Support for non-ASCOM filter wheel?

Got an idea for something that SharpCap should do? Share it here.
Forum rules
'+1' posts are welcome in this area of the forums to indicate your support for a particular feature suggestion. Suggestions that get the most +1's will be seriously considered for inclusion in future versions of SharpCap.
Post Reply
A.Cidadão
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu Feb 21, 2019 12:11 pm

Support for non-ASCOM filter wheel?

#1

Post by A.Cidadão »

Hi Robin,

First of all, many thanks for the lightning-speed correction of the "offline focuser crash" in the previous SharpCap version!

Now for the specific issue, for which I may be alone in this forum...

I still use a very old version of a FLI filter wheel (discontinued; CFW-1-8; serial port version, now needing a rs232 interface to be used) that works perfectly and contains my 8 planetary imaging filters.

It is operated by old (non ascom) specific FLI software (flifilter), and also natively recognized by MaxIm (in the past used with my SBIG and FLI cameras) and also by Lucam Recorder (which still pilots my Lumeneras).

Currently my planetary imaging, with the telescope that has the FLI filter-wheel, is controlled by SharpCap and uses ASI cameras.

I control my mount (Meade) and focuser (FLI) through SharpCap using ASCOM drivers. What's missing is the filter wheel...

So, if you ever receive another request to implement non-ASCOM filter wheels in SharpCap, you know it is not the only one around...

Thanks!

António

p.s. a recent Jupiter session with the "possible" seeing conditions for the apparition...
Attachments
UV-B-G-R-IR807-IR1000-CH4(18nm) filters
UV-B-G-R-IR807-IR1000-CH4(18nm) filters
Jupiter 2021-07-12-A.Cidadão.jpg (567.38 KiB) Viewed 418 times
User avatar
admin
Site Admin
Posts: 13173
Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2017 3:52 pm
Location: Vale of the White Horse, UK
Contact:

Re: Support for non-ASCOM filter wheel?

#2

Post by admin »

Hi Antonio,

great Jupiter images - I'm glad that you can get such fabulous images even if the system is not quite running as smoothly as it could.

Unfortunately it's very difficult to add support for hardware that I do not have access to - even with documentation from the manufacturer, it's hard to get things right without having the hardware to hand to test with.

I think the right solution for your filter wheel would be to find someone who (a) has one of the wheels and (b) has some programming skills to write an ASCOM driver for it. For something as simple as a filterwheel that connects over RS232 it should be possible to write an ASCOM driver fairly quickly - especially if you can find documentation of the protocol that is used over RS232 to command the wheel. Even if the protocol is not documented, there are ways to 'sniff' the data that the filter wheel application sends to/from the wheel.

One thing I did find was that FLI do apparently have an ASCOM driver for at least some of their filter wheels, but they do not advertise it will - if you see this thread - https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/7752 ... er-wheels/ - it looks like you get the filter wheel driver when you install their 'Kepler' ASCOM driver for cameras. No idea if this will support your model, but it may be worth a try.

Robin
A.Cidadão
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu Feb 21, 2019 12:11 pm

Re: Support for non-ASCOM filter wheel?

#3

Post by A.Cidadão »

Thank you very much Robin! I perfectly understand the difficulty, and thank you for your suggestions.

I already contacted FLI and they also provided me the link to the Kepler ASCOM driver (no other support since it is a discontinued product). I also downloaded and tried another ASCOM FLI filter wheel by Hartmut V. Bornemann. None of them recognizes the filter wheel, probably because that old wheel is not directly connected to a USB port (the serial dongle of the wheel is connected to a rs232 to USB adapter, which in turn connects to the computer. In fact when I scan for USB ports with FLIfilter it does not recognize none, while when I ask for COM port scan it readily finds the hardware.

Thanks anyway and keep with the great work!

Best wishes

António
Post Reply