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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Astroberry 2.0.0/2.0.1 Pi4 Performance

  • Posts: 34
  • Thank you received: 3
Hi @All

As the topic says, I´m thinking about the performance of the OS, that means, working remote via Hotspot with Kstars and Ekos on the RPI4.

When imaging with Ekos , the RPI gets very stiff. As specially when Ekos starts guiding and for Example i want to move the Fits-Imgaer-Window or change from Camera control to somewhere else, f.E. to guiding, or planner ...., there is a big timeshift until there is a reaction.

My gear:
RPI4 with 2 or 4Gb and Astroberry 2.0.1
Phoenix Pocket Powerbox or Ultimate power box V2
USB3 7-port Hub
iOptron CEM25p or CEM60 or LX200
SXVR-H18 or Trius SX694
Lodestar
SX-Filter-Wheel
Robofocus or Focusser of the UPB V2

Nothing special I think.
Because of that i use Kstars for Windows on my notebook and use Astroberry as indi-server. Both is connected via Wlan and works fine.

What do the experts say ? Do I expect too much from the RPI4?
Or do I have to use a "stronger" Hardware ?

CS
Reiner
4 years 1 month ago #49892

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I only check some functionallity of new version, and all seem to works well except the FITS viewer, some times all the system seems to wait the fit viewer....

Enviado desde mi SM-G935F mediante Tapatalk
4 years 1 month ago #49893

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Hi,

I'm using Astroberry 2.0.1 and RPi 4 as well. I had 2 measures to improve performance of my system.
  1. I use heat sinks on the chips and a housing fan to cool the RPi components. You won't destroy your RPi if you don't do this, but if it gets too hot, CPU clock is reduced automatically to avoid overheating and the system performance drops. During a medium cold night (0 deg C) I get CPU temperatures of about 15 deg C with heat sink and fan. With an outside temp of 20 deg C I get CPU temp of about 35 deg C. Without fan, the CPU temp reaches 80 deg C and slows down, at least inside the house when the surrounding temp is around 20 deg C. Depends also on your RPi housing.
  2. I use an external USB Wifi stick because the built-in Wifi has a bad sensitivity, at least in a housing, and surrounded by metal objects (my Pi is mounted on one tripod leg). I bought the "BrosTrend 1200 MBit/s USB WLAN Stick Linux", which works perfectly with RPi4 and Rasbian Buster (after driver installation, the BrosTrend support will help you with this, it's really easy). You can use the provided USB cable / stand to place the Wifi antennas a bit away from the telescope to find an optimal spot. Now I have > 90 % signal strength of my 5G house Wifi, outside on the balcony. With the built-in Wifi it is absolutely impossible to connect to the 5G at all, I have to use the 2.4G instead (slower by design) and only 82 % signal strength (which sounds not too bad but in reality is more or less unusably slow).
CS
Bernd
4 years 1 month ago #49895

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I have a similar set up to yours (although I run Kstars on a desktop, and really just use Astroberry as an Indi server, or when phd2 is working as a guider).

Things you can do to make things go faster:

1. Transfer the Astroberry Install to a USB3 SSD disk (you still need the SD card to boot from, but you can run your root filesystem from the SSD)
2. If you are using a remote kstars, ditch the Wireless stuff and get a long ethernet (Cat 5E or Caat 6), you can get proper noiseless gigabit networking that way.
3. Get good cooling, heatsink & fans on the hot bits of the Pi4, add more airflow if using the box (I use 2 x 80mm fans, powered by USB)

Things you can do to make things less problematic:

House all the equipment in a box, make sure all the cables are properly fixed and unlikely to come loose, try to avoid problematic USB mini connections with your equipment.
4 years 1 month ago #49896
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Is there a particular reason you run kstars on the RPi?

I'm very happy with Astroberry 2 perfomance on RPi 4 with 4 GB RAM. The builtin wifi is too slow for anything but simple management.
I would not run kstars on the RPI for performance reasons, and definately not if using the builtin wifi.

Running kstars on a Windows laptop with cabled Ethernet to the indi server on the RPi4. This way I have very snappy response when imaging, and better color reproduction in the kstars fits viewer than if using VNC.
When guiding with the builtin guider from windows, the lag with wifi is unacceptable and guiding becomes very erratic. Running phd2 locally on the RPi 4 solves this. The Ekos guider via Ethernet cable is also fine.
The FITS download times I get on Wifi (10m from wifi router, one wall) is 6-7 sec / FITS. With Ethernet it's 1 sec / FITS.
I didn't want to connect a USB WiFI to the RPi4 as I'm afraid it wil interfere with camera USB traffic.

Equipment:
RPI 4 / 4 GB / 125 GB fast SD card / astroberry 2.0.1. Standard cabint. No heatsinks. All latest updates (sudo apt update; sudo apt full-upgrade)
Skywatcher Az GTi, with EQMOD USB cable (Not using built-in wifi)
ZWO ASI294MC with DIY cooling
ZWO ASI120MM Mini
Astrocat 250 mm
30mm F4 miniscope
Dew heaters
Ethernet cable

I just keep everything setup and ready to go. After poweron I connect kstars from my laptop and start the polar alignment in ekos. For simplicity, I tend to use the builtin guider rather than phd2.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Giles
Last edit: 4 years 1 month ago by Eivind.
4 years 1 month ago #49904

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Hello Frieds!

Thanks for your response and the effort.
Ok, the CPU Temperature I didn´t had on the screen. I use passive cooling Aluminium Casa. This I will change emidiatly.
And the built in Wlan will be also upgraded. At my Observatory at home I use Gigabit Lan. So this is ok.

My main-equipment is used as you described, Astroberry as Server.

So, why using Kstars/Ekos in the RPI:
At Starparty I mostly use a second mall equipment, that can do what it wants. Once started with the Notbook connected, give it a target and then let it run by himself. Just forget it and look at it the next day whats the result. So I do not need a Notebook, always connected to it.
And here I found, that it is a bit slow working on it. And I thought I do something wrong. But after your explanation I see this is ok as it is.

One thougth I have is, if we use Astroberry on a RPI4 just as indi-Server. Do we really need so much Power from it that we need a 128 GB SD or an SSD ?
When I take a look at the taskmanager I never see more than 10% of processor load. The Data are transfered via LAN/WLAN to the client so I think there is not such high wright load. Or am I wrong ?

Well, I will step over to a bigger and faster SD and take a look at it. And the active cooled Case and the better Wlan-Stick

Thanks again!
CS
Reiner
4 years 1 month ago #49954

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The RPi 4 USB3 ports use a PCIe link to the SoC and share the PCIe link bandwidth. This is significantly higher than the combined USB bandwidth of older Raspis and should not be a bottleneck, at least not for a Wifi stick (even for fast IEEE 802.11ac ones) and a camera.

If Gigabit LAN is available, one should of course prefer this over Wifi.

My Kstars/Ekos/Indi and PHD2 run smoothly on the RPi4 and so does the remote access via laptop or tablet, IF the Wifi connection is good.
4 years 1 month ago #49955

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