ZWO ASI Camera selection

[Glenn Newell]

I realize this may be a ZWO ASCOM driver, or ASCOM issues vs. PHD2 but I’m having the following issue both in SGP and PHD2.

I have three ZWO ASI cameras, two in use at any one time, ASI174mm-cool, ASI1600mm-cool, ASI1600mc-cool.

One used for imaging in SGP and one used for guiding in PHD2.

Works fine but if something goes wrong and equipment needs to reconnect both SGP and PHD2 can end up with the wrong camera, either guiding and imaging reversed or both programs trying to use the same camera.

Also when starting up I need to verify that the correct camera is selected in each program.

In PHD2 I want to control cooling (if that is only supported in ASCOM?)

Suggestions?

[Andy Galasso]

Hi Glenn,

You're right about it being an ASCOM driver issue that you will need to get help with from ZWO.

When you installed the ZWO ASCOM driver it gave you two new ASCOM camera devices: "ASI Camera (1)" and "ASI Camera (2)". An ASCOM client application like PHD2 or SGP can connect to either one of those devices, but then it is up to the ASCOM driver to decide which actual camera corresponds to device 1 or device 2.

Please let us know what you find out from ZWO as this seems to be a somewhat common problem.

In PHD2 I want to control cooling (if that is only supported in ASCOM?)

That's on the Camera tab in the Advanced Settings window (brain).

Andy

[Glenn Newell]

OK thanks Andy.

I posted on the ZWO forum and will let you know.

Should I just use the native driver in PHD2 (vs. ASCOM)? Anything lost (cooling, binning, gain) in that case? 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "Open PHD Guiding" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/open-phd-guiding/oy_dHjCg_38/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to open-phd-guidi...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Andy Galasso]

On Tue, Aug 21, 2018 at 3:10 PM, Glenn Newell <glenn.c...@gmail.com> wrote:

Should I just use the native driver in PHD2 (vs. ASCOM)?

The native driver has a similar problem.  The ASI native SDK allows PHD2 to address "ASI Camera 0" or " ASI Camera 1", but it's again up to the driver to decide which is camera 0 and which is camera 1. If the assignments change (which camera is camera 1) then PHD2 could end up connecting to the wrong camera.  We do have an open item in the issue tracker (#686) to use the camera model name to improve the likelihood of connecting to the same camera each time.  When we make that change then it might be better to use the native driver, but this could still lead to other problems if the assignments change and both SGP and PHD2 try to connect to the ASI174. I will contact ZWO and see if they have any ideas.

Anything lost (cooling, binning, gain) in that case? 

The native driver has the same capabilities as the ASCOM driver -- gain, binning, cooling, etc. Both drivers (native or ASCOM) should work fine, though switching to the native driver won't help with the camera identification problem.

Andy

[Glenn Newell]

Here is the response I got on the ZWO forum:

Hi Glenn，
I checked, but it can not be solved.
When you use ASCOM in two applications, ASCOM will be initialized twice. They are independent. ASCOM does not provide an interface to detect the current working state of the camera. So when you disconnect one of the cameras, Both of the ASCOMs could only know there is one camera left. When you click the connect icon, all of them think this camera could be used. So this is what happened.
Thanks
Chad

ZWO Driver Engineer
Location:lon=120.6 lat=31.3
SuZhou China

[Andy Galasso]

Well, that's a bit discouraging.

Starlight Xpress (Bret McKee's excellent SX ASCOM driver) has an elegant solution to the multi-camera problem. When you run the ASCOM driver installer it asks you what cameras you have and then installs an ASCOM driver instance for each camera. The instances are tied to the specific camera model, unlike zwo's unspecified Camera (1) / Camera (2).  In the guiding app you select the guide camera model instance ("SX Lodestar (ASCOM)"), and in the imaging app you select the imaging camera model instance ("SX H9 (ASCOM)").

You might want to see if ZWO would be wiling to do something similar for their ASCOM driver.

Andy

[Brian Valente]

On my 2 ZWO cameras, i originally always booted up the apps and connected in the same order, which solved the problem. however, every once in a while something didn't connect quite right and ended up connecting to wrong cameras

Nowadays I use native driver for SGP and ascom for PHD, works great for me no multi-camera problems

Brian

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Open PHD Guiding" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to open-phd-guidi...@googlegroups.com.

[Glenn Newell]

For me the ZWO native driver shows one instance in SGP and there is no indication of which camera it is.

PHD2, in that case, has the extra button to select which camera.

How do select which camera, using the native driver, in SGP?

You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "Open PHD Guiding" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/open-phd-guiding/oy_dHjCg_38/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to open-phd-guidi...@googlegroups.com.

[Brian Valente]

Glenn when i connect via SGP with more than one camera, it brings up a dialog box asking which camera I should connect to first.

Brian

Brian 

Brian Valente

portfolio brianvalentephotography.com 

[Glenn Newell]

Guess I will have to ask about that on the sgp forum ‘cause I don’t see that, using the current 3.x version. 

[Glenn Newell]

From ZWO:

Hi Glenn，
Understand.
But it is not a easy job for us.
As we know, different companies have different frameworks. The same goes for programs. It's the differences in these frameworks that determine things that can be easy for them, and that can be difficult for us. In a word, I will put this problem in my plan, but I can't guarantee the result. If we did it in the future, we will write it in our release note.
So Thanks again for your idea.
Thanks
Chad

ZWO Driver Engineer
Location:lon=120.6 lat=31.3
SuZhou China

[Glenn Newell]

OK from SGP forum:

If you have 2 ZWO cameras connected SGP should prompt you as to which one to connect (at least once). SGP also saves the ZWO camera that you last connected to (as it’s likely an imaging camera and probably not your guider). If you want to reset this saved camera you can do so from the ZWO settings menu:

Jared

So I Should use the native drivers in both PHD2 and SGP, because they both have ways to select a camera (and hopefully remember)?

[Andy Galasso]

On Fri, Aug 24, 2018 at 1:04 AM, Glenn Newell <glenn.c...@gmail.com> wrote:

So I Should use the native drivers in both PHD2 and SGP, because they both have ways to select a camera (and hopefully remember)?

That's great to hear that SGP's native driver will remember the camera.  PHD2's native driver does not yet have the ability to remember the camera model name, but we were planning on making that change (#686 in the issue tracker.)  I will get that change into the next dev release.  At that point both SGP and PHD2 native drivers will remember the camera name and you should be all set without any possibility of the apps connecting to the wrong camera as long as you use the native drivers in both apps.

Andy

[Glenn Newell]

Thanks!

I'll watch for the next dev release.

Glenn

[Andy Galasso]

Does anybody have multiple ZWO cameras and a few minutes to test the changes? I have the changes ready but I would like to validate the changes before publishing the next release.

Andy

[Brian Valente]

yep

 

Brian

 

portfolio https://www.brianvalentephotography.com/

--

[Andy Galasso]

Thanks, Brian. I'll send you an email.

Andy