ssag pro and phd2 - moving mount only in two directions

[vikan]

I have been using Orion non-pro guide camera with phd2 successfully for a couple of years now.  I decided to get the more sensitive "pro" version of it to help improve my guiding.  I am having a odd problem with trying to get it to work.

Setup:

Windows 10 (64 bit) PC -> CMOS SSAGPro ( ASCOM) -> st4 ( on camera) -> cgem

I installed the drivers as indicated on the orion page.  SSAAG pro windows driver , ssag ascom driver and ascom platform. 

The camera and mount connect fine.  After auto-selecting the star, the calibration does fine for west movement. Eastward  push doesn't move the star at all and calibration fails with "Backlash Clearing Failed: star did not move enough".

I tried manual guiding. The West and South movements work fine. North and East dont move the star at all. 

I tried,

1. the phd2 and ascom platform versions listed on the orion page.

2. latest versions of phd2 and ascom

3. my older SSAG with the same cables, st4 and usb, and it works fine. 

4. different laptop. 

Any suggestions are welcome. 

Here are the phd logs:

https://openphdguiding.org/logs/dl/PHD2_logs_cz7S.zip

[bw_msgboard]

Hi Vikan, sorry you’re having trouble.  Unfortunately, the log files don’t tell us anything that would help you.  Your PHD2 version was truly ancient, several years behind the times.  And all the logs show is what you already figured out: using ST-4 (on-camera) guiding,  the mount isn’t moving east and the north moves are seriously degraded or not operating at all.

 

The normal reason for this sort of thing is a damaged or defective guide cable.  But it can be caused by other things, including problems with the contacts on the guide camera or even a defective camera (very unusual).  You said you had tried using an ASCOM connection, but was this a *mount* connection?  That’s the best thing to try at this point.  But we don’t have any log data to show what happened with that experiment.  

 

To help us help you, you should probably do the following:

 

1.  Install the latest development build of PHD2, 2.6.5dev3: https://openphdguiding.org/development-snapshots/   These releases are stable and represent the best we can deliver to you.

2. Create a new profile using the new-profile-wizard.  The camera choice will be your new one using whatever camera driver you prefer (ASCOM or native).  But the mount connection should point to the ASCOM driver for your *mount*, which you must install and configure separately.  That connection has nothing to do with the connection to the guide camera.

3.  Connect all the equipment in PHD2 and watch for any error messages.

4.  Using the hand-controller, make sure the last direction of movement for the mount was *north* - this will help to clear any Dec backlash.

5.  Using 2-second exposures, let PHD2 auto-select a star, then click on the ‘guide’ icon – this will automatically start the calibration.

6.  Look for any error messages coming out of the calibration process.

7.  If you continue to have problems, collect the guide and debug log files and post them for us.

 

Since you’re apparently several years behind the current PHD2 release, you should probably review the Help documentation – there will be a great many things that have changed.  The trouble-shooting section can also give you a number of ideas for debugging these sorts of problem if you continue to see them.  You can also take a look at the recommended practices for working with PHD2:

 

https://openphdguiding.org/phd2-best-practices/

 

Good luck,

Bruce

 

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[vikan]

Thanks Bruce.

I tried all of those except for the connecting the mount directly to pc. I placed an order for the serial to usb cable.  I will try that and update.  Thanks.

Vinod