Hi All, I am making steady, but very slow, progress getting a ZWO AM5 mount to work nicely with my INDI/stellarmate setup. Just wondering if anyone has recomended settings for the RA/Dec agressiveness and other parameters (integral gain etc.) that they find to work? I did not get below around 2" RMS last night -albeit this is using a very short FL guidescope (120mm/F4). I also note a few oddities to get it to connect/slew/GoTo. First of alll the mount needs to be briefly attached to the ZWO app to get date/time (I think) info then the slew/goto works in Indi (and at this point the handset can be disconnected. But it'll still "park" without that step. Also unparking does not seem to work - I have to "start tracking", then "unpark" the it wakes up and actually unparks. And then getting the guiding calibration to complete seems to have a bug - it calibrates in RA forward, but the reverse never completes (it seems to go forward, and not actually reverse, just thinks it does). I fixed it (thanks to a comment from kd6awa via Der Pit on the cloundy night forum) by breifly stopping pulse guiding, then re-starting (enabling) it. and then sending a few 0ms pulses manually though the INDI control panel. then the guide prep completes. But, what a palaver!Once guiding got going it never really got below 2" (which is fine for my widefield needs) let alone the published 0.5-0.8" - but maybe the Asi air driver is "better" than thre INDI one?Any other AM5/INDI users out there with thoughts/ideas?Cheers, Phil

I don't have a ZWO AM5 so I don't know what I'm talking about, but your reference to having to attach to the ZWO app to get the date/time makes me wonder if this tip, indilib.org/forum/general/13768-losmandy...-on-mount.html#95391 for letting Kstars control the mount might help in that reguard?

My AM5 guides pretty well under Ekos.
Usually around 0.5" total. Down to 0.3" on a good night.
With 120mm/F4 / ASI120mm.
Calibration goes fine.
I use 1" exposure and do not bin.

Settings:
0.6 0.6 agr
0.0 0.0 integr
0.1 0.1 min
150 150 max

Thanks a lot Max, great. Last night I tweaked a few settings and also tried out a longer FL guider, and got much improved results (screenshots below for folks interested). It might be that the seeing was just better, or my polar alignment is not great (this is a rooftop location too, and so not on solid ground). However, the longer FL made a huge difference - down to below 1" now - and I ended up after experimentation with aggr=0.8 and intr=0.2 but will try your settings tonight as well. Initially I went with 1s exposures binned 2x2 but then went back to non-binned, as you do. The exposure length seems to make a difference with 0.5s being a bit noisier but guides better, although not completely obvious (the first screendshot, where the yellow SNR line drops/steps down marking the switch between 1s and 0.5s):

You definitely need to put Integral gain to 0 and increase Max response to 100-200.

Cheers Max. I'm currently using aggr=0.7; intergral=0; min error=0.1 and Max response I increased to 100 - getting 0.51" RMS as I type this in fact....

Glad, I could help!
Keep Integral at 0.
Play with Aggr if you wish.
You didn't have the Max setting high enough - the guider was trying to correct but couldn't since it was limited by your 25 value.
If 100 works for you - fine!

Yeah, I'll continue experimenting tonight: I was reluctant to set the Max too high in case it overcorrects but maybe it is still loo low (I have memories of PID controllers going "mad"!)