ZWO 2600mc pro problems!

[dalepenkala]

Hi,

Everyone brings up good points. I suspect that it is power related. Try replacing the battery pack with a power supply that plugs into the mains, just for testing. I've got an old Atik 314E that requires a regulated 12VDC supply. I run it from a battery but I also use a 12V buck/boost regulator to nail it to 12.0V regardless of the battery's SoC. Reading the label on your battery pack, it appears that the output is regulated but you never know unless you measure it.

Good luck,
Brian

Hello Brian,

Thank you for your reply! I pulled out my ac power supply that I used to use before I switched over to the lithium ion batteries to give that a test.
I think that will be the 1st thing I try. Then I pulled out my powered USB 3 hub and I’m thinking I’ll give that a go if the power supply doens’t pan out. From there I’m going to order another https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008V ... =UTF8&th=1
And see if that makes a difference. Hopefully going to try it out this afternoon on the sun.

I’ll keep everyone posted!

Dale

[Chuckwagon]

Hello Chuck,
Thank you for your response!

So just to clarify a few things on my end to start, I’m somewhat simplified in the fact that I only have 1 cable going to my laptop and that is the USB3 repeater cable. I run all my cameras with a talent cell ion lithium battery. I’ve. Used this with my 294 & 071 with 0 issues.

1st At the scope the camera is plugged into “non powered” usb3 hub. That hub is then plugged into the repeater cable. If memory serves me correctly it’s a 15’ or 25’ cable or the shortest cable I could find. Again had no problems with any of this prior to the 2600.

2nd at the scope the only other thing plugged into to hub is the EAF cable. The EAF at least right now is showing up in SC and working, however I’ll remove it and see if I can get things to work and update all of you.

3rd before I set the camera up on the mount in my office I used a short usb3 cable to take bias, flat darks, and dark frames (yes I do know many don’t use darks but I took them anyway) and had 0 issues. Everything worked. However that was with my i3 computer not my new i7.

Do you think my usb3 hub being “non powered” could be an issue? In my case I have no other options but to use a repeater cable in my observatory. My main rig is in the center of the building and this rig is in the right corner. The control room is in the back where all the wiring comes in from the wall. Please see pix of the observatory for ref.

Ok to address your questions Chuck,

1st this is the 1st time I’ve used this camera. I havn’t been able to get any farther then what I’ve described. Once I get SC working with it I a then move onto PHD2 and CDC. I haven’t even got the mount setup on this computer yet. I’m still waiting for upgrades to that mount from AP, but thats not an issue right now as I’ve not been able to move past this with SC.

2nd I will do my best to uninstall all software and drivers and reinstall them and see if that makes any difference. However I have tried both version of SC 4.0 & 4.1 with same issues on both version.

Thanks!
Dale

Hi Dale,

I understand the desire to just use what has worked in the past, but that isn't an optimal approach to testing the camera. The other equipment may not be finicky about your setup, but the 2600 may be. USB3 cables longer than 3 meters often have issues, and generally speaking need a powered hub. USB repeater/extender cables may work with one device and not work at all with another, and are notorious for causing issues. It's things like that which make testing a complete USB setup difficult. That's why you should minimize to just a single USB3 cable, (the 2 meter one that came with the camera should work) and a 12v power supply plugged into the camera, with everything else unplugged. Then if the camera doesn't work, the issue is narrowed down. Try the bare minimum setup and see what happens.

Cheers,
Chuck

[dalepenkala]

Hello Chuck,
Thank you for your response!

So just to clarify a few things on my end to start, I’m somewhat simplified in the fact that I only have 1 cable going to my laptop and that is the USB3 repeater cable. I run all my cameras with a talent cell ion lithium battery. I’ve. Used this with my 294 & 071 with 0 issues.

1st At the scope the camera is plugged into “non powered” usb3 hub. That hub is then plugged into the repeater cable. If memory serves me correctly it’s a 15’ or 25’ cable or the shortest cable I could find. Again had no problems with any of this prior to the 2600.

2nd at the scope the only other thing plugged into to hub is the EAF cable. The EAF at least right now is showing up in SC and working, however I’ll remove it and see if I can get things to work and update all of you.

3rd before I set the camera up on the mount in my office I used a short usb3 cable to take bias, flat darks, and dark frames (yes I do know many don’t use darks but I took them anyway) and had 0 issues. Everything worked. However that was with my i3 computer not my new i7.

Do you think my usb3 hub being “non powered” could be an issue? In my case I have no other options but to use a repeater cable in my observatory. My main rig is in the center of the building and this rig is in the right corner. The control room is in the back where all the wiring comes in from the wall. Please see pix of the observatory for ref.

Ok to address your questions Chuck,

1st this is the 1st time I’ve used this camera. I havn’t been able to get any farther then what I’ve described. Once I get SC working with it I a then move onto PHD2 and CDC. I haven’t even got the mount setup on this computer yet. I’m still waiting for upgrades to that mount from AP, but thats not an issue right now as I’ve not been able to move past this with SC.

2nd I will do my best to uninstall all software and drivers and reinstall them and see if that makes any difference. However I have tried both version of SC 4.0 & 4.1 with same issues on both version.

Thanks!
Dale

Hi Dale,

I understand the desire to just use what has worked in the past, but that isn't an optimal approach to testing the camera. The other equipment may not be finicky about your setup, but the 2600 may be. USB3 cables longer than 3 meters often have issues, and generally speaking need a powered hub. USB repeater/extender cables may work with one device and not work at all with another, and are notorious for causing issues. It's things like that which make testing a complete USB setup difficult. That's why you should minimize to just a single USB3 cable, (the 2 meter one that came with the camera should work) and a 12v power supply plugged into the camera, with everything else unplugged. Then if the camera doesn't work, the issue is narrowed down. Try the bare minimum setup and see what happens.

Cheers,
Chuck

Hello Chuck,
Thanks again for your comments and dually noted! I have already unplugged everything so that only the camera is plugged into the usb hub. I need to see if I have a 15’ usb 3 cable and if I do I’ll be doing a test with that. Problem is I only have so much room and have to work within my limits. There is no way I’d be able to run the setup with a 15’ cable going from the camera thru the wall of the control room and then to the laptop. That said I plan to try it and see if that actually works. If it does then I’ll need to figure out a different way to connect to the laptop some how.

I do have a powered usb hub that I pulled out to give a try and see if that makes any difference too.

My hope is that it is a power issue as a couple have mentioned that to me that the 2600 does pull more power than my other cameras. Thats why I am going to give my ac power supply a go and see if that makes any difference.

I’ll keep everyone updated as I figure things out. I’m thankful to EVERYONE that has responded to try and help me!

Dale

[Chuckwagon]

Hello Chuck,
Thanks again for your comments and dually noted! I have already unplugged everything so that only the camera is plugged into the usb hub. I need to see if I have a 15’ usb 3 cable and if I do I’ll be doing a test with that. Problem is I only have so much room and have to work within my limits. There is no way I’d be able to run the setup with a 15’ cable going from the camera thru the wall of the control room and then to the laptop. That said I plan to try it and see if that actually works. If it does then I’ll need to figure out a different way to connect to the laptop some how.

I do have a powered usb hub that I pulled out to give a try and see if that makes any difference too.

My hope is that it is a power issue as a couple have mentioned that to me that the 2600 does pull more power than my other cameras. Thats why I am going to give my ac power supply a go and see if that makes any difference.

I’ll keep everyone updated as I figure things out. I’m thankful to EVERYONE that has responded to try and help me!

Dale

Hi Dale,

I wouldn't be surprised if it's a power issue. Or if it's a need for a powered hub. Or if it's the extender cables. (Maybe they need a powered hub for this camera) There are a lot of variables. USB is convenient technology, but it's not always the most robust or predictable. It can be quite frustrating, especially when something works in one config but stops in another for no apparent reason. That's why I suggested starting with the bare minimum and adding more complexity as you go. I'm sure you'll get it sorted.

Cheers,
Chuck

[dalepenkala]

Hello Chuck,
Thanks again for your comments and dually noted! I have already unplugged everything so that only the camera is plugged into the usb hub. I need to see if I have a 15’ usb 3 cable and if I do I’ll be doing a test with that. Problem is I only have so much room and have to work within my limits. There is no way I’d be able to run the setup with a 15’ cable going from the camera thru the wall of the control room and then to the laptop. That said I plan to try it and see if that actually works. If it does then I’ll need to figure out a different way to connect to the laptop some how.

I do have a powered usb hub that I pulled out to give a try and see if that makes any difference too.

My hope is that it is a power issue as a couple have mentioned that to me that the 2600 does pull more power than my other cameras. Thats why I am going to give my ac power supply a go and see if that makes any difference.

I’ll keep everyone updated as I figure things out. I’m thankful to EVERYONE that has responded to try and help me!

Dale

Hi Dale,

I wouldn't be surprised if it's a power issue. Or if it's a need for a powered hub. Or if it's the extender cables. (Maybe they need a powered hub for this camera) There are a lot of variables. USB is convenient technology, but it's not always the most robust or predictable. It can be quite frustrating, especially when something works in one config but stops in another for no apparent reason. That's why I suggested starting with the bare minimum and adding more complexity as you go. I'm sure you'll get it sorted.

Cheers,
Chuck

Hello Chuck and Everyone that has helped!

Ok so here is an update on everything so far. This afternoon I went out in the observatory and went thru all my cords. I pulled everything out cleaned them (though they were not dirty) reinserted them just to go thru that process. Honestly I didn’t really see anything that stuck out but did it anyway. Like @chuckwagon had mentioned I pulled everything out of the usb hub and worked with just 1 plug at a time and connected the laptop.
Prior to doing that I pulled my battery and put a full charge on it. When I came in the other night I needed to charge it so put it on the charger until it was completely charged.
Once this was done I thru my solar filter on my esprit and gave it a test. I was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t disconnect when I slewed to some other place in the sky. That when it would always disconnect or lock up. So then I decided to plug in the EAF and give that a try. No issues and there was next to no delay when pulling buttons, Anyway I went back to the sun and everything was just the way that it normally worked. I took 3 quick sequences of the sun just to run something to test it. Well it worked. Ok so I did it a 2nd time with know issues.

I was quite happy as you can imagine and came in and waited for nighttime to give it a run with some deep sky tests and so far so good. It worked flawlessly and good enough to get my back spacing dialed in. Now I need to take flats and go after an object to see how everything performs.

Once I was happy with the i7 working I decided to give the i3 another go and surprisingly it worked fairly well. I think it would work just fine for dso imaging but when your taking a video in avi or ser format it drops 3/4 of the collected frames. When I was doing it with the sun this afternoon with the i7 it never dropped a frame so clearly the i7 has more steam to handle the 2 video formats.

I still have more work to do with this setup as I’m switching this optical system over to another AP1200 mount so I still need to add software and configure everything. Praying everything goes well that way!

I hope I don’t have to bother all of you again but if I run into any more issues I’ll be posting here but in the meantime I’d like to say thank you to everyone that chimed in on my thread to help me! Even if it was little things it all makes a difference!

Thanks!
Dale

[admin]

Hi Dale,

glad to hear that you have managed to get the camera running properly (and that it's not a recalled one). Hope you get some clear skies soon to put it to proper use!

cheers,

Robin

[dalepenkala]

Hi Dale,

glad to hear that you have managed to get the camera running properly (and that it's not a recalled one). Hope you get some clear skies soon to put it to proper use!

cheers,

Robin

Thank you Robin! Me too! Clouds plague us in the winter here in Michigan!

Dale