Lack of control in Basler puA1280-54um and unable to use Basler acA1300-200uc

[frichard21]

Hello, I am new to this forum and currently have 2 new USB3 Basler cameras (acA1300-200uc and puA1280-54um, bought from different vendors). Both are able to connect and work with Pylon 8 software (specifically the Pylon viewer) and with the Basler Video Recording Software, capturing images and live recordings. The problem arises when I try to connect them to the Basler microscopy software because it gives this error message: “the camera is not initialized” for both of them. Both cameras are recognized by the USB configurator software that came with Pylon and the Basler microscopy software. According to Basler its microscopy software was not designed to work with any Basler camera. It only works with cameras listed on the Basler Power Pack microscopy list. Both of my cameras are included on that list.
I contacted Basler customer support writing 2 messages (one for each camera). Basler answered me suggesting to run the Camera Quick Tester Diagnostic Tool software. This software performs a deep check but did not report any trouble connecting to both cameras and getting images.
On the other hand, Basler customer support states that Basler only works with customers who buy cameras directly from them (a quite strange policy). Other cases (as mine) will be redirected to the vendor. One of those vendors answered me suggesting to change the USB3 cable (that I did), re-install Pylon (that I did) and the Basler microscopy software (that I did too). As a matter of fact, I did the extra mile and installed everything (Basler Pylon 8, Basler video recording, Basler USB configurator and Basler microscopy software) on an emergency notebook that I own which only has Windows 10 and Office 16. Same negative results.
Knowing that SharpCap is an excellent option and can be utilized for microscopy work (not only for astronomy, because it is full of features and options) I installed SharpCap 4.1. Sharpcap 4.1 recognizes both cameras. It works with puA1280-54um but only can control exposure and gamma. On acA1300-200uc reports this error message: “An error occurred while starting your acA1300-200uc (22077217). The details of the error are: the parameter is incorrect (Streamconfig Setformat) (Error code 0x80070057).
As you know the more parameters you can control on your camera better chances you have to get good pics, so controlling only gamma and exposure are not enough for my line of work. Any help getting both cameras working with full features in SharpCap will be truly appreciated.

[admin]

Hi,

sorry to hear about your troubles with the Basler cameras/software. Unfortunately I only have one old Basler camera to test with (that's probably 10 years old or more now), and not many people use their cameras for Astronomy now, so the Basler code doesn't get updated very often in SharpCap any more.

The current latest versions of SharpCap are set up to work best with Pylon 7.3.0.19429, although any 7.3 will probably give equivalent results. The fact that you are seeing a message about 'StreamConfig Setformat' makes me think that the cameras are being detected via DirectShow (webcam) drivers, rather than the Pylon API, so it is probably worth trying Pylon 7.3 to see if that makes the cameras show up in a 'Basler Cameras' section of the SharpCap cameras menu. Of course it could be that your cameras are too new to work with Basler 7.3...

If that doesn't help, let me know and I can try updating SharpCap to Pylon 8, so we can see if that helps at all - if you are accessing the cameras via Pylon then you should get a decent degree of control, although Basler tend to have about 3 or 4 different possible controls for everything ('gain', 'raw gain', 'db gain', etc) - SharpCap has to check each of those as some cameras offer one and some offer another - perhaps your new models are offering controls that SharpCap doesn't even know to ask about, but we can check that later.

cheers,

Robin

[frichard21]

Thanks!!!! I will install Pylon 7.3 instead of 8 and let you know about it

[frichard21]

I installed Pylon 7.3 and later on 7.1. None of them solve the problem.

[admin]

Hi,

OK, we will have to look deeper...

At any point, are you seeing either camera appear in the 'Basler Cameras' section of the cameras menu? If so that means at least it is being detected and we can start diagnostics. If you can see the camera in the Basler Cameras section then just open the camera and close it again, then send me the SharpCap log captured after the open/close of the camera - it should include details on the camera as provided by the Pylon SDK and also what controls the Pylon SDK says are available for that camera.

I will also have a look at updating SharpCap for compatibility with Pylon 8.

cheers,

Robin

[AstroMathmo]

Pylon 7.3 something is still working with my Basler with the GMAX2518 with the new SC with the updated live stacking fractals issue recently. At PAS Robin mentioned something about using the developer drivers to get around the issue of matching the SDK version. I’m not going to try that right now but wondered if that would help here?

[admin]

Hi,

yes, I forgot to mention that - if you install Pylon 8 *and* choose to install the developer options as part of the install then SharpCap might be able to use the Pylon 8 DLLs. It would certainly work for different subversions of Pylon 7.3, but I have not tested for Pylon 8.

cheers,

Robin