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OMG why do so many things have to go wrong at once!


Cumbrianwolf

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First night out for the trial run of the new set-up and indoors all was well and working great, low and behold I take everything out, and it all goes pear shaped with errors popping up in the software that previously told me all was well, now I have N.I.N.A telling my mount control is not a recognised format and the camera not working with the program, needless to say I called it a night rather frustrated without an image to my name. All I can say is that this game can test the patience of a saint. Still won’t stop me, though.

Edited by Cumbrianwolf
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I think we have all been there. And the really mad thing is that next night everything will probably go perfectly. It still happens to me  - like one of the last times I went out - My gear is permanently out a pier but I connect my mini PC each time as I don't like leaving it out under the cover. So this night I connect the two USB cables into the minipc and nothing works. PHD2 connects but tells me there is no darks library for the guide camera. So I run a new set of darks, and expect I'll need to rerun calibration when I get started. Then, my normal procedure is to do an autofocus run while still pointing at polaris just to confirm focus before I start platesolving. So the camera connects and does a couple of shots but then starts dropping the images  resulting in autofucus crashing. Long story short I had swopped the location of the two USB cables in the sockets. Both a the same type of socket, etc but for reasons I dont understand, swopping them threw everything off.

 

I swapped them back and everything went perfect. Just to check, the next time i went out I deliberately did the same swop with the same result - mayhem. Swopped them back perfect. I just dont understand why.

 

So yeah. Been there!!

 

Good luck.

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I've been there too with Windows machinery.

I now use Raspberry Pi 4's for acquisition and have a pair of very short 250mm long USB extension leads permanently plugged into each socket and one is marked with red tape against the USB3 one. The USB leads that come down from the scope are correspondingly marked.

The reason for doing this:

  1. Is to ensure that the USB sockets on the Pi board don't wear out. Up to now it has been 100% reliable.
  2. Also it means the USB addressing remain the same internally.
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On 2/16/2023 at 2:24 PM, TerryMcK said:

I've been there too with Windows machinery.

I now use Raspberry Pi 4's for acquisition and have a pair of very short 250mm long USB leads permanently plugged into each socket and one is marked with red tape against the USB3 one. The USB leads that come down from the scope are correspondingly marked.

The reason for doing this:

  1. Is to ensure that the USB sockets on the Pi board don't wear out. Up to now it has been 100% reliable.
  2. Also it means the USB addressing remain the same internally.

I use the PI on a few things amateur radio related and may go down that dedicated route, so I can avoid the laptop and Windows OS or rather BS when it goes wrong.

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