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

There is no way to "turn on cooler" within the SDK.. I guess instead of setting manual PWM to 255, I will simply ask it to decrease temperature.

Jasem,

I think there is a mis-communication on my part from a few posts ago ... I don't want to have you turn on the actual cooler, but rather enable or disable the cooler. That is, the cooler should be disabled when the camera is first connected, and at some suitable time, I want to enable it (ie: turn it on) and then at the end of the imaging run, disable it (turn it off) so that the cooler is not constantly running when it doesn't need to be running.

So, looking at the CCD tab in EKOS, the On and Off buttons really should be enable and disable. When I enter a value into the Temperature Set box, and click the Check box next to it, if the current temperature of the chip is greater than the temperature I want, enable the cooler, and if it is less, leave it disabled. The current temp of the chip should be updated every few seconds, at least when the cooler is enabled. Does that make sense?

I'm assuming the actual process to control the chip temperature occurs within the camera and the TEC cooling box, and all that needs to be done is enable or disable.

Apologies for the confusion.

Regards,

jmh

Right, but in INDI it has the same meaning "Start cooling" without an exact set point or to a set point defined by the camera. Right now, for QHY, if you manually turn on cooler, I just make it cool by half a degree. Does the Cooling/Temperature controls work now as expected?

The only noticeable change is the cooling power is no longer 100%, but there is still no cooling control. I have attached two logs, as there may be another problem.

1. First test had a QHY9S and a QHY5L-II attached. The first log has debug entries with the following:

DEBUG 79.959211 sec : [QHY CCD QHY5LII-M-6097d] QHYCCD | qhy9s.cpp | GetChipCoolTemp | START

It's not clear to me if indi is trying to get the temp off of the QHY5 (which has no cooling) or if this is just a documentation bug.

2. For the second test, I disconnected the QHY5. When the test starts, you can see from the second log file the temperature appears to be -4.17 and begins to warm slowly to ambient.
Then I request setting the temperature to -5:

Requested temperature is -5.000, current temperature is -3.937
DEBUG 40.465292 sec : QHYCCD | QHYCCD.CPP ControlQHYCCDTemp
DEBUG 40.465374 sec : QHYCCD | qhy9s.cpp | AutoTempControl | START
DEBUG 40.465586 sec : Target Cam Temperatue:-5.000000
DEBUG 40.465666 sec : Current Cam PWM:0.000000
DEBUG 40.466036 sec : QHYCCD | qhy9s.cpp | AutoTempControl | END
DEBUG 40.651296 sec : QHYCCD | qhy9s.cpp | GetChipCoolTemp | START
DEBUG 40.651473 sec : CCD Temp: -3.93727 CCD RAW Cooling Power: 11.656, CCD Cooling percentage: 4.57099

No temperature updates are shown in the EKOS CCD Capture tab. It does show that cooling is on. Subsequenty, I set the target temperature to 0:

DEBUG 151.863366 sec : Requested temperature is 0.000, current temperature is -3.937
DEBUG 151.863541 sec : QHYCCD | QHYCCD.CPP ControlQHYCCDTemp
DEBUG 151.863639 sec : QHYCCD | qhy9s.cpp | AutoTempControl | START
DEBUG 151.863962 sec : Target Cam Temperatue:0.000000
DEBUG 151.864263 sec : Current Cam Temperatue:-3.898651
DEBUG 151.864385 sec : QHYCCD | qhy9s.cpp | AutoTempControl | END
DEBUG 152.764711 sec : QHYCCD | qhy9s.cpp | GetChipCoolTemp | START
DEBUG 152.765097 sec : CCD Temp: -3.89865 CCD RAW Cooling Power: 11.656, CCD Cooling percentage: 4.57099
DEBUG 153.766471 sec : QHYCCD | qhy9s.cpp | GetChipCoolTemp | START
DEBUG 153.974076 sec : Requested temperature is 0.000, current temperature is -3.899
DEBUG 153.974256 sec : QHYCCD | QHYCCD.CPP ControlQHYCCDTemp
DEBUG 153.974358 sec : QHYCCD | qhy9s.cpp | AutoTempControl | START
DEBUG 153.974600 sec : Target Cam Temperatue:0.000000
DEBUG 153.974700 sec : QHYCCD | qhy9s.cpp | AutoTempControl | END

So, first of all, the logs suggest that the previous requested target of -5 was not achieved, but cooling had been turned on. It had been on for over 100second, so the temperature should have changed.

The next event is more interesting: I pressed the temperature set checkbox again, and here's what appeared:

DEBUG 174.273788 sec : Requested temperature is 0.000, current temperature is -3.899
DEBUG 174.274031 sec : QHYCCD | QHYCCD.CPP ControlQHYCCDTemp
DEBUG 174.274138 sec : QHYCCD | qhy9s.cpp | AutoTempControl | START
DEBUG 174.274399 sec : Target Cam Temperatue:0.000000
DEBUG 174.274736 sec : Current Cam Temperatue:-16.286959
DEBUG 174.274938 sec : QHYCCD | qhy9s.cpp | AutoTempControl | END
DEBUG 174.788567 sec : QHYCCD | qhy9s.cpp | GetChipCoolTemp | START
DEBUG 174.788783 sec : CCD Temp: -16.287 CCD RAW Cooling Power: 11.656, CCD Cooling percentage: 4.57099
DEBUG 174.960992 sec : Requested temperature is 0.000, current temperature is -16.287
DEBUG 174.961162 sec : QHYCCD | QHYCCD.CPP ControlQHYCCDTemp
DEBUG 174.961244 sec : QHYCCD | qhy9s.cpp | AutoTempControl | START
DEBUG 174.961451 sec : Target Cam Temperatue:0.000000
DEBUG 174.961567 sec : Current Cam PWM:11.656034
DEBUG 174.961942 sec : QHYCCD | qhy9s.cpp | AutoTempControl | END
DEBUG 175.789396 sec : QHYCCD | qhy9s.cpp | GetChipCoolTemp | START
DEBUG 175.789592 sec : CCD Temp: -16.287 CCD RAW Cooling Power: 0, CCD Cooling percentage: 0

It appears the camera had been cooling the whole time. I'm not sure what the control paths are, so no idea where the bugs are.

Regards,

jmh

Logs attached.

One more log to share - it shows that there is no cooling control. Its possible that the TEC controller has issues or cable/connector is bad - I did check the continuity of all the pins so I think the cable is good, but can't verify the connectors.

It would be good if someone else with a QHY9 can test cooling, but be careful - you might need to pull the power plug on the TEC box if the cooling is too fast.

jmh

Here's the procedure I've had to use in Windows 10 and SGP. It allows me to control temperature (and see both temp and power levels) on a QHY247C. If I don;t follow this sequence, I basically have no control over or idea of what the cameras is doing for cooling.

- Power OFF everything, including the PC
- Power ON the QHY 247C
- Power ON the USB3 Hub
- Power ON PC
- Launch SGP and connect camera

I wonder if this same procedure might help with INDI. I had to switch over to Windows because of problems with QHY's Linux drivers so I can't test this procedure myself with INDI at the moment.

I don't believe the issue lies within INDI. EKOS/INDI should enable/disable cooling, set the target temperature, and the QHY Linux driver/camera firmware/TEC controller should look after the rest and INDI should be able to poll the camera for the CCD chip temp. It appears that none of this is working.

When I run this under Windows using Nebulosity 4.x, it works fine. I'm assuming the camera firmware is the same (it may not be as I can't verify what, if anything, the Windows driver loads into the camera), and the TEC controller is the same. I think everything points to the QHY Linux driver.

But then, I might be entirely wrong too ...

jmh

I tested the QHY5M with the new SDK and had two issues:

- Activating live video does open a window but nothing can be seen in it. The Live Video icon turns green as it should be the case. After closing the live video (the icon turns red) the QHY5M is "blocked" and no pictures can be taken. Trying to do so results in "QHY CCD QHY5-M- : "[ERROR] GetQHYCCDSingleFrame error (-1)"
A logfile is attached.

- Taking a 3s picture takes 6s plus data transfer. Taking a 5s picture takes 10s plus data transfer and so on. I believe a first attempt fails and a second attempt is successful, that's why it takes 2x the exposure time to take the picture.

[2018-12-05T18:13:18.647 CET DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - QHY CCD QHY5-M- : "[DEBUG] Taking a 3.00000 seconds frame... "
[2018-12-05T18:13:21.644 CET DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - QHY CCD QHY5-M- : "[DEBUG] GetQHYCCDSingleFrame Blocking read call. "
[2018-12-05T18:13:21.644 CET DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - QHY CCD QHY5-M- : "[DEBUG] QHYCCD | GetSingleFrame: badframenum 0 "
[2018-12-05T18:13:21.644 CET DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - QHY CCD QHY5-M- : "[DEBUG] QHYCCD | qhyccd.cpp | GetQHYCCDSingleFrame294 1| readnum = 0 badframenum = 0 flagquit = 0 "
[2018-12-05T18:13:21.644 CET DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - QHY CCD QHY5-M- : "[DEBUG] QHYCCD | qhyccd.cpp | GetQHYCCDSingleFrame294 1| ret = -1 readnum = 0 badframenum = 0 flagquit = 0 "
[2018-12-05T18:13:21.711 CET DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - QHY CCD QHY5-M- : "[DEBUG] readUSB2B p_size=1600200 p_num=1 "
[2018-12-05T18:13:21.713 CET DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - QHY CCD QHY5-M- : "[DEBUG] i=0 "
[2018-12-05T18:13:24.825 CET DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - QHY CCD QHY5-M- : "[DEBUG] QHYCCD | qhyccd.cpp | GetQHYCCDSingleFrame294 | ret = 0 readnum = 0 badframenum = 0 flagquit = 0 "
[2018-12-05T18:13:24.827 CET DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - QHY CCD QHY5-M- : "[DEBUG] qhyccd | testsingleframe imgdata=0x7effc0f19b80 "
[2018-12-05T18:13:24.827 CET DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - QHY CCD QHY5-M- : "[DEBUG] QHYCCD | GetSingleFrame: badframenum readnum 0 ret 0 "
[2018-12-05T18:13:24.827 CET DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - QHY CCD QHY5-M- : ""
[2018-12-05T18:13:24.827 CET DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - QHY CCD QHY5-M- : "[DEBUG] QHYCCD | qhyccd.cpp | GetQHYCCDSingleFrame294 | readnum = 1 badframenum = 0 flagquit = 0 "
[2018-12-05T18:13:24.827 CET DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - QHY CCD QHY5-M- : "[DEBUG] QHYCCD | QHYCCD.CPP GetQHYCCDSingleFrame | ret w h bpp channels 0 1280 1024 8 1 "
[2018-12-05T18:13:24.828 CET DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - QHY CCD QHY5-M- : "[DEBUG] GetQHYCCDSingleFrame Blocking read call complete. "
[2018-12-05T18:13:24.828 CET DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - QHY CCD QHY5-M- : "[DEBUG] Download complete. "

I hope this helps solve the problem. Full log file is attached.

Hello Herrhausen,

If you could please, post your QHY CCD QHY5-M-_config.xml and the dmesg log from host 192.168.2.40. I'll try to see if I can reproduce these issues over the next few days.

-Chris