About four months ago Bill repaired my STF8300 Serial number 83F011072 and put in a new main board for free. (Thanks again.) The camera seemed to work OK for a few nights, but now has all sorts of problems that I can’t sort out. First of all, occasionally the shutter jams half open on an exposure. When it does this, usually the next exposure is OK but sometimes it doesn’t clear itself and I have to cycle the camera. Second, occasionally I get errors opening the 8 position filter wheel when connecting the camera in Maxim DL 6.11. Third, I get Error 8 from time to time even using short 28/24 cables directly connected to two different computers and using different ports. Finally, the filter wheel seems sometimes to be slightly off center when it stops. None of these problems happen consistently, but the camera is unusable because I have no idea if it’s going to work or not on a given evening. I'm running MaximDL 6.11, latest Ascom framework. I upgraded the Main Board to the latest firmware releases (it was returned on 2.4, now on 2.48) and I have checked more than twice that all the drivers are up to date. The only thing that I notice out of the ordinary is that when starting up the camera with the original power supply connected the shutter makes very little noise. If I use a better quality Pyramid 5 amp 12 volt supply then the camera makes a much louder noise. The problems seem to occur more frequently when I use the PS that came with the unit. The camera had been repaired previously twice prior to the new main board – it needed a new small board (Dec 2013) which I believe connects it to the filter wheel. When that happened I swapped boards with a STF8300C that I had. When doing that I had a lot of trouble getting the two wires that plug in re-connected. The camera worked fine after that, though. All of this sounds like a loose connection somewhere, but I can’t find it. The camera was also looked at by you when the shutter stuck half open a year ago . You couldn’t duplicate it at the time and so I took it back unfixed. I put a 5 second delay between exposures and that seemed to fix the problem at that time but it's just papering over a defect. I’m not sure if there’s any point in sending it back to you given that the problems are occasional, but I’m happy to do that if you think that there is something that’s obvious and that can be checked. Right now I’m just frustrated. Happy to let you guys log on to see the issues.
Ross, I owned an ST8300 and it worked flawlessly for me two seasons. Then I started experiencing what sounds like the same shutter problem that you are describing. Eventually, I was able to trace my problem to the voltage level that I was supplying to the camera. Specifically, I started experiencing problems when I changed from running my setup on marine batteries to running from a power supply. The power supply I was using was not SBIG's power supply, but a good quality 30 amp variable supply that I was using to run my whole setup. Although the power supply was variable, it's default output was 13.8 volts, and by default, that where I initially used it. In my particular case, I eventually stumbled onto the fact that the higher voltage was responsible for intermittent shutter issues with the camera and the highest voltage I could use was somewhere around 12.7 volts. Anything higher, and I started to experience intermittent shutter operation that sounded like you describe... An unusual clicking, and then you could see the shutter in an in-between state - neither open or closed. Then the next shutter activation might be okay or it might not. This effect from a higher voltage was quite repeatable. No idea if any of this applies to you, but I thought I would share a data point in case it helps. If you take a look through the archives, I posted about this some time ago. As an aside, I now own an STT8300 and it seems to run on a higher voltage (typically 13.8v) without issue. Maybe that models has better voltage regulation, or the ST that I used to own had a marginal component. Best regards and good luck, Craig Smith
That's interesting because the first two nights that I used the camera after being repaired I ran from my Kendrick power pack and had no trouble. The recent problems have all been occurring with the original STF power supply (which may be getting old) or a Pyramid which supplies 13.8 volts. I didn't think that the camera could be so sensitive. The original power supply gets really hot when running and the shutter just barely clicks when connecting to show that the camera is good to go. I will try tonight with my power pack again. I can see how bad power could cause all sorts of problems. Rgrds-Ross
Ross, I have no idea if your issues are the same as mine were, but I am convinced that it wasn't the quality of the power in my case. It seemed to strongly be related to the output voltage level for me. Unlike you, however, the SBIG supplied power supply didn't cause any problem for me. I'm not really sure what their output level is. A freshly charged deep-cycle battery which outputs about 12.7 volts worked without problem. And my variable power supply worked fine as long as I dialed down the output voltage or 12.7 volts or less. Best regards, Craig
I think I've gotten to the bottom of this. It was a combination of things that needed to be done. First, the original problems related to the shutter not opening and the filter wheel giving errors. I fixed these by updating the firmware and getting MaximDL up to 6.11. The last problem was a USB error and this was caused by using a new "industrial quality" hub. Went back to the old 20 dollar 5 year old hub and all the problems disappeared. Tested late yesterday at home for 8 hours and today at the observatory for about 3 hours, no Error 8, no shutter sticking, no filter wheel error. Rgrds-Ross
Ross - would be good to know what make/model of "industrial quality" hub it was - to avoid or be wary of.
Odd. This is not the first report of problems operating with the MX+ hub. I'm not sure why this would suddenly become an issue.
Make sure that you have the latest drivers and FIRMWARE. The firmware in m camera was several years old. I had never updated it and didn't even notice that you could. Once I did that all the problems disappeared.
If you mean by using the newest SBIBDriver Checker 64, I've done that several times. Is there a way to install firmware manually?
Yes. There's a firmware tab in the DriverChecker that I had never really looked at. I had this problem about 2 years ago. Somehow it "went away" but then it returned for no reason. Turned out that it was caused mostly by a bad hub, but it never went away completely until I went to the latest firmware releases (there seem to be two files). I just used the camera again yesterday and it gave no problems whatsoever. Rgrds-Ross
