I've got a QHY533M camera and filter wheel that is giving me issues on my remote PC (BEELINK MINI S N5095). I've installed Ubuntu Server 22.04 and the kstars-bleeding with the indi-full package off of the "mutlaqja/ppa" repo. The entire rig is connected to a powered USB3 port and I use VNC to login from my laptop to run and manage the session. The primary issue I've been having is abnormally long image download times. When my exposure is complete, the capture window seems to hang on capturing with 0s left for several seconds, then reports downloading as occurring in approximately 0.30-0.35 sec. I've attatched the syslog and ekos logs. For the purposes of debugging, I've only connected the QHY camera and used a mount simulator.

Hi!

Not sure this helps but here's my experiences:

I have 2 QHY cameras and have occasionally had similar issues. For one of them, the issue seemed to be solved by having a separate USB cable from the camera - not running it through any USB hub (I have a powered USB 3-hub for focuser, filter wheel, and guide cam). For the other one, swithchg USB cables and hub seemed to solve the issue.

Moreover, at times my QHY 268m simply hangs and does not respond. I disconnect both USB and power, and reconnect, and it works again. This is typically when starting up, and then it will work the whole night.

Magnus

Hi Magnus,

Your suggestion got me thinking and after more troubleshooting and 2 successful nights I can declare that I have a working rig. Thank you!

For the benefit of anyone who happens to run into a similar issue of camera hang and dropout, here is what I did to get a working imaging rig.

Short version: Use USB2 cables only between the rig and computer.

Long version:

As far as I can tell, for whatever reason, USB3 was problematic and resulting in hanging and disconnects with the provided cable from QHY and any alternate cables. Whether the issue lies with the camera hardware, the computer hardware (I tried a laptop, rasperry pi 4 and minipc all with and without a USB3 hub), or between the indi qhy driver and libusb (as the syslog seemed to suggest) is not clear. However, based on Magnus's reply, I decided to try and see if the issue was USB version related. To check this, I used a USB2 Type A male-female extension with the QHY-provided USB3 cable, and plugged it into both my laptop and my minipc. There were no dropouts, or hangs in a short 12 image test session on either computer that included LRGB filter changes using the 4 pin connector to the CFW3. It should be noted that this forced the camera to operate with the USB2 protocol and is limited to USB2 speeds as the extension lacks the extra wires found in USB3. With the QHY533, download times are still less than 1 second. Furthermore, the USB3 type B receptacle on the camera is hardware backwards compatible with USB2 type B connectors; the USB2 Type B end will plug into the larger side of the USB3 Type B receptacle that is on the camera and, due to plug geometry, this can only be done in one orientation. To avoid having an unnecessarily long connections to the minipc by chaining multiple USB cables, I used a 6 ft USB2 Type A- Type B between the camera and minipc. This setup of using only USB2 cables to connect the minipc to imaging and guide cameras, focuser and the mount (4 USB cables in total with no external hub) has worked over 2 nights, so I am declaring this to be a successful workaround. No need to disconnect and reconnect the camera when starting up. A side-effect of this is that USB2 doesn't interfere with 2.4Ghz Wifi as USB3 can, so a wireless connection to the rig should be more stable. Due to the hardware of the QHY533M camera, the updated fxload package with fx3 capability is still required to load the camera firmware, regardless of the USB cable used.

- Kevin