STX / AO Shutter Problem

Discussion in 'STX and STXL Series Cameras' started by Geoff Stone, Oct 17, 2017.

  1. Geoff Stone

    Geoff Stone Cyanogen Customer

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    I ran this version last night for a total of about 500 images.

    While the AO mostly works it still has the problem that the main shutter starts misbehaving after a while, ruining the rest of the images. I have reported this earlier in another thread. What seems to happen is the main shutter loses sync somehow and any exposures after that are very short. I think the shutter loses its 'home' position so when its supposed to be open, it only exposes briefly as it rotates by to the wrong 'open' position. This ONLY happens when using the AO.

    This problem doesn't happen immediately - sometimes it takes dozens of images to happen. I have had it run all night when doing 'pretty picture' imaging since the exposures are much longer than the science imaging.

    As before, it takes a camera power cycle to get it working again. There doesn't seem to be any correlation with the rate of the AO. I also tried varying the exposure delay but that didn't seem to have any effect. This is with an STXL-11002 and FW8G using ACP.

    Once the camera is in this 'shutter lost' mode it behaves that way even after switching back to traditional guiding. It does not seem to affect the guide camera shutter.

    After several attempts to get the AO stable I gave up and went back to traditional, single-star guiding which ran all night with no problems.

    If there are logs I can gather or things to try let me know. I could also get it into the failed state and give access to my system if that might be useful.
     
    Last edited: Oct 17, 2017
  2. Doug

    Doug Staff Member

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    This sounds like it could be a firmware issue. So first thing to check - is the firmware up-to-date?

    Failing that logs would be useful. Owen can provide you with some instructions (I'll flag him to the thread).
     
  3. Owen Lawrence

    Owen Lawrence Retired Staff

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    Hi Geoff,

    Please add the following lines to your CCDPlugAO7\Settings.txt file:

    LogMessages 1
    LogSelfGuide 1
    The latter line will capture commands sent by ACP, plus a few internal commands, so it produces a very large volume of output. Please provide a short run with these settings until you run into the problem. You will probably want to set the 2nd value, if not both of them to 0 afterward (or remove them from the file).

    They are ready from the file when you reconnect to the camera (i.e. no need to close the whole program to make a change).

    - Owen -
     
  4. Geoff Stone

    Geoff Stone Cyanogen Customer

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    Thanks Owen. I'll get this set up and hopefully will have something to look at in the morning.. (shoo clouds!)
    The firmware seems up to date.

    upload_2017-10-17_16-6-50.png
     
  5. Geoff Stone

    Geoff Stone Cyanogen Customer

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    Here's a link to a log with some normal operation with ACP. There were some false starts at the beginning due to thin clouds which then cleared out. The last handful of frames are normal.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/7xx9uso51n60n7p/20171017 normal.log?dl=0

    Things are running now and I'm waiting for the shutter problem to crop up.
     
  6. Owen Lawrence

    Owen Lawrence Retired Staff

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    Hi Geoff,

    Sorry, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with log data that doesn't show the problem.

    I'd like to verify your camera settings. Could you please create a zip archive of both your Documents\MaxIm DL 6\Settings folder, and a log file that was written while you experienced the problem? Please upload it here, not to dropbox.

    Thanks.

    - Owen -
     
  7. Geoff Stone

    Geoff Stone Cyanogen Customer

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    Hi Owen,

    Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were asking for a before and after log.

    I have a log from last night that I think has the problem but I was having all sorts of other problem. (It seemed like some setting got blown away after enabling the logging) Intermittent thin clouds didn't help the situation.

    Rather than have you spend time on a log that may or may not be useful, let me take another shot at getting something that cleanly shows the problem.

    Geoff
     
  8. Owen Lawrence

    Owen Lawrence Retired Staff

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    Right. If you're confident you can reproduce the problem easily, please consider turning on [Debug Log] from SBIG Driver Checker 64. I hesitate to ask for it because a) I'm not the expert on setting it up and don't know what flags to request, and b) it can slow things down enough that it changes the nature of the problem. It's worth a try, though. It gets us that much closer to where the symptom appears, which is in the mechanical hardware.

    Thanks.

    - Owen -
     
  9. Geoff Stone

    Geoff Stone Cyanogen Customer

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    Thanks Owen, I'll work on getting that too.
     
  10. Geoff Stone

    Geoff Stone Cyanogen Customer

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    Lol, driver logging has been on the whole time, probably since I was working on firmware problems with Adam long ago. I've got a 99 Meg log file from last night.

    Wonder if having driver logging running is exacerbating things?
     
  11. Owen Lawrence

    Owen Lawrence Retired Staff

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    It's possible, but doubtful. Maybe zip it up and set it aside in case we need it later. It'll be easier on everyone to start afresh, though. Having too much data is its own kind of curse.

    - Owen -
     
  12. Geoff Stone

    Geoff Stone Cyanogen Customer

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    Two problems happened last night, the first is the shutter issue this thread is about.

    The second was a hard hang that took a power cycle to clear (Maxim refused to disconnect until I cycled power) I was quite surprised by the hang as those seemed to have been eradicated long ago.

    The shutter problem happened between 05:02:13 and 05:03:31 UTC (about 10:03 local time),

    The hang happened around 07:19:12 UTC (12:19 AM local).

    Attached is a zip with the Maxim and driver logs.
     

    Attached Files:

  13. Owen Lawrence

    Owen Lawrence Retired Staff

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    Hi Geoff,

    Thanks for the logs. We'll look into them.

    The hang you described is most likely a USB issue. Wearing cables or port hardware, or weak configuration (hubs, long cables, extension cables -- even internal ones in the PC, are all culprits. You can blame Microsoft for their poor handling of hardware errors. MaxIm DL accesses most hardware on separate threads to mitigate the damage and keep the application running when this happens, but you have to enable it for the cameras and filter wheels.

    - Owen -
     
  14. Geoff Stone

    Geoff Stone Cyanogen Customer

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    Hi Owen,

    All the separate thread check boxes are ticked. I used to have terrible problems with hangs but the last camera firmware and driver update seemed to eradicate them. Its been probably a year since I've had this happen.

    One other tidbit is that I discovered the hang about 4 hours ago, captured the logs, cycled power and turned off all logging. Its been running fine since then (nearly sunrise here now).

    Anyway, hopefully the logs will prove useful.

    Geoff
     

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