Having some major headaches

[DiligentSkies]

Dr Glover,

I had an accident with my laptop and a can of diet coke.
The long and the short. I had to replace my laptop. Fried beyond recovery.
Thus, I am attempting to reinstall the various software package of the hobby.


Main point is ASCOM has moved on since my most recent stable install (ASCOM 6.5).
Glad to report ASCOM 6.6 is able to load up drivers and software such that I am able to control and sync my mount.
That is, "I am able to plate solve on the latest Sharp Cap version(4.0.9033.0-64bit) provided my FITS are sourced from my guide camera(ASI120 mini).
When I try to connect to my imagining camera(QHYCCD183). There is no identification of this camera and I am thus unable to connect to this camera.

That is the QHYCCD All In Driver package installs but after the install I get nothing.
Sharpcap is unable to connect to this camera.
To add a further level of detail to the problem. QHYCCD EZCAP just does not recognize my camera.
Which is perplexing, "Since EZCAP should be able to identify my camera outside of ASCOM."

I am at a lost to the underlying problem at this point.
Is the issue related.... To Visual C++ installs , .Net installs and/or the QHYCCD SDK dependencies.

I have enabled .Net 3.5 Framework per instruction and installed the latest Sharp Cap software prior to attempting to install the QHYCCD All In One driver package.
Nothing seems to work.

I am trying to understand the issue from the point of view, "That to the best of my recollection, ASCOM6.5 (my most stable install) still required of me to download a specific driver required of camera. However, this all seems to have disappeared in ASCOM6.6. There is nothing specific to QHYCCD cameras within ASCOM6.6.
I seem to remember, that there was a specific ASCOM driver download within the ASCOM 6.5 platform.
Yet under ASCOM6.6 camera specifics there is nothing to download for QHYCCD camera.

THIS LEAVES ME wondering if the most current version of the QHYCCD All In One driver package(21.10.23.19) is installing drivers/software that are not compatible with the ASCOM 6.6 package.
Either on a implementation level or the SDK level.

Sincerely,
mark

[admin]

Hi Mark,

ouch! Bad luck there with the diet coke/laptop incident

ASCOM will not automatically get a driver for your QHY camera, you will need to select to install the QHY ASCOM driver as part of the All-In-One package... However, this is quite probably not the way you accessed your camera on the old laptop.

SharpCap can talk to QHY cameras in three ways

1) Direct... SharpCap -> QHY SDK -> QHY System Driver -> Camera
2) ASCOM... SharpCap -> QHY ASCOM Driver -> QHY SDK -> QHY System Driver -> Camera
3) Directshow... SharpCap -> QHY Directshow driver -> QHY SDK -> QHY System Driver -> Camera

Also, for example EZCAP talks to the camera like this

EZCap -> QHY SDK -> QHY System Driver -> Camera

Normally option 1 is preferred.

The fact that you are not seeing the camera in any applications (including EZCAP) makes me think that one of the things common to all ways of talking to the camera is not right - probably the system driver.

You can check by using either Windows Device Manager or USBTreeView to see if the camera appears correctly when plugged in, or if it appears with incorrect details or with a yellow exclamation mark (drivers not being loaded properly).

I would also be tempted to test out different USB cables and also try a USB2 cable to see if that helps. Just now and then I find that USB3 cameras can sulk about talking to the USB ports on some computers and a USB2 cable can help here.

cheers,

Robin