QHY cam support

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Bazzaar
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Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2017 5:07 pm

QHY cam support

#1

Post by Bazzaar »

Hi Robin,
Great idea this forum!
I use Sharpcap with a QHY 5 III 174 MM the USB 3 version.
Can you tell me what level of support Sharpcap has for this camera?
It clearly works but is not in the supported list.
I have noticed some issues when using this setup and wanted to try and determine whether its on the QHY side of the equation or Sharpcap's.

Cheers

Barry
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admin
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Re: QHY cam support

#2

Post by admin »

Hi Barry,

yes the 174MM is definitely supported - in fact I have one here so I'm likely to be able to repro any bugs you have with a bit of luck. The website tends to get a bit behind on listing cameras that are supported and anyway there are just *so many* QHY cameras that it's hard to keep up!

Let me know what's going wrong (and what version of SharpCap you are using) and I will look into it. If possible test out the latest beta version too.

cheers,

Robin
Bazzaar
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Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2017 5:07 pm

Re: QHY cam support

#3

Post by Bazzaar »

Hi,
firstly, how long should Test Camera 2 (high speed) take to complete?
Mine is now at 1hour 30 mins and 90000 frames!!??!

Barry
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Re: QHY cam support

#4

Post by admin »

Ah, you have misunderstood what that menu item is - it's not a test of the other cameras, it's a dummy camera you can use for testing SharpCap when the weather is poor. You can play around learning how to use the the focus tools for instance (by using the Focus Offset control to push the image out of focus) etc.

cheers,

Robin
Bazzaar
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Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2017 5:07 pm

Re: QHY cam support

#5

Post by Bazzaar »

Yeah, I see now, I was confusing the disk write test with this test.
Anyhoo, what I wanted to discuss with you;
I have been trying to set up a system to sit with the mount and scope because it looks like running long USB 3 leads is problematic and/or expensive. So set up a blind system access it remotely via wireless or ethernet.
I got what I hoped would be the ideal candidate in a Wyse Z90 thin client SFF PC.
It has great connectivity, ethernet and a/c wifi(2.4 and 5GHz)
Two USB 3 ports for the latest cmos cams
16Gb flash drive
Dual core AMD processor @1.6Ghz
4gb RAM
Win7 embedded

When I have Sharpcap running on it with the QHY 174 I get a lot of dropped frames.
I had it set at 640x480 mono8 SER 10mS exposure.
USB traffic speed set about 6 or 8.
On my main desktop this gives a good steady 100 fps.
On the Z90 it manages 95-98 fps and lots of dropped frames.
I brought up the resource monitor and the problem is the cpu is hitting 100%.
Damm I thought, not up to the job, start looking for another remote system.
I started considering what to do to reduce the cpu load and remembered you can switch preview off.
Or at least I was sure you could with previous versions. Instead I set zoom to 16% and cpu usage went down to 40-50%.
So, a number of questions;

is it reasonable to expect a modest system like this to handle USB 3 cams?
are you surprised preview is so cpu hungry?
can preview be disabled? looking at some of the scripting info I think it might,
could Sharpcap prioritize capture to disc and drop preview frames instead?

Your thoughts would be most appreciated.

Cheers

Barry
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Re: QHY cam support

#6

Post by admin »

Hi Barry,

the results you are seeing are pretty much what is expected on that sort of hardware when using a USB3 camera. From the sound of it setting the zoom to a very low level is helping - probably because the graphics performance thin client is quite slow too (check you have the right graphics drivers installed as that can make a difference).

There used to be a way to untick 'Preview', but actually that stopped captures as well, so I took that out because it was misleading people into thinking it could do somthing that it couldn't.

I have had other people on low spec hardware ask about a 'blind' mode, so I guess I should put it on the todo list for the future (it will have to wait until 2.11, as I am not adding any more features to 2.10 at this stage)

cheers,

Robin
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turfpit
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Re: QHY cam support

#7

Post by turfpit »

Barry

Have a look at this http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtreeview_e.html. If you download the utility and run it with the camera plugged in (do it on the bench) it will show ports as:

* H, High Speed = USB2
* S, Super Speed = USB3

I have suspicions about some of these ports being put out these days and their capability.

Also power - some of the battery life tricks being pulled by manufacturers can result in lowering of USB performance. If you have or can borrow a *powered* USB3 hub, try running with the camera in the hub and see what happens to frames dropped (include usbtreeview data as well).

You are right about USB3 extensions and cost - the StarTech ones at 5m and over actually come with AC adapters as part of the package (from tech specs on their web site).

I would be interested in the results if you have time to do this.

I am beginning to develop a rule that says "if I spend £X on a camera, I probably need to spend £X on the hardware to drive it" but YMMV.

Dave
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