Test Pulse from PHD to mount.

[Ken H]

It's my first time on the forum. Both my camera and mount are charged in PHD. Through "Tools -Manual Guide" I now want to know (daytime) whether PHD sends pulses to my mount. When pressing the N or S or E or W key,I receive the message  "PulseGuide command to mount has failed". I can't hear any difference in sound from the motor as stated in the Tools Manual Guide documentation. Do I need to set anything extra?

Mount: M100B + FS2 ( Ascom Advanced LX200 vs 6.4.0.2)

Zwo ASI 120mm Mini

Hopefully you can help me.

Ken

[Bruce Waddington]

I'm not familiar with the mount driver you're using, I suspect it's one that's not widely used: 'AdvancedLX200 Telescope (ASCOM)'.  In any case, the driver is returning an internal programming error that translates to ' The object reference is not set to an instance of an object' .  This happens whenever PHD2 tries to query the state of 'IsSlewing' so I think you should contact the author of the driver to get the problem resolved.  As a temporary workaround, you can try opening the 'Guiding' tab of PHD2 Advanced Settings and resetting the option for 'Stop guiding when mount slews'.

Good luck,

Bruce

[wave...@talktalk.net]

Hello Sean,
I guess your mount operates with the old Meade Command Set with later extensions enabling pulse guiding to function. It enables LX200 Classics to respond to PHD2 directly via RS232/Serial where ST4 was required before. If that applies to your mount, then if there's a driver setting to 'Use new pulse guiding', it should be unchecked. Alternatively, you might try  the latest Meade Generic (ASCOM) driver from Colin Dawson. This is recommended for all Meade mounts and may well resolve the issue you have.
You'll find all the driver releases here: https://bitbucket.org/cjdskunkworks/meadeautostar497/downloads/
Each driver update is labelled Meade.net.Setup and is a self-extracting/installation file.

Also be sure you have the latest issue of the ASCOM Platform installed and that the driver settings use the correct COM port numbe assigned by Windows.r. There's a setting for the Guide Rate, which you should set between 8 and 15 arcsec/sec (about 0.5x to 1x sidereal) The rest are more or less optional.
Hope this helps,
- Jack

[wave...@talktalk.net]

Ken, sorry I called you Sean by mistake.

- Jack

[Ken H]

Good evening Jack,

Your assumption is completely correct.

Unfortunately I don't have an option "Use new pulse guiding". 

For the moment I am using the latest Ascom vs 6.6.Sp1 + drivers AscomLX200Advanced from Colin vs 6.4.0.2.(10/06/2023).
On a german forum it is recommended to use Ascom Platform 6.4.SP1 with an older version of LX200Adv. + Install POTH.
So it will be a lot of trial and error.
Thanks for your help.

Ken

Op maandag 10 juli 2023 om 10:04:34 UTC+2 schreef wave...@talktalk.net:

[Bruce Waddington]

There is another alternative in case you can't get this driver mess sorted out.  You can buy one of these inexpensive GPUSB devices:

 http://www.store.shoestringastronomy.com/products_gp.htm

 The GP-USB box continues to use the guide port on your mount but it eliminates the cable from the guide camera to the mount.  The cable from the GPUSB box will not move around as the scope moves so you won’t have problems with cable routing.  In PHD2, set the 'mount' connection to the GPUSB,  then set an ‘aux-mount’ connection to one of the Meade ASCOM drivers that can at least return simple pointing information such as RA and Dec.  This approach reduces your reliance on mount controller firmware or buggy drivers that haven’t implemented pulse-guiding correctly.  I used this approach myself for many years for a mount that didn’t support pulse guiding and it worked fine.

 

Good luck,

Bruce

[wave...@talktalk.net]

Hello again Ken,

You daid: For the moment I am using the latest Ascom vs 6.6.Sp1 + drivers AscomLX200Advanced from Colin vs 6.4.0.2.(10/06/2023).

I supect you're confusing Colin Dawson's Meade Generic ASCOM Driver with the LX200 Advanced driver by Charles Lemaire.

I'm not familiar with the latter, but I can certainly recommend Colin Dawson's

Cheers,

- Jack

[Ken H]

Hello Jack,

I just downloaded the latest version of Colin Dawson ( vs 1.3.9.482)

This is indeed the LX200 Generic. 

The LX200 Advanced as you mentioned is from Charles Lemaire (vs 6.4.0.0).
Unfortunately, the "Colin LX200 Generic" does not work. 

I get the error: "Mount does not support the required interface".
Still worth a try.
I will now continue my search via POTH and the LX200 Advanced versions.
Thank you

Ken

Op dinsdag 11 juli 2023 om 09:25:54 UTC+2 schreef wave...@talktalk.net:

[Ken H]

Hello Bruce,

This is a very interesting solution and affordable too.
However, I will first try to find a software solution before taking your alternative application.
Thank you in advance for your positive cooperation.
Thank you

Ken

Op dinsdag 11 juli 2023 om 12:14:43 UTC+2 schreef Ken H: