6 replies to this topic

[PeterLaubscher]

Hi everyone

 

I have owned a Touptek camera for about three years. It uses the IMX571 sensor. It is now branded as the ATR 2600 C. Until last week, it worked flawlessly and I have been thrilled with the results.

 

However, during the past three or four imaging sessions, it has started to drop sub-frames. On one night, it dropped about 50% of the subs. Last night it dropped about 35% of the subs. 

 

This has never happened previoulsy.

 

I have tried different USB cables and have tried different ports on my laptop. The camera is plugged into my laptop - I don't use one of those mini control boxes. No wireless connections. 

 

I have reset my laptop, which is three and a half years old. ACER ASPIRE 3. The camera has a substantial buffer [unlike my old CCD camera, which took ages to download subs].

 

I use the Touptek camera software for capturing images. It is a joy to use. Would using another programme make a differrence? As far as I know, I am using the latest version of the Touptek software.

 

The length of the subs does not seem to be an issue. Whether the subs are a few seconds long or 60 seconds or 200 seconds, there seems to be an issue with frames being dropped. 

 

I use my camera at minus 20 degrees centrigrade. 

 

I am at the coast in Cape Town, so weather might be a factor - I can see signs of corrosion on the springs that hold the cooling fan in the camera in place. We have had a lot of dew during recent nights, although last night did not seem as bad as previous nights.

 

I have made one change to my equipment, and that is that I have connected a Touptek electronic focuser to me scope, which draws power from the camera's USB port and connects to my laptop via the camera USB hub [on the back of the Touptek camera]. As I type this, I wonder if this is the cause of the problem? I have had the focuser for about a month, but have only imaged in earnest over the past week, due to severe cloudy weather in recent weeks.  I can't test this idea tonight, as it is cloudy again. This seems like a long shot, as the focuser doesn't do anything whilst I am imaging - I don't have it set up constant refoucsing. However, I will disconnect it during my next session and see if that makes a difference. My guide camera also connects to my computer via the Touptek's USB hub - I use PHD guiding.  The loss of subframes starts before I encable PHD, so I don't think that this is an issue. 

 

Any thoughts on what might be causing the sub-frames to be lost?

 

Thanks for your help and advice.

 

Peter

 

PS I'm attaching an image of the Hamburger Galaxy [Centaurus A, also known as NGC 5128] that I captured recently.

 

 

 

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[scanner97]

This kind of stuff is always frustrating.  Trying to think of things you haven't tried yet...

 

Agree it would be good to disconnect the AF just  to confirm.  Too easy not to try.

 

To be sure it's not something with the laptop, you might borrow a different one. 

 

If you're seeing corrosion in one place on the camera, it's certainly possible it's happening elsewhere.  But replacing an expensive camera is not an easy "let's check this".  Unless you know someone locally who has one and would bring it to help you debug.

 

I'd guess s/w is not the problem unless you did a recent upgrade.  But you could always try something like NINA.  It's free, but getting it up and running is not a 5-minute exercise.

 

Nice image  ... good luck!

[PeterLaubscher]

Many thanks, Viking 1 - that is a great idea - I will try with a different laptop - not sure why that did not occur to me  

 

I do have Nina installed, but find it very difficult to use. The Touptek software is so easy by comparisdon, but if I don't have any joy, I will try with Nina. 

 

I'll keep you posted - tomorrow night - Tuesday 27th May - looks set to be a great night in Cape Town, so I hope to be able to set up my rig and try these solutions.

 

I'll keep you posted.

 

Thanks for your speedy reply - hugely apprecaited.

 

Peter

[PeterLaubscher]

Okay, so I think I have found the problem. Last night I tried everything - disconnected the autofocuser, changed computers etc and fewer frames were being dropped, but the problem was not completely resolved.

 

Touptek offers two imaging programmes - one for astro [ToupSky] and the other for microscope work [ToupView]. Both are free to download. The differences between ToupSky and ToupView are almost indiscernable. I moved over to ToupView and from what I can see, things worked flawlessly.

 

I will verify this tonight - I won't be able to image, as it is set to rain, but I'll run a set of dark frames and see what happens [should have thought of this a few nights ago :) ]

 

So, if you are a Toupcam user, be aware of a possible glitch in the ToupSky software and try ToupView if you are experiencing problems. 

 

I'll post a report tomorrow [29 May 2025] after I have run the dark frame collection process. 

 

If this is the solution, I'll be very happy, as I have nothing but praise for the camera itself, which is a gem.

[PeterLaubscher]

Oh dear, that didn't actually work - different computers, different software, still dropping frames. I think the problem must lie with the camera itself. The weather can't be an issue, as I am testing it indoors tonight. Well, it still works and gives great results, so I suppose I will simply have to live with the issue, unless some other solution pops up. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks. 

[nathmath]

This is interesting timing, perhaps coincidence, but I also just started having trouble with my ToupTek 62AM dropping frames in the last few days. I'm using the native driver in NINA. I noticed it when I woke up to find NINA only took a fraction of the correct number of flat frames that it was instructed. NINA gave a bunch of "failed to download image" errors. I also tried Sharpcap and had numerous dropped frames and the frames it was able to download came in at a very low FPS.

 

Now I'm testing using the ASCOM driver and so far so good. No dropped frames in Sharpcap and NINA is currently chugging along taking all my flat frames. That's at least reassuring that I think the hardware is okay (my camera's only a few months old). Maybe a driver bug with the native driver? I was using the latest 2025/3/19 driver touptek64.dll from their website, and it had been working fine until a few days ago. The ASCOM driver's not as nice to adjust certain settings like offset and dew heater as the native driver so I'd like to get back to the native driver if possible. Maybe I'll shoot ToupTek support an email.

[PeterLaubscher]

Many thanks, Nathmath - if Touptek is able to shed light on this matter, that would be appreciated. It's had wating for a good night to roll along and then to waste so much of it when it does happen.