×

INDI Library v2.0.6 is Released (02 Feb 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

USB_Focus V3 problems

  • Posts: 472
  • Thank you received: 165
I recently upgraded my focuser to support a bit more weight and also changed from Rigel nFocus to USB_Focus V3 controller in hopes I'd get autofocusing to work more reliably. Unfortunately it seems the INDI driver and my controller don't like to talk to each other that well as after trying on three different platforms none of them work in usable fashion.

My main platform would be Raspberry Pi 3, Ubuntu Mate 16.04, latest PPA kstars and indi and usbfocus 0.8 driver. INDI control panel looks like this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lw237k27tjg57eh/arm.png?raw=1

The random looking numbers seem to be random as they change from boot to boot. Sometimes it doesn't get that far and the screen looks like:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1z0bg1lbzj5dnhx/arm_missing.png?raw=1

On x64 Ubuntu 16.10 with latest PPA kstars & indi, usbfocus driver 0.8 as well the control panel looks a bit better:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9dwf5tceqap13ip/x64.PNG?raw=1 but for example focusing only works intermittently and even then only inwards. Also I'm indoors so temperature should be something else than 0.

I also tried INDI server on MacOS Sierra, it seems to have usbfocus driver 0.7, remotely from Ubuntu x64 kstars:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lod2bo20wlpp5kw/mac.png?raw=1

Under Windows everything seems to work:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gx8m608dtwiompa/windows.png?raw=1

I noticed there is a firmware version number, could mine have a newer one than what the driver was developed on with some incompatible changes?

I tried enabling INDI logs, but there isn't anything written to them, the whole log is like:
INFO 56.407093 sec : Session log file /Users/jpaana/.indi/logs/2016-12-01/indi_usbfocus_focuser/indi_usbfocus_focuser_21:12:34.log
DEBUG 122.276688 sec : Configuration successfully saved.
7 years 3 months ago #12855

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 712
  • Thank you received: 174
Are you sure, that port name is correct? At least that one used on Mac is definitely wrong. It should be something like /dev/cuXXXX, /dev/ttyXXXX is device with modem control. Peter
7 years 3 months ago #12861

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 472
  • Thank you received: 165
Ok good to know, I haven't tried INDI on Mac before so that is probably wrong, on Linux it should be correct. Have to try again tomorrow when I'm back home.
7 years 3 months ago #12863

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 472
  • Thank you received: 165
Yes, the port was incorrect, with /dev/cu.usbmodemFA131 it seems to work on Mac. Have to try 0.9 version on the Linux boxes if that helps.
7 years 3 months ago #12870

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 472
  • Thank you received: 165
No change with 0.9 driver version on either of the Linux boxes.
7 years 3 months ago #12871

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 472
  • Thank you received: 165
On Linux it becomes /dev/ttyACM0 which is symlinked to /dev/focuser by udev. Could that be a problem as ttyACM is also modem interface unlike ttyUSB?
7 years 3 months ago #12872

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 472
  • Thank you received: 165
Yes, it seems there is some sort of initialization issue as if I run
stty -F /dev/focuser raw
and then disconnect and reconnect, everything seems to work perfectly at least on x64 Ubuntu, have to still try on Raspberry.
7 years 3 months ago #12880

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 472
  • Thank you received: 165
No change on Raspberry, it still shows garbage and commands don't work etc.
7 years 3 months ago #12881

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 712
  • Thank you received: 174
Version 0.9 is just updated INDI framework, I don't suppose it can fix your problem. Is this /dev/ttyACM0 accessible for writing? If it works on Mac and doesn't on Linux, it is usually USB rules issue.
7 years 3 months ago #12884

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 472
  • Thank you received: 165
Yes, it is writable and as said above I got it to work on x64 Ubuntu, but the stty workaround didn't work with ARM Ubuntu.
7 years 3 months ago #12886

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 712
  • Thank you received: 174
It seems, that for some reason is serial port for this device in non-raw mode. I don't know why, maybe some interfering USB rule? Peter
7 years 3 months ago #12898

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 472
  • Thank you received: 165
Could be that because it advertises to be CDC ACM class device, which is why it's registered as ttyACMx and not ttyUSBx that modemmanager does some initialization / probing to it, but uninstalling it didn't help. I guess setting the mode with tcsetattr explicitly might help. Any idea why I get garbage values on ARM? Unfortunately that is the platform I'd need to get this working, the others are desktop machines so no use with the real setup...
7 years 3 months ago #12929

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Time to create page: 1.302 seconds