Version 8.0 of the AstroEQ firmware has now been released. Thanks to those that took part in the beta testing, you've been a great help.
Hi All,
I am currently working on a new AstroEQ Firmware release.
The following features have been changed/added to the firmware:
- Added support for DRV8834 Low Voltage Driver boards
- Rewrite of ST4 code for better performance (V8.0)
- Added standalone mode for using the ST4 port without EQMOD (complete in V8.0)
- Optimisations to motor routines to better support higher resolution mounts
- General tidy up of source code for better readability
- Major rewrite of motor routines - now in C rather than assembly
- New Acceleration/Deceleration Routines - provides a much smoother, linear ramp
- Option to disable "Gear Change" when performing high speed movements
The following changes have been made to the configuration utility
- Reduced the window size of the Config Utility to now work with a minimum screen size of 800x600
- Add ability to tab between fields on the config screen
- Add ability to paste from clipboard into config fields, and copy contents of fields to clipboard
- Fixed bug preventing Config Utility loading on some PCs
The new firmware and configuration utility is attached to this post.
The configuration utility and AstroEQ firmware are
not backward compatible with the previous firmware and utility. Make sure you save your current configuration using the old config utility before upgrading to the beta firmware. After the beta firmware is uploaded the EEPROM structure is different which will result in older versions of the config utility reporting that the EEPROM is blank or corrupt. You
will be able to downgrade to an earlier version, however you will need to re-enter your mount configuration.
It would be very useful if I can get some folks here to test out the firmware with their mount configurations to make sure the firmware works correctly before I officially release it.
Also if there are any more bugs fixes/features you want to request, I'll see if there is time to include them here.