PHD2 cannot distinguish between two SBIG camera (main and guide camera)

[Steve Winston]

(per Andy's request re-posting this in a new thread)

My setup includes an SBIG STF-8300 and an SBIG STi guide camera, both connected via USB.

When selecting a camera to connect to,  PHD2 cannot distinguish between these two cameras.  Clicking on the "select" button in the Connect Equipment dialog, I only get the option to choose the interface the camera is on (e.g. USB), but I don't have any option to select a specific camera (both of mu cameras are on USB).  As a result there is no way to select which of my SBIG cameras to choose for guiding.

The only way to make PHD2 work is to first connect to the STF-8300 via CCDOps or SGP and then to connect to a camera in PHD2:  taking this approach, PHD2 automatically connects to the second (not yet connected) camera, which in my case is the STi guide camera.

When first connecting to a camera in CCDOps or SGP, both of those programs display a selection dialog listing the STF and the STi and allowing me to select which camera to connect to.  It would be great if the PHD2 "connect" option also listed all available cameras and allowed the user to chose which one to use.

Steve

[Andy Galasso]

Hi Steve,

The SBIG connection code in PHD2 is supposed to find all the USB cameras after you select USB for the interface.  It seems like it is only finding one camera.  Is that what you are seeing?  Have you run the SBIG Diver Updater to confirm that you have the latest drivers installed?

Andy

[Steve Winston]

Hi Andy,

Yes, I do have the latest SBIG drivers and the latest dev release of PHD2.

What should I expect to see in the "select camera" dialog?  A list of available cameras or just the interfaces list?

What I am seeing is that PHD2 appears to select the first "available" camera.  If I don't already have the STF-8300 connected, PHD2 will select and connect to it.  If the STF is already connected (to CCDOps or SGP) then PHD2 connects to the STi.  So it's hard to say if it's only seeing "one camera" or whether it's just connecting to the first available camera, and when both are available (unconnected) it sees both but just connects to the first...?

Steve

[Andy Galasso]

After you select USB, PHD2 queries the SBIG driver to get the list of all the USB cameras.  If there is just one camera reported, then PHD2 connects to it.  If there are more than one camera, then PHD2 puts up a list of the available cameras for you to choose.  Since you are not seeing the list of available cameras, it seems like the SBIG driver is not finding all the cameras for some reason.

One thing I notice is that phd2 we have not updated the SBIG SDK in PHD2 in a very long time and I have a newer version that we can try.  I'm going to send you a test version of phd2 built using a newer SBIG SDK.  Maybe you could test that to see if it finds all the cameras? (direct message coming shortly...)

Andy

[Steve Winston]

Thanks Andy - happy to try out the test version.

And just to confirm:

>If there are more than one camera, then PHD2 puts up a list of the available cameras for you to choose.

I never see a list of available cameras with the current version of PHD2

Steve

[Andy Galasso]

Closing the loop on this thread: Steve was able to test a build of PHD2 that uses a newer SBIG SDK and that was found to fix the problem. The fix will be available in the next PHD2 version.

Andy

[Steve Winston]

Just wanted to say a big Thank You to Andy for a super fast turn around on resolving this issue!