Can not calibrate AO-X

System (in order); Planewave CDK17 (f/l 2939 mm), Planewave IRF-90 integrated rotating focuser, SBIG AO-X, STX guider, FW7-STX and STX-16803 camera.

System was focused and guider calibrated. Attempting initial set-up of AO-X. When powered on, the AO-X red LED flashes continuously. Don't know why (no reference in the manual). Does this indicate a problem? Exercised AO-X from CCDOps and can hear the actuators working but the clicks are sometimes not evenly spaced. Cables are connected as per manual; camera i2C Aux to AO-X i2C in and AO-X i2C out to FW7-STX. Downloaded SBIG driver updates. Used recommended settings and also tried variations. Tried calibration via CCDops and TSX with no success. The guide star does not move and the error message, "motion too small" is returned.

Please help. Thanks,

Mike

 

Hi Adam,

I removed the imaging train and connected via Maxim DL. Exercising; the glass moves fine in the Y-axis (up and down, calling the cable side the top) but does not move in the X-axis (left to right). The X actuators click but there is no movement. There are two small silver collars between the gimbal and actuator on each side of the X-axis. The left side has ample clearance between the collars and the actuator but on the right side the collars appear to touch the actuator. I sent Tim a note with pictures. Looking forward to your advice.

Thanks,

Mike

 

I tried out my STX following the firmware update you guys did recently. It works fine except that I am unable to calibrate the drive in MAXIM when using the AOX. I can calibrate the AOX, but not the drive. I have attached a video of the attempt to calibrate the drive. It just stops about halfway thru. I tried changing the drive settings, but it just affected a bit at what point it stops. I can abort and retry, but it never succeeds. It worked before the firmware update.


https://www.dropbox.com/s/fgekjsm478fxujl/IMG_0743.mov?dl=0


When I bypass the AOX and do simple off-axis guiding, I can calibrate and guide no problem, so I know that it can move the scope in all directions via the guilder relays.


I ran DriverChecker and updated ASCOM and everything is up to date.


Any help would be much appreciated.


Clear Skies,
Mark

 

Adam,

Yes it does. And the fix of replacing 2 files worked, thanks.

The progress bar and guilder window do not update, but it works!

Clear Skies,
Mark

 

I have this problem but cannot get to the link from

Adam I have the same problem as Mark did, but i can seem to get acess to this file or page to tell me what to do. Is ther a way I can see it?

Thank you,

Mark Hanson

 

Can you please point me to the "fix"? My AO-X just started a new behavior today. It will not calibrate the drive. It starts the process, but then hangs. All drivers are up to date. MDL v6.12, STX-16803 with AO-X. Firmware is not the latest, but the next to the latest. It worked fine under the current firmware last imaging session. No changes that I can think of were made.

Thanks for your help.

-Lloyd

 

Hi Adam...
this has turned into something of a mess. I implemented the patch and the AO calibrated just fine. However, even though there's a star on the chip the AO Locate shows nothing. I've confirmed the star is there by switching back to SBIG Universal. So I decided to back off the patch and now I still see no star with Locate. The only way I can see it is with SBIG Universal. Any ideas?

 

Thanks, Adam. You do realize that the links in #1 and #2 go to the same place? I expected there to be a two files: one for the 6.13 patch and another for the AO patch. According to Doug's comment at link #1 the 6.13 patch includes fixes for the AO. It still does not work. By this I mean SBIG Universal can see a guide star in the guider. SBIG w/AOX cannot.

Is there one file with all patches to fix the AO-X or one? If it's only the one, like I said, it does not work, or I'm loading improperly.

Happy Holidays...hopefully I can figure this out before you guys get back

-Lloyd

 

Any of my fellow AO-X users understand whether or not there are 1 or 2 files involved with the patch? If so, can you point me to the link...the number of posts and discussions have conspired to make this whole thing unintelligible for me.

Thanks.

 

Turn out I got this working. Using v6.12 and the last AO plugin update supplied by Owen. CCDPlugAO_6_13_6.

I hope I'm not calling this a wrap prematurely. We'll see, but all the issues I had before are now gone (calibrate mount and AO work properly). Rate is hanging around 5-6 which is low, but also likely due to ACP settings for SNR, the actual guide star itself, etc etc...but it works!

 

Try reducing the SNR in ACP, and more importantly the minimum guide exposure. Make it 0.05 or less. This may be related to the spontaneous binning changes mucking with the adaptive guide exposure algorithm in ACP? We'll get to the bottom of it as long as we can focus on the problems. I'm here to help.

 

Just for the record I ended up using v6.13 (not the patch Doug put up) + the last of the several AO patches that your colleague put up. This combination works meaning the AO calibrates, etc etc. No other combination worked for me. I think I posted my "solution" in another thread.