Hi Will,
Somehow I completely missed your post. In the current release firmware the AstroEQ always needs to be connected to EQMOD to run.
That is however about to change as it has in the beta firmware. I'm adding a fully standalone mode to allow the AstroEQ to run without a USB connection allowing a simple push button hand controller to be connected to the ST-4 port.
It could also make it possible to connected a guide camera directly to the ST-4 port as well in the standalone mode. However in order to do this I will need to make some minor changes to the new firmware in order to allow the speed of push-button movements to be set (to allow the guiding correction speed to be set), which is not to tricky. Additionally I may need to add some backlash control to the DEC axis, which is somewhat more tricky (do-able, but tricky).
I'll look into it.