Waiting for Trigger Issue

Hi, have there been any updates or resolutions on Greg's comments/questions? I have been holding off on installing Revision 14 for the Aluma AC 4040 based on this thread.

Thanks, Ira

 

Ira,
No more info yet but I was easily able to downgrade back to the version that works on my rig. If you have an FW7 I’d be interested if the new firmware 14 works for you. It seems the issue is specific to my equipment, since they have not been able to reproduce the problem yet at Diffraction Limited offices,

Greg

 

Ok Greg - I performed the upgrade. In fact, I did several updates just to get everything out of the way:

1. Windows Updates: Huge round of updates, including Windows 11 Pro 22H2, .NET updates, etc. I did have to go into device manager and fix all of the Power Management settings. Of note, this new windows update seems to reset my Power Management settings specifically for the SBIG Camera every time I power cycle it - yet not the SBIG Camera A and SBIG Camera B. I'm not sure why it is failing to persist in the state. I feel very comfortable with Microsoft technology so worst case I'll write a Powershell script or something easy and automate it. I will share it with the forums here on DL when I have the time to sit down and write it.
2. MaximDL Upgraded to 6.30: Happy to say that all previous configurations conveyed/persisted. This is probably because I took the time to document everything.
3. Aluma AC 4040 Firmware Updated to Rev 14: Update went through flawlessly, camera connected after power cycle without issue.

Now for the bad news... I am having a similar issue to yours but not a show stopper. I am also having another issue that feels somewhat new, so I'll mention briefly here and then will probably open a new thread so DL can manage through it without muddying things.

Issues:
1. Waiting for Trigger: I get this same problem when trying to run an Auto Sequence. It will hang indefinitly - though not such that MaximDL is frozen. More so that it will just sit in this limbo state waiting to start the sequence and it will never begin even though I've clicked start. If I click "Stop", then click single exposure, and set the fdilter wheel to the filter I was expecting - then click Start to take a single exposure - it happens immediately. This indicates to me that the filter wheel has actually moved to the desired place and MaximDL is somehow not able to recognize that it has occurred when running auto-sequence only. Single exposure works just fine, for me, when going through the various filter wheel positions. Of note, if I run the single exposure in the desired filter wheel state then go back to auto-sequence, it will then run. (e.g. auto sequence begins with Ha, start, waiting for trigger, stop, set single exposure with Ha filter, start, single exposure captured, click auto-sequence, run, auto-sequence begins without waiting for trigger error).
2. Camera Disconnected Unexpectedly, Error Retrieving Image Array Size, MaximDL freezes totally (clicking makes it grey out and gets me to a crash): These issues now occur every time I try to run an auto-sequence while guiding with AO. Essentially AO works just fine, I locate the star, calibrate, start guiding, that can run as long as I let it run - but the minute I begin an auto-sequence I'm going to get one of the three issues noted in this paragraph. For the DL folks - you'll easily be able to replicate this in my environment because it happens 100% of the time!

Greg - I'd like to stay in touch with you if you're open to it! It seems we have similar(ish) rigs! It would probably be helpful for us to learn from one another / bounce ideas. There are a couple of other folks I mentioned connecting with and they were open to the idea!

Ira

 

No worries. For my own (and perhaps the community's benefit) I intend to write a script that hits device manager with a broad disable of this setting for all devices listed. I'll share it with no reps or warranties and a warning and probably maintain it on GitHub. It seems to come up a lot.

It appears to be, at this time. Other than the weirdness in the waiting for trigger and the workaround I described.

'Use Ext Trigger' was already disabled for both the AC4040M and SC1300M (meaning I did not have to make any changes to comply with your request).

The file dlapi.dll was not present in C:\Program Files (x86)\Diffraction Limited\MaxIm DL 6. However, it was present in C:\windows\SysWOW64. See the attached image for the MD5 hash of that file.

 

Also - for the DL folks - I am quite happy to work through the issues I've noted in this thread (particularly with Frank following as well). Or if you prefer, I can open a new thread.

 

Agreed Doug, thanks for moving the thread.

 

Another update. I'm unable to take flats using Voyager's autoflat sequence as Maxim just hangs on "Waiting for filter". See attached image.

 

It seems to me that in Maxim 6.30 (and/or possibly the firmware update) - that when you select a filter in single exposure, the filter wheel immediately begins moving to that position before you click "start" to take an exposure. This feels like different behavior than in the past where I would select a filter, then click "start" to take a single exposure and then wait for the filter wheel to arrive at its position and watch Maxim conduct the exposure. I had to power cycle the camera and restart maxim three times to get to the point where I could take single exposures all from within Maxim. It feels like something in either Maxim 6.30 or the firmware update has screwed up our control of the filter wheel. Between this which has worsened as of today and the second error I mentioned above I am now in an unusable state, again.

 

Any chance I can get an update on this? Still unable to use my telescope.