I really do have ST8 and CFW10 hardware installed but a couple of nights ago things went seriously wrong mid-session. CCDops now claims that it is connected to a ST7 and CFW5! The filter wheel exerciser in continuous mode tries to spin the wheel for up to a minute or so and then aborts with an error. Grabbing an image sort of works in that an image is returned but, of course, it is only 765x515 pixels and looks dreadful with a ragged right edge and horizontal dark stripes across it every 22 pixels or so. I've updated the driver to the latest driver to no effect. Help! What to do next? Thanks in advance, Paul
Hi Paul, We've got a long weekend here in Canada, (I just happened to check in) so it will be a bit of a delay before we have a good answer for you. Are you running CCDOPS 5.66 Build 1 ? This sounds like a possible EEPROM failure or other electronics failure inside the camera, and likely will need to come in to@Bill for repair. It sounds like the configuration data the camera uses to know what it is has become corrupted. Have you tried powering of the PC, hubs, and the camera off, letting it sit for maybe 15 minutes, and powering it up again? What's the camera serial number? We'll start with that, as it may tell us something about the hardware.
Thanks for a rapid response Colin. TBH, I didn't expect anything until Monday at least! CCDOPS is 5.55 Build 24-NT. Perhaps I should upgrade. The serial number on the camera body is given as 810108974XE but nothing appears in the CCDOPS camera info display, which shows Firmware: 2.42 Driver info: SBIGUDrv.DLL Ver 4.99 Build 7 Serial number: sbigu64.sys Ver 2.41.0.1338 I think this thing has lost quite a lot of its marbles. All the equipment has been power-cycled numerous times in the last 60 hours or so ...
Happens to all of us (and cameras too) as we age. It sounds like it will have to go in for service. With the Canada Day holiday Monday and July 4th holiday for our American friends, I suspect it will be the 8th before @Bill could get it in the service queue at the earliest. I personally don't have any suggestions for a workaround - the camera has lost its configuration data, which means a part has failed in all likelihood. P.S. Sorry for the shameless plug, but it might be time to consider upgrading to a new camera, esp since we have are featuring our new USB-only versions of the Aluma series and the "dream camera" STX 16803 at a nice price! https://diffractionlimited.com/solstice-specials/
It appears that the EEprom has gotten corrupted. Send me an email, bill@sbig.com, and I'll give you the information for sending it in. Regards, Bill
