired mount clashing, since sidereal tracking and normal slewing are generally working okay. Are there other hidden files that I need to find and delete? Could anybody please give me some advice on what to try? Have you encountered a similar problem? I've also contacted ASA, but thought the forum might have some experience of this specific problem. Thanks, Aaron

Thanks for the suggestion George. Today I decided to do some longer controlled tests with the logs all turned on. Re-doing the balance and changing the tuning to small OTA (I had my own tuning before) I can see axis 1 (RA) rise to about 1.3A and then drop back to a steady 0.7A. Axis 2 (Dec) is a steady 0.2A. This seems to be maintained over a couple of hours now with no tracking drop. I guess the problem before was one of (or a mixture of) balance and tuning. I think I had achieved my previous balance in a fairly pathological alt/az (close to zenith orientation), so I have made sure my new balance is well within 0.5A for all orientations. This means it is "perfect" nowhere, but pretty good everywhere. Cheers, Aaron

Hi All, I'm getting a fairly repeatable problem where after a few hours of faultless tracking performance with my DDM60 pro, I start getting persistence position errors after about one minute of tracking. Checking the motor tuning I can see the RA axis (usually) is building up a tracking error over time until it stops tracking entirely. Again, at the start of the night I don't see this behaviour. Has anybody else had this trouble? Any advice would be appreicated (I'm currently assuming it is an issue with balance or tuning). Cheers, A

Great, thanks George. That worked for me- only caveat was that I also had to re-install autoslew with new drivers, those steps alone weren't quite enough.

Hi, Last night I started getting repeated errors when starting autoslew. It says “Axis 1: Could not connect to controller ! Please check connections and power ! There was a problem during init of the mount Please check power and connections, continuing in Sim Mode” This is the same error I would get if I didn’t have the mount connected to the laptop at all. I am using Autoslew version 5.2.1.9, but I was previously using 5.1.1.6 and got the same error. I am running Windows 10, and I only use this laptop for operating the mount (i.e. I haven’t been installing other software etc). The power appears to be fine (the light comes on and I’ve measured the 12V supply) and the USB connection also appears to be okay (it appears on Windows Device Manager with the usual FTDI driver). I've tried isolating the problem by removing the only other USB connection (my FLI camera) and the problem persists. I’ve tried changing sockets, changing 12V supplies (I’ve checked the voltage with my voltmeter), rolled back the last update of Windows 10 and re-installed ASCOM 6 and Autoslew (including drivers) a number of times. I've manually changed COM ports on the Autoslew initiation files to agree with Device Manager too. Nothing appears to be working. Has anybody come across this error? It looks like one I've solved before just by re-starting the laptop- i.e. in the past it seemed to be software related, and at a guess the USB drivers were getting themselves tied into knots. As a final check I removed the back panel of the DDM60 and I could see a red light coming on when I plugged in the USB, and it turned green when I turned on the power. Assuming this is the designed behaviour (seems logical to me), I am still thinking it must be a software issue somehow. Any help is much appreciated, Aaron