Hello from Italy The last time I used my STF 8300C it was working fine but after being parked for one month now seems to be blind, all I can get is a "black frame" (not a dark frame). Everything works fine including the shutter but the output file is a 16MB black image with no signal of any kind. Even pointing the camera toward a slight source of light doesn't produce any effect. Drivers updated by DriverChecker, tested with different USB cables, Win10 PC working fine, the camera was stored in a safe place, always strictly followed connecting procedures, could it be a sensor problem? Thank you in advance for your help Best regards Luca
Hi Luca, i'm just another customer. Can you tell us a bit more? What software were you using to control the camera? Did you try with CCDOPs ? Can you post a FITS file from the camera? Are the pixels all zero (0) value? or 100? Are you running it off the original power pack?
Hi Colin -PC with Windows10 1709 build 16299.251 -Software: CCDOPs 5.61 -Driver and firmware updated by DriverChecker64 but did not solve the problem. -SBIG original AC power adapter. -I do not know how to establish the pixel value. Everything works fine except for the black output file! The attached FITS file is supposed to be a 30 seconds dark frame! Thanks for helping
Hi Luca, That's weird. All values are 1000. Not even noise. I think you're going to need help from the Diffraction team on this one. Also, did you turn on the cooler? It says the temperature was 25C. When you say you updated driver and firmware, did you download the latest version of the SBIG driver checker? Sometimes the old one did not behave 100% perfectly. Can you do a Print Screen of the firmware tab, and the driver version tab and post here?
The point is that everything worked fine the last time I used it one month ago and no canges occurred until then except for some Windows updates and just to be shure I manually installed the KB4090913 update that solves "addresses issue where some USB devices and onboard devices, such as a built-in laptop camera, keyboard, or mouse, stop working" (source Microsoft) but did not depend on this. Also updated to latest SBIG driver and firmware by DriverChecker v4.03 Build 4 but did not solve the problem. When the problem appeared cooling was -15°C but is useless to reduce noise testing the camera. I hope it is a software problem but I suspect it is hardware. Yes I need help from the guys of the Diffraction team
I meant the firmware and driver tab of the SBIGdriverchecker, but that's ok. They'll be at work tomorrow, so hopefully they can figure out what is going on. Is the camera directly attached to the PC?
Yes that is very unusual. An output of 1000 means there is no signal. Either the A/D converter setup values have somehow been erased, or there might be a hardware problem with the camera. Does the camera produce any kind of image when you take an image in bright conditions? If so that might indicate a setup problem. If not then the camera may need repairs.
Hi Doug There is no difference when I point a source of light, only a black image, the camera seems just blind.
I forgot about this thread for a long time, in the while the camera has been repaired and send back with a new sensor, thank you Bill. For me the thread can be marked as resolved.
