I had my new STXL-16200 and FW8G out the other night and had problems with the filter wheel. After an hour I received the error "The CFW reported a Motor Timeout Error" and the filter wheel stopped working. I had to disconnect from MaxIM and reconnect to get it going again. Another time when I changed filters MaxIM hung on "waiting on filter wheel" but I didn't hear any sounds (normally the filter wheel makes a sound when changing filters). It was about 5 degrees F (-15 C) outside. Thinking it may be the cold, I put the camera in the garage which was about 35 F (2 C) and ran CCDops' "CFW Exerciser". The first time it stopped after 75 moves with "CFW Error. Error occurred in the Query State CFW Motor Timeout". The second time it stopped with the same error after 19 moves. When it stopped the filter wheel hadn't fully moved so the CCD was partially covered by the space between the filters. I tried the CFW Exerciser today indoor (about 72 F or 22 C) and not no errors in 250 moves. Shouldn't the filter wheel be able to work correctly in the cold? Does this needs repairing, or is there something I can do to fix it? The camera firmware and drivers are up-to-date and I run MaxIM 6.13 and CCDOps 5.61 build 0.
No, that's not normal. Something isn't adjusted quite right. I don't recommend trying to adjust it by yourself; Bill can help with that.
One of the things Bill suggested I try is to slightly loosen the belt that moves the filter wheel. He said if it's too tight it might bind the motor. I did that and it fixed the problem. I just ran CCDOps filter wheel exerciser at -4 C (~ 29 F) and it ran for 150 random moves with no problems. Question: How long can the CFW Exerciser run before damage is done to the filter wheel? It stresses the wheel significantly more than a normal night of imaging.
Running it overnight continuously would not be an issue. Those drive belts are designed for much heavier duty use than they get in the filter wheel. They should last an incredibly long time.