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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Driver OnStep (LX200 like) for INDI

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Added to the latest master. It's read only though, and I need to look into the dew heaters, and for the BMP280 I have, add support for changing the values (and useful for a heater for anyone who doesn't have a weather sensor, or maybe I can pull that from others.)

Please let me know if anything is broken. (I don't think so, but well it can happen.)

rbarberac: That should be fixed with OnStep unless I misread conversations?
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3 years 10 months ago #53652

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Yes it's fixed on OnStep 4.X versions
3 years 10 months ago #53662

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Awesome, I will check it out.

And what you say about also making it possible to set the Onstep weather data from INDI or some other connected device makes perfect sense to me!
3 years 10 months ago #53666

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Hello,

Some suggestions:
- Adding 3 or 4 presets for the focuser.
- Perhaps; full support for the 2nd focuser (selectable in for example kstars (Focuser1, Focuser2))
- For the dew heater: backup of the previous state in the Indi configuration. For example Heater1 On when Indi starts.
For the question, I prefer a settable 50-200%

And thank you again for this work.
3 years 10 months ago #53670

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The problem is that INDI::Weather (Well, WeatherInterface more specifically) handles things as if it's a read-only value (which is usually not an unreasonable assumption). So I'll probably implement a 'setT/P/H' control above and on the same tab as a workaround, and see about sniffing weather values from other drivers as an option. To allow for dew heater operation without having the sensor on OnStep. Also probably grab OnStep's dew temp calculation, and for the heck of it, the MCU Temperature (if available on the processor).
3 years 10 months ago #53695

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Hey Ian

Thanks for all the effort you put into the driver!

I face an issue after upgrading to the lastest master. I was on tag v1.8.4 which worked fine for me.
Yesterday I pulled in the lastest master and Kstars crashed with an allocation error as as soon as I 'unpack' the mount. However, the command is send before the crash. The next time I connect, I can see the mount is tracking. When I issue a park command, bam, crash :(

I rolled back to 'd7ac975d0fac3171af62c28a298b15d2e2d4caa7'. Anything later isn't working for me.

tested with 'kstars-bleeding' on Mint Linux and 3.4.1 on macOS.
Any ideas?

best
Niko
3 years 10 months ago #54049

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Apologies if this is essentially a duplicate, I thought I'd responded already, but don't see it.

There shouldn't be anything causing that, but I have in the past had issues that sound similar with a build from non-clean. I'd make a new build folder and see if it keeps happening. I haven't touched any of the park code. It mostly comes from @azwing and/or the lx200 base. However, I don't see any changes there. Can you turn on verbose debugging and post a log? (It should show :hR# and/or :hP# being the unpark/park commands)
3 years 10 months ago #54531

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Hello to the group,
I am in the process of setting up a CGE mount with OnStep using KStars remotely through Stellarmate on a Pi4. To be honest, I am lost on getting the meridian flip to work. The mount is a GEM, has limit switches and PEC installed, but for now, I just need it to slew and flip when it should. Can someone post their settings for both the OnStep and KStars to accomplish this? i.e. Does KStars setting for meridian flip control the OnStep, or, Does OnStep flip independently of KStars? Does one turn off meridian flip in, say, KStars and use just the OnStep?

Thanks in advance,
Dan
3 years 9 months ago #55365

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For better or worse, there's not really a good way to do it. Kstars/Ekos/INDI doesn't really trigger a meridian flip specifically , it just does a goto. The good news is we can replicate that.

(From memory, so apologies if any of this is off.)

What is done internally for OnStep is things are compared in location to preferred pier side. Which can be best, west, or east.

What the 'command' for meridian flip does is set the perferred to be east (or west, I've turned myself around I think) then a goto. Best from my recollection prefers to keep it on pointing east if already there (think re-centering target), but if not and it's in the overlap, but close it'll move to pointing west.) So if you set it to pointing west (which should be east) it does the same thing if you issued the meridian flip command. Assuming it's within the limits. (Otherwise neither does anything.)

The limits that you set on things are the auto meridian flip limits in OnStep, and it should be set to ON for the auto meridian flip, with home pause set to off. The Ekos setting is the HA to set it before is Mount/Meridian Flip, and that needs to be set lower than your auto flip limit, if you want kstars to know about/initiate the flip.



Hope that helps. Apologies for it being from memory as I seem to have misplaced the cable for my test board (a mega without anything on it) (Tiny hopefully amusing rant: I can find micro, usb-c, and mini cables, along with nikon camera cables, but not old usb1/2 full size cables. Anyone remember when this was promised as a single universal standard so we wouldn't need serial port converters? Ha! /rant)
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3 years 9 months ago #55489

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Thank you for this. I may have to check what settings I programmed into my OnStep. Unfortunately, the CGE mount can not pass the meridian by much of anything without causing a serious mount to mount crash. Its now no wonder Celestron moved on to their present day designs. This is causing me to not trust the mount will flip or even stop before it crashes.

If you should find your cable or remember any other specifics of what settings you used, please do post some more. Thanks again,
3 years 9 months ago #55496

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James,

A few months ago, when I was working on getting PEC running, I noticed that the import and export of PEC training data are not working. The buttons are there, but they don't do anything.

Alex
3 years 9 months ago #55689

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Hello,

I have a problem with the last version of indi_lx200_onstep with Kstars 3.4.3 (not tested with older Kstars versions).
If i park or unpark mount, kstars segfault.
It works fine with the older version of lx200_Onstep driver (1.8.5).
The new version (with weather) does not seem to worki for park/unpark (segfault on Kstars)
3 years 8 months ago #57108

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