I confirm that my QHY9 CCD camera and filter wheel work with this SDK. Thanks very much, Jasem!

Dumb question - after running a software update against your ppa:mutlaqja/indinightly on stellarmate how does one know if I've got this update yet?

Try this on the Pi in the terminal:

apt-cache policy libqhy

I didn't see this thread until after I posted my topic on potential cooling issue with QHY9. Before you did into it too deeply, it might be a problem with my camera as it was acting up - I had some corrorsion on the connectors. Its working again, other than cooling. I'm hoping someone else with a QHY9 can test and verify cooling.

jmh

I switched things over to Window 7 / Nebulosity to test. I don't think it is the camera as it looks like it works well in that environment. Once the camera reached the target temperature (-25C), over time there was a slight variance of +/- 0.5 degrees C and power to the cooler running at 5% to 8%. I never really paid much attention to this before, but I think this is more or less normal. The ambient temp in the obs is -10C right now which is why the power is as low as it is.

And I am running the latest nightly build on the RPi where the camera is connected.

jmh

I answered to the other topic that you opened. Would you like to continue there since it is more dedicated to your specific observation or continue here?


Wouter

Can anybody test this with a normal QHY8? A friend tried a few months back but couldn't stop exposures without locking up the camera. I'm curious if QHY8 (non pro or L) is supported now.

I think here is best - all the QHY driver issues in one place.

I also have an older QHY8. The driver does not support these older camera's but but there was an alternate firmware that (sort of) works and a link was posted somewhere on this forum. QHYCCD has a new website and the firmware is no longer available from there. I've attached it if you want to try. My camera is a colour camera, and the driver treats it as a mono, and the maximum exposure time is 86.4 seconds. I've been looking for ways around it, but haven't found a solution.

Another solution is to run the camera under Windows with the ASCOM drivers and use the Windows INDI server to connect to the camera. There's a lot of pieces in that puzzle, but it can be made to work. Native driver support would be best, but don't hold your breath. I think QHYCCD is struggling to get a quality Linux driver out the door. (They should hire Jasem to do this for them ...

jmh

I tried just now and on my camera the cooler doesn't work at all and I am sure it did before. However, I never had to actively enable it. It would always start cooling down to 0 degrees Celsius without a problem. Now when either in the INDI Control Panel or in the CCD tab I click on the "On" button for cooling it automatically switches to off again. Logs attached.

I think this seems to indicate there is a bug. This worked find with indi-1.7.2, and I think the libqhy version was 2.0.3. Something changed after that release that broke cooling.

jmh

So more testing with my QHY9 (and QHY5):

1. When I have both QHY9 and QHY5 cameras attached, I can no longer connect to the QHY9. When I (physically) disconnect the QHY5, no issues connecting to the QHY9. Also, when both are connected, qhy_test_ccd only sees the QHY5 and not the QHY9. Not sure if it should see both or just the first one it finds.

2. With regards to cooling, with the QHY5 not connected, I can turn the cooler on and off, but when I turn it on, it is at 100% power regardless of the temperature difference.

3. The current temperature is no longer updating, except when I turn the cooler off after a time, then if the temperature is lower than the target temperature, it shows the temperature increasing, until it hits the ambient temperature in the OBS.

I presume the temperature control is done in the driver and not in the camera - is this correct? I looked at the code change that was made where CONTROL_MANUALPWN is set to 255 so I would presume that if the PWM value can be set, it is set from the QHY driver to the TEC controller, I think setting the PWM value to 255 set the power output to maximum, and it doesn't change.

Any thoughts?

jmh