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1
General Discussion / Throbbing Motors
« on: May 06, 2020, 21:33:27 »
Do anyone else’s motors move in a throbbing / surging fashion whilst tracking, and if so do you know what the cause is?
Thanks,
Alex
Thanks,
Alex
2
DIY AstroEQ / Re: Updating Legacy equipment.
« on: May 06, 2020, 10:19:08 »
Hi Tom,
This morning, before trying any of your suggestions, I had another try of the hand controller, just to double check the symptoms, and it worked fine! I was able to switch between the 3 speed modes, all four direction buttons worked as expected. The only thing I did differently was this time I had the speed switch in the go-to position when I powered up the board then switched to ST-4. Previously I powered the board up with the switch already in ST-4 Mode, which I assume caused it to initialise incorrectly.
I did find however that the RA motor ran out of torque under go-to, with the rate set at x668 and 16uStep (I deduced this from the fact that the Dec motor is fine at x689 but is only running at half the speed due to the higher worm ratio.). So decided that a lower RA go-to rate would increase the motor torque and likely solve the problem.
I ran the configuration utility again and it read the EEPROM fine!
So it would seem that powering the board with the switch in the ST-4 mode somehow locked it in stand alone mode. I don't understand why the power cycle didn't solve this yesterday though? Does this make sense to you?
One more question about the configuration utility, what should the GPIO1 drive type be set to? I have left it at the default "Push-Pull".
Thanks
Alex
EDIT, one thing I have just noticed is that whilst it does read the EEPROM and load the existing configuration, the gear ratio settings are all blank. The calculated values are still there but the setting fields are empty, and if you hit the update button it clears all the calculations. Its not a problem as I always save my configurations so i can recall them later but thought it might be a bug in the configurator.
This morning, before trying any of your suggestions, I had another try of the hand controller, just to double check the symptoms, and it worked fine! I was able to switch between the 3 speed modes, all four direction buttons worked as expected. The only thing I did differently was this time I had the speed switch in the go-to position when I powered up the board then switched to ST-4. Previously I powered the board up with the switch already in ST-4 Mode, which I assume caused it to initialise incorrectly.
I did find however that the RA motor ran out of torque under go-to, with the rate set at x668 and 16uStep (I deduced this from the fact that the Dec motor is fine at x689 but is only running at half the speed due to the higher worm ratio.). So decided that a lower RA go-to rate would increase the motor torque and likely solve the problem.
I ran the configuration utility again and it read the EEPROM fine!
So it would seem that powering the board with the switch in the ST-4 mode somehow locked it in stand alone mode. I don't understand why the power cycle didn't solve this yesterday though? Does this make sense to you?
One more question about the configuration utility, what should the GPIO1 drive type be set to? I have left it at the default "Push-Pull".
Thanks
Alex
EDIT, one thing I have just noticed is that whilst it does read the EEPROM and load the existing configuration, the gear ratio settings are all blank. The calculated values are still there but the setting fields are empty, and if you hit the update button it clears all the calculations. Its not a problem as I always save my configurations so i can recall them later but thought it might be a bug in the configurator.
3
DIY AstroEQ / Re: Updating Legacy equipment.
« on: May 05, 2020, 15:41:33 »
Hi Tom,
Spoke too soon i'm afraid!
I tried the controller with my hand controller, just to see if that worked but it didn't, the switch doesn't seem to change anything, i cant get go-to speed and i have no DEC control at all. thinking this may be because i set the go-to speed too high, i went back to the configuration tool and the EEPROM read failed again. Tried re-flashing the firmware again (which succeeded) but still failed the EEPROM read. This time however the status LED is flashing at about the same rate as the usb one.
Not sure if my hand controller has done something dodgy, ive put a picture of the circuit for reference.
Thanks
Alex
Spoke too soon i'm afraid!
I tried the controller with my hand controller, just to see if that worked but it didn't, the switch doesn't seem to change anything, i cant get go-to speed and i have no DEC control at all. thinking this may be because i set the go-to speed too high, i went back to the configuration tool and the EEPROM read failed again. Tried re-flashing the firmware again (which succeeded) but still failed the EEPROM read. This time however the status LED is flashing at about the same rate as the usb one.
Not sure if my hand controller has done something dodgy, ive put a picture of the circuit for reference.
Thanks
Alex
4
DIY AstroEQ / Re: Updating Legacy equipment.
« on: May 05, 2020, 11:44:23 »
Many thanks Tom, That seems to have done the trick, at least as far as the configuration utility goes, (I've yet to try it on the mount).
One more question about the config, do I need to enable the Advanced H/C option? it says it is only for v4.6 boards with the resistor mod, is that 1K between pins 12 & 31 that i did?
Thanks
Alex
One more question about the config, do I need to enable the Advanced H/C option? it says it is only for v4.6 boards with the resistor mod, is that 1K between pins 12 & 31 that i did?
Thanks
Alex
5
DIY AstroEQ / Re: Updating Legacy equipment.
« on: May 04, 2020, 20:56:57 »
Hi Tom,
I've checked for shorts on the white wire and haven't found any. The sequence i'm getting is as follows:
Connect power: Power led lights solid, status led lights solid.
Connect USB: USB led flashing, status led blinks rapidly then returns to solid.
Open config utility tool and set com port and firmware type, click configure: status blinks rapidly then slowly (5s on - 5s off) as it attempts to read the EEPROM. Eventually blinks rapidly again when the EEPROM read times out and the failure message shows.
i'v removed the EEPROM chip to look for damage / corrosion on any of the pins, and looked for dry joints but all to no avail.
i have re flashed the firmware again which said it was successful and reset the power, but still the EEPROM read fails.
I've read a post where someone was having a similar problem and managed to get success with an earlier version of the firmware, might that be a solution?
Incidentally, I have no real need to change anything in the configuration other than to set the ST4 rate for the hand controller. The basic configuration "should" still be the same as it was last time i used it (albeit about 5 years ago) unless anything has changed in that time that would require a re-configuration? It would be nice if I could get it to work though.
Thanks.
Alex
I've checked for shorts on the white wire and haven't found any. The sequence i'm getting is as follows:
Connect power: Power led lights solid, status led lights solid.
Connect USB: USB led flashing, status led blinks rapidly then returns to solid.
Open config utility tool and set com port and firmware type, click configure: status blinks rapidly then slowly (5s on - 5s off) as it attempts to read the EEPROM. Eventually blinks rapidly again when the EEPROM read times out and the failure message shows.
i'v removed the EEPROM chip to look for damage / corrosion on any of the pins, and looked for dry joints but all to no avail.
i have re flashed the firmware again which said it was successful and reset the power, but still the EEPROM read fails.
I've read a post where someone was having a similar problem and managed to get success with an earlier version of the firmware, might that be a solution?
Incidentally, I have no real need to change anything in the configuration other than to set the ST4 rate for the hand controller. The basic configuration "should" still be the same as it was last time i used it (albeit about 5 years ago) unless anything has changed in that time that would require a re-configuration? It would be nice if I could get it to work though.
Thanks.
Alex
6
DIY AstroEQ / Re: Updating Legacy equipment.
« on: May 04, 2020, 15:14:35 »
Hi Tom,
I've modified the board to add the ST-4 Port, and successfully updated the firmware using the configuration utility, but when i try to configure the board in the next step, it fails to read the EEPROM, giving the message "Read Failed!! Connection unavailable". The status light blinks slowly during the read attempt but after a while it seems to time out and give the error message. I am using V8.17 of the configuration utility tool. Any ideas what the problem could be?
Thanks
Alex
I've modified the board to add the ST-4 Port, and successfully updated the firmware using the configuration utility, but when i try to configure the board in the next step, it fails to read the EEPROM, giving the message "Read Failed!! Connection unavailable". The status light blinks slowly during the read attempt but after a while it seems to time out and give the error message. I am using V8.17 of the configuration utility tool. Any ideas what the problem could be?
Thanks
Alex
7
DIY AstroEQ / Re: Updating Legacy equipment.
« on: April 29, 2020, 11:24:22 »
Hi Tom,
Thanks for the info. Just to make sure I understand you correctly, all I need to do is add a 1K resistor between pins 12 & 31 of the ATMega, and connect pin1 of the RJ11 ST-4 port also to pin 12 of the ATMega, and the rest is the same as the tutorials?
Thanks,
Alex
Thanks for the info. Just to make sure I understand you correctly, all I need to do is add a 1K resistor between pins 12 & 31 of the ATMega, and connect pin1 of the RJ11 ST-4 port also to pin 12 of the ATMega, and the rest is the same as the tutorials?
Thanks,
Alex
8
DIY AstroEQ / Updating Legacy equipment.
« on: April 28, 2020, 14:22:12 »
Hi
I am returning to astronomy after a break of about 5 years and obviously In that time a lot has changed.
I have an AstroEQ that I built in 2013, it is V4.0 hardware with A4988 motor drivers and I think version 5.4 software.
Just recently I was considering how I could build a simple hand controller to drive the stepper motors and provide basic tracking without a PC when I discovered that this is now an option with AstroEQ.
I have read the tutorial about adding the ST-4 port to the V4.0 hardware (seems simple enough), but before I go doing anything brash, I wanted to check whether my hardware supports the latest firmware and if I can simply use the configuration utility to update it. (The configuration utility didn't exist when i built my controller!)
I noticed there is a comment about legacy hardware for V7.0 in the version history but the link didn't work, so I don't know its significance.
Finally My "Astronomy" laptop is operating on windows XP, I understand that the configuration utility itself needs Vista or later which is ok as I can use my desktop PC for that (which is windows 10), but will My AstroEq work with the XP laptop after the update?
Many Thanks,
Alex
I am returning to astronomy after a break of about 5 years and obviously In that time a lot has changed.
I have an AstroEQ that I built in 2013, it is V4.0 hardware with A4988 motor drivers and I think version 5.4 software.
Just recently I was considering how I could build a simple hand controller to drive the stepper motors and provide basic tracking without a PC when I discovered that this is now an option with AstroEQ.
I have read the tutorial about adding the ST-4 port to the V4.0 hardware (seems simple enough), but before I go doing anything brash, I wanted to check whether my hardware supports the latest firmware and if I can simply use the configuration utility to update it. (The configuration utility didn't exist when i built my controller!)
I noticed there is a comment about legacy hardware for V7.0 in the version history but the link didn't work, so I don't know its significance.
Finally My "Astronomy" laptop is operating on windows XP, I understand that the configuration utility itself needs Vista or later which is ok as I can use my desktop PC for that (which is windows 10), but will My AstroEq work with the XP laptop after the update?
Many Thanks,
Alex
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