Hi Guys

I would like to get my QHY Polemaster camera to work on Linux, in order to use it with the new Polar Alignment Assistant in Ekos.
QHY currently dosn't provide a linux driver, nor do they support the Polemaster via their Linux SDK.

But Qiu Hongyun (QHY) has offered to provide their Low Level USB Protocol specifications, provided I/we sign an NDA.
Read more here: qhyccd.com/bbs/index.php?topic=5718.0 and here: qhyccd.com/bbs/index.php?topic=5602.0

Although I'm a professional Embedded Firmware developer, I currently have no experience in Linux device drivers, nor with the USB protocol.
So I would like to hear if there are anybody in this forum who would like to participate in developing a Linux INDI driver for the QHY Polemaster camera?

I know there are people out there in the same situation as me... who already own a QHY Polemaster, and who would like to use the hardware together with INDI/Ekos.

Best Regards
Anders Lange

I think you can use libusb for all communication with the camera. No need for kernel-level drivers. However, you must really have a good understand of how USB works. You can start with USB in a Nutshell and probably take a look at existing libusb drivers communicating with cameras. I think probably the best place is to look at how Linguider since it already communicates with QHY5/QHY6 camera via USB and the code is all there, so pick it as your starting point. Good luck!

Hi jasem

Thanks a lot for your input. I also had been looking at bit at libusb!
I'll begin to read up on the USB protocol and look into how linguider uses libusb for the QHY5/6 cameras, then if I can find the spare time, I'll try to do the development

Any luck on this? I asked the QHY folks about a Linux driver, but I doubt a response will come anytime soon.

Not yet... haven't had the time to do any work on this at all.... Right now I'm hoping somebody else will have the time...

I requested access. I will see what I can do.

They gave me access. Is there a good place I can look at a camera driver to get an idea of where to start? My C skills are pretty dull knives (I do service management work these days...) but looking over some code should get me back up and going.

Access to what exactly? just the USB communication specs? or code?

The low level protocol, and at some point access to their dev board (not sure what that entails).

I have a polemaster and can offer assistance with coding, but I'm not so sure about the NDA.

The Polemaster really is just a QHY5L-IIm. In fact, it works with the older QHY5LII ASCOM drivers just fine. Polemaster support was explicitly removed from the imaging driver, so I do not expect that we will get much cooperation from the maker on this. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there already is a INDI support for this should the support for the Polemaster be re-enabled in the binary blobs.

I just pushed an update to support QHY PoleMaster. PPA users can start testing by tomorrow's update. If you use GIT, pull now and test. Please report back results.

Fantastic
I will test it tomorrow evening, I'm using the PPA, so I'll have to wait