SharpCap Forums

I have three ZWO cameras, a USB 2 120 mono, a USB 3 290 mono and a USB 3 224 cooled. The 120 is a the guide camera. Al three cameras are on the same mount and feed the same Win 10 Home 64 bit PC. Until recently all three cameras could be connected and used simultaneously, the 120 with PHD2 and the other two by selecting them in SharpCap (v2.9 or v 2.10) or using two instances of SharpCap to get simultaneous images from both USB 3 cameras.

After I updated to the ZWO v 2.0.1.3 driver package, the 120 and 290 cameras freeze after 350 to 450 frames with either the latest v 2.9 or v 2.10 and then SC would error and close. The 224 is back with ZWO for an upgrade to the v1.3 hardware/firmware and wasn't tested.

In Device manager the 120 and the 290 show the same driver-- ZWO 1.0.0.5 (11/25/2014).

When both cameras are connected AstroLive and Firecapture (downloaded from ZWO today) do not work.

When one camera is disconnected the remaining camera works normally. SharpCap 2.10.3649 previewed 45,000 frames and stalled when I reconnected the 120 mono.

The 120 works correctly when PHD2 is updated to v2.6.3.

When PHD2 is running and connected to the 120 camera and then SharpCap 2.10.3649 is started it appears to operate normally with the 290 camera for >3000 frames. It is also possible to then select the 120 camera in SC and it then works with both applications simultaneously. Control adjustments in SC affect both applications.

If the 120 camera is disconnected in PHD2, SC freezes after ~400 frames. Restarting SC with both cameras active and the 120 not connected in PHD2 reverts to SC freezing with either camera after ~400 frames.

It certainly sounds as though your problems are related to the update of the ZWO device driver package.

Both SharpCap 2.10 and the latest 2.9 are using the most up-to-date versions of the ZWO SDK, which should be fine with the latest driver package. I do update SharpCap to new versions when they become available and I think that an update from ZWO is the most likely thing to be able to fix your problem in the end.

I have just tested here with 3 ZWO cameras running at once in SharpCap (1600MM, 174MC, 120MM) and I'm having no problems - I have the same version of the device driver as you (1.0.0.5).

The only things I can suggest (and it's probably unlikely to help) are

* Check the device drivers for your USB controller - I have a PCIe USB3 controller that likes to change its device driver back to an older not-very-good one from time to time and I have to go in and change it back to the one that works

* If you are using a hub to share one USB port between multiple cameras, try running each camera back to separate ports on the PC instead - also try short USB cables if any of your cables are >3.5m

* Adjust the turbo USB setting in SharpCap downwards to see if that helps - it should make the USB transfers more stable at the expense of performance (FPS) when you turn it down.

cheers,

Robin

Hi Robin-

Mystery solved and with good results. ZWO made a good case that the problem was local. So having a new 3m active USB 3 cable from Amazon in hand I sat down to swap out everything and discovered two problems.

One USB 3 cable never subjected to rough or outdoor use had a small hole in the jacket through which foil or a tined surface could be seen clearly with a hand lens. A ready path for the constant dew we have at this time of year. The other was that with the longer cable I could try the rear ports on the PC and by Harry the ones on the back work better than the two on the front.

Right now I am admiring the very tidy cabling of one power and one data cable to the mount, getting stable results from one copy of SC 2.9 and one copy of SC 2.10 running simultaneously and one copy of PHD 2 (sharing the 120 camera). Both cameras and the serial adapter for the mount control are sharing the same USB 3 hub on the mount.

When my 224 camera comes back from ZWO and if it works in this setup, I will raise the rating on SharpCap and ZWO to 6 stars.

That's really good news - problems that don't seem to make sense often seem to come down to USB cabling issues.

cheers,

Robin