SharpCap Forums

I have been using Sharpcap Pro with my QHY163C camera for the last year or so. But occasionally the frame time keeps incrementing but I get no image even though I have it set for say 4 seconds and have previously adjusted the focus. What am I doing wrong?

There have been some significant changes for QHY cameras as their drivers and SDK have been updated. These updates seem to have introduced several issues for QHY gear and SharpCap. Make sure you have the latest build of SC as there are updates that address several QHY reported issues.

Hi,

Also, there is an option for the qhy cameras called 'force still mode '. Turning this on pushes the camera into single frame mode rather than video mode and may help with sort of issue you are describing. Note that SharpCap will still continually take images one after another (basically it starts a new single frame when the previous is finished).

Cheers, Robin

I updated Sharpcap to version 3.2 and downloaded the latest QHY driver tonight. After restarting my computer, the problem seems to have disappeared. Looks like the latest software fixed it. Thanks to all for your help.

I too am having issues w/ longer captures w/ my 183M. I find shorter captures (<10s) are just fine. But when the smart histogram sky brightness tool runs, it cranks the exposure up to 100s, and then it gets stuck collecting the frame forever. I went over to PhD2 to work on mount alignment, and about 5min later, had the first ever BSOD on this Win 7 laptop. The memory dump message on screen mentioned USB3xh.sys or something like that. I've tried forcing still mode, but that makes SC crash "normally" with the option to send the report in. Do I need to move to an older qhyccd.dll?

I brought my rig out this week to try and image Jupiter's opposition and ran up against this problem a lot. I updated to 6038, now it doesn't seem to be limited to longer captures, my 183M would cut out consistently but randomly through the night: in the middle of the polar align tool, focus tool, taking high frame rate captures, or just framing using the live view. The camera goes unresponsive, but I can only tell by watching the # of acquired frames in the lower left to see if the camera has died. The only thing that recovers is unselecting the camera (closing it) and re-selecting it. This was annoying but mildly tolerable once I was up and running, but the polar alignment routine had to restart each time and took me several hours to get setup.

I've been having the same issue with mine too. See this post:

viewtopic.php?f=28&t=1686

As I say in the post, in my case playing with the binning seems to get it working stable again until you change the exposure, then toggling the binning once more seems to 'reset' things and you're fine until you change anything else.

It's sad because these are nice cameras. You can use it successfully with other capture software so I am at a loss as to where the problem lies (the drivers, SC or both). QHY driver problems are notorious, but now with a new developer at the helm things seem to be getting straightened out... slowly.

It appears the the problem I was having months ago has reappeared. I'm using a QHY 163C camera with the latest version of Sharpcap Pro (v3.2 5986) The frame time just keeps incrementing with no image. I tried using the program EZCAP to capture a frame from my camera and it works just fine. So tonight I've spent 2 hours reading the forum and trying everything that been mentioned without any luck. (restarting program, switching binning to 2x2 and then back to 1x1, forcing still mode, etc) Are there any other ideas out there short of buying a different brand of camera? Is this problem being worked on by the software developers?

Update: I went through a step by step analysis of the frame increment but no image problem this morning. I started by plugging the camera directly into my computer. It worked fine. Then I added the mount and the guide camera. That all worked fine. Then I put it on a 30 foot repeater USB 2.0 cable and that worked. When I put it on two 30 foot repeater cables, I started having the problem. I think you can see where this is going. It appears that the longer cable length caused communication issues. This has worked just fine in the past but maybe the heat of summer or maybe worn connections are causing signal problems. I'll try this out on the next clear night to see if one 30 foot USB 2.0 cable will work. Cross your fingers!

Hi,

Sadly that's a fairly common discovery that hubs, extenders or repeater cables can have this effect with USB cameras. I had the problem myself and ended up putting the imaging computer at the bottom of the pier to keep the cables to the cameras as short as possible. I then usually remote control the imaging computer from another computer in a more convenient location.

Cheers, Robin