Guide camera disconnecting

[Dale R.]

I have an aggravating issue starting. I had no issues for some time now using my ZWO174 guiding within Sharpcap. Now I am getting guide camera disconnects. seems every minute or so. Eventually it stays disconnected and I have to pull up PHD2 and "connect" the camera. I am also getting main camera disconnects on my ZWO533. It gets so bad I have to restart my computer to fix it. I am using a beelink mini scope side. I fired up my second beelink mini and had the same issues. The mount is an ioptron CEM70. I tried with a powered USB hub and pugging all usbs directly into the computer(s). Both ideas failed. I tried a new cable on the guide camera. No change.

Last night I just pointed the scope out the garage door to see stars and test. I could not actually guide since it was not polar aligned. It was WAY too windy to test properly.

When I run the PHD2 without Sharpcap running, it works (I just clicked "looping" and left it run since it would not be able to lock on any star due to movement.

When I run Sharcap without PHD2, I do not get any main camera disconnects. It appears to run fine.

I updated to the latest Sharpcap ver. listed on the site. I re-installed PHD2 (not a clean re-install). I updated the ZWO camera drivers. I did not do anything with ASCOM drivers.

CAN I just run them separate and don't worry about it for now??? Would I pick the "dither" option (the bottom choice) in the guiding tab and uncheck the "server" or whatever the command is in PHD2???

[admin]

Hi,

the first thing to check (and I don't think you are doing this, but best to make sure) is that if you try to open the same camera in two applications at once (like SharpCap and PHD2) then horrible things will happen. Some camera brands helpfully prevent you from opening the camera a second time, but others don't and that lets you mess things up if you try.

Anyway, assuming that you aren't doing that and are trying to run the two cameras separately, one from each piece of software, it starts to sound like a USB data transfer issue, but you have already tried the options of powered hubs and bringing separate cables back to the PC, so that's odd. It may be worth trying reducing the 'Turbo USB' camera setting in SharpCap to see if that helps - that tends to improve stability at the expense of a reduced maximum frame rate. The other thing to be aware of is USB cable lengths. For USB3 I have found that single cable runs of more than about 3m cause problems - beyond that a hub is required in the middle. For USB2 you can get away with a bit longer, up to 4.5m or so. If you are using long cables then try shorter ones.

It might be a performance issue with the beelink mini PC possibly - that can perhaps be improved by using longer exposures for both guiding and in SharpCap to reduce the amount of data being processed per second. Certainly you could imagine a performance issue if your 533 camera is running at 10fps being cured by setting a 5s exposure so it is only at 0.2fps.

Now, you can disable the connection between SharpCap and PHD2 by taking the steps you describe - in that case PHD2 will guide on its own and SharpCap will image without worrying about PHD2. I'd be surprised if that helps though - I've not encountered that communication causing this sort of problem before.

cheers,

Robin

[Dale R.]

Yes I do find it odd..but I am one of those that finds never before seen problems.. . What I find odd is that I have had no problems for about 2 months of using that complete setup Odd also I get the same issue with 2 separate beelink mini computers. I have seen the issue with opening up 2 instances of Sharpcap, so I make sure I don't do that!

My cables are only 3 feet or shorter. I did not replace the main camera cable. Historically, I find that cable "fussy" I have bought new ones that did not work, same with the printer stye cable that runs from the mount.

In my test everything ran good when I ran PHD2 and Sharpcap separately, so I find that odd. I will try the turbo setting first. I never touched that setting..BUT maybe I changed something on that tab and didn't realize it.

Things to try next:
-Adjust the turbo setting.
-Try new cables/maybe clean install of sharpcap.
- Make sure the power supply for the beelink is not malfunctioning and not providing the power needed. (I did try another cheap amazon power supply but it did not help)
-Get a svbony power supply and try that
-Just run PHD2 and Sharpcap separately...but will setting sharpcap to dither mess up PHD2???

[Dale R.]

I hit the wrong button and reported my post above... ANYWAY. I used my CEM40ec tonight with the ZWO174 guide camera and the ZWO533. It is running perfectly guiding in Sharcap. The only thing I changed was the power supply to the beelink.

The original issue was with my CEM70. I wonder if the USB2 data cable from the mount to my beelink in funky???

[admin]

Hi,

we almost never get reported messages - so I guessed it might be a mistake when I saw the notification

The power supply could very well be the issue here - I've seen a couple of similar reports of mini PCs either powering down or behaving oddly when the load on the system goes high enough to stress the power supply. In this case you could perhaps imagine that if the power supply is starting to struggle, the USB voltages drop and that in turn may affect camera reliability.

I'd stick with the new power supply for now and try the CEM70 when you get a chance and see how that works. I suppose if we are thinking about power the CEM70 probably draws more than the smaller mount, so if you have the mount and the PC running from the same 12V then that could be an issue.

cheers,

Robin

[Dale R.]

Just wanted to post a follow up in case others may find this. It appears the fix is a COMPLETE re-install of PHD2. In my daylight garage tests, all appears ok right now. Kinda embarrassing, but there it is!!! Still make no sense Why it worked with one iOptron rig and not the other, but i guess I can't complain!!!