Hi Howard,
my motors ar now slewing at 2.4 deg / sec, rotating smoothly and working well at 12 volts. I did a bit of experimenting with full and half step slewing, but you were dead accurate in saying that microstep slewing suppresses resonance. I got smoothest slewing using your suggested settings. Very happy camper now...
The programming part is a bit beyond me, I'm afraid, so I'll have to wait for someone to do it. It would be great if it was in Ascom like for example EQmod..., but until then I'm happy to use it as you designed it.....
cheers
Gary
Hi Howard,
thanks for the explanation - as a person with a biological background rather than an electronics one I'll take your word for it !!
It seems to be working fine, but the slewing speed is a little slow about 1/2 rev per second so I will need to play with settings to speed things up a bit to get to the 2 deg second target I'd like.
It would be nice if the ascom driver could handle the initialization - rather than needing your chart program or an android ap (I have a Windows phone!).... My old laptop is filled t the limit with Pinpoint, The Sky 6, Skytools 3, and Astroart.... It would be nice to avoid having to try to fit an extra charting program on to initialize the drive..... I have been using a borrowed android tablet to play....... but this must go back soon.
I'm also very appreciative of Steve for doing the boards, and you for doing the development work on the software.... Much applause from a non techie person here....
cheers
Gary
A MaxRate value of 32 is what I use to get 2.5 deg/sec. on my G11.
I'm not a big fan of ASCOM control panels cluttering up my screen, I like control in one application so that's what I did...
However, alignment of OnStep really needs just a few commands :A1# :A2# :A3# :A+# . If using ASCOM's POTH a simple jscript or vbscript could be written to send the required commands (it would take just a few lines of code I believe.)
For example:
Use a script to start a two-star align, send ":A2#" using ASCOM's CommandBool().
Use your program of choice to goto a suitable star and center the star with guide commands.
Use a script accept the alignment star, send ":A+#" using ASCOM's CommandBool().
Use your program of choice to goto a suitable star and center the star with guide commands.
Use a script accept the alignment star, send ":A+#" using ASCOM's CommandBool().
Done.
Orly was wanting PEC control from ASCOM and this could be accomplished in a similar way. I'll get around to throwing something together soon if no one else picks it up. Perhaps a stand-alone windows application.
A jscript would look something like this (hacked jscript example provided with ASCOM install.) Probably doesn't work, but it should be close:
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var H = new ActiveXObject("ASCOM.Utilities.Chooser");
// WScript.Echo("Pick driver in the Chooser. Then click Properties to activate its SetupDialog if required");// Make chooser for Telescopes
H.DeviceType = "Telescope";
// I added "POTH Hub" below so drvrID is returned immediately
// if an empty string were passed it brings up the chooser dialog
var drvrID = H.Choose("POTH Hub");
if(drvrID === "") WScript.Quit(); // Cancelled chooser
var T = new ActiveXObject(drvrID); // Create instance of selected driver// Start align one-star
var result=T.CommandBool(":A1#",true);
T = null;
H = null;
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