Cooler Control without effect

[StarFlea]

Hi Robin,

if I connect my Omegon veTEC 571c as an "ASCOM OmegonPro Camera" I set the target temperature to -10 °C and it works fine.
But if I click to "Camera Controls -> Options -> Show..." to take a look to the ASCOM driver settings, the cooling stops (re-increasing temperature) and cannot be reactivated, not even if I reload the Capture Profile or reconnect the camera.
In fact I have to completely restart SharpCap and connect the camera, then cooling works fine again...


The behaviour is reproducable:
1. connect camera
2. loading a Capture Profile (including target temperature -10°) -> camera begins to cool down
3. Camera Controls -> Options -> Show...
4. Driver panel opens (just look, no changes) -> "cancel"
5. Cooling stops, temperatur increases up to 25 °C

Controls.PNG (11.65 KiB) Viewed 584 times

Cooler_1.PNG (2.97 KiB) Viewed 584 times

Best regards!
StarFlea

* Version of SharpCap: 4.0.9545.0 (64 bit)
* Camera: Omegon veTEC 571c with newest Omegon ASCOM driver 6.5 (https://www.astroshop.de/astro-kameras/ ... #downloads)
* Operating system version: Win 10

[admin]

Hi,

after you have shown the ASCOM settings for the Omegon driver, do the cooling controls in SharpCap still allow changes to be made (but the changes have no effect), or do they vanish completely or get disabled? From your description I think it is probably the first option, but it would be good to be sure.

If it is the first option - ie the cooling controls still allow changes to be made, but do nothing - then it is very likely an issue with the ASCOM driver itself, although I will try to replicate the situation here to check.

Your best bet may actually be to take a different approach - Omegon seem to have the latest DirectShow driver published now on their web site (https://nimax-img.de/Produktdownloads/6 ... Driver.exe) - install that and see if the camera is detected by name in SharpCap in the DirectShow section (rather than just a generic 'Omegon Camera' entry). It should be...

The manufacturer have made some enhancements to the DirectShow drivers that SharpCap can use to provide pretty much full camera control with the latest driver and the latest SharpCap. That includes things like raw modes, 16 bit mode, cooling, still capture, etc. If it works as it should then you should get better control over the camera than with the ASCOM driver. If you have problems then let me know and I will investigate further.

cheers,

Robin

[StarFlea]

Hi Robin,

the Cooler Controls are enabled and allow changes.
I found out: If I set the Cooler from "On" to "Off" and to "On" again, the camera begins to cool down.
The problem exists in Beta 4.1.10276.0 too.

I use both newest drivers from nimax (= Omegon): ASCOM and DShow.

But the difficulties have been piling up since yesterday:
Now, if I connect camera via newest DShow and disconnect again, the camera lights flash and still indicate an existing connection. The cooling also continues to work even if I disconnect the USB cable from the PC! -> LOG attached.

Sometimes Cooler shows no reaction from the beginning (without loading a profile), sometimes framrate sinks from 14 fps to 0,0 fps within seconds. And as I compiled a dark-library, sometimes most of frames were dropped. But this behaviours I can't reproduce!

The camera is brandnew (my first veTEC was defect)! I tried out another USB cable... without success!

Addition: I tried out the setup on another PC: the same problems occur there (but there are the same driver too)!

Im confused!

StarFlea

[StarFlea]

Now I made some tests with both drivers:

If I use ASCOM driver first, mostly there are no problems: FPS are ok, Cooling is ok, even I use a Capture profile or I close and reconnect the camera. If I load DShow driver after that or at first, the problems begin:
I don't even have to load a profile: If I try to close camera, it is still connected (blinking control lights on the camera) and cooling works. If I then use ASCOM driver, there are 0 FPS and Cooler Control does not allow changes althoug it is activated.

But this seems to be another problem!?

[StarFlea]

Please wait!

In fact this can be a problem with the camera! (Should I really be so unlucky that my spare camera is now also defective?)
I testet the veTEC 571C of my friend, wich works fine everywhere...

[admin]

Hi,

well, it sounds as though some things are slowly being worked out...

From the ASCOM point of view, it seems that using the 'Setup' window turns off the cooler, but SharpCap still thinks it is on, so you get no response from the controls until you turn off and on again (after which SharpCap and the ASCOM driver both agree that the cooler is on). I can do something to fix this in SharpCap I think.

I would not recommend using both the ASCOM driver and the DirectShow without shutting down and re-starting SharpCap. Using the two approaches without a close/reopen might lead to the two sets of camera code (ASCOM and DirectShow drivers) having both tried to configure the camera, and then possibly showing errors when the camera configuration doesn't match what is expected. I wouldn't worry about any errors that only occur due to switching from ASCOM to DirectShow or the other way around. While it would be nice if that worked properly, it's not guaranteed or essential.

As to the possibility of a hardware issue, it's difficult to be sure. If you test both on the same PC with exactly the same steps (and in both cases start with booting the PC and connecting the camera, so that there is no possibility of swapping cameras while Windows is running causing odd behaviour), then you would expect the same results if the cameras were identical. Of course, these cameras do have firmware on them, so it may be that you have different versions of that. Not sure if there is a way to tell what firmward version you have - it might be possible to check in ToupSky?

cheers,

Robin

[StarFlea]

Now I made some tests with DShow-driver only:

If I start veTEC571C with DShow only, load a corresponding CaptureProfile (with target-temp -10 °C) and close camera, cooling just keeps working even if I unplug the USB cable...
If cooling keep running even if I unplug the power cable, I'd be more impressed!

With ASCOM-driver only, cooling doesn't start, I have to switch off cooler by controler panel and switch on again, then it runs.

After consultation with NIMAX (= Omegon), this could be a driver problem.

I installed ToupSky and read out the properties of the camera:
Revision: 0x0100
Hardware-version: 4.0
Firmware-version: 4.1.2.20221031
FPGA-version: 4.12

But its a good hint, not to switch between the drivers in a session. I will change my sequences...

[admin]

Hi,

I would suggest checking to see if the firmware/FPGA/etc info matches your friends camera too.

cheers,

Robin