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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

INDIDUINO/indi-duino/INDUINO

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I've been trying to find out about INDIDUINO and the indi-duino driver as I would like to extend the power of the RPi running INDIserver and INDI drivers to use an Arduino, firstly for reading relative humidity with the DHT22 but later for sensing other atmospheric conditions and automatic ROR control for my observatory. I read in the latest INDI library. Is INDUINO an INDI driver for the Arduino or something else? Is the INDIDUINO project still supported?
4 years 11 months ago #37487

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I use INDIDUINO for the weather station.
Have you checked the following link indiduino.wordpress.com/ ?
Check out also this one indiduino.wordpress.com/2013/02/02/meteostation/ if you want to use the DHT22.

My advice on the DHT22, don't get it wet...
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4 years 11 months ago #37513

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Gina did you ever find any meaningful doco on indi-duino driver/configuration? I'm having a similar chase to the one you appear to have been on last year and trying to work out if indi-duino is viable or if not what a good starting point for drivers for Arduino devices is. I currerntly have that sense that I could be chasing dead ends and missing the obvious.
3 years 7 months ago #58073

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I've bene busy building gout Arduino/Indiuino projects - not sure I'm a source of what TO do, but I can tell you what NOT to! :-)

Bottom line, the switcher and other tools work fine for what they are, but they are quite unfinished and need some TLC to get them into something that looks and feels like a more modern INDI project.

The weather station is particularly problematic as a few folks have added to it over the years and in the process broken a few of the older functions - I have some Arduino code sitting around that I had to hack to get the DHT11 working again for example.

If weather is your thing, SKIP meteo-station (it's basically unsupported) and go for WeatherRadio - the name doesn't really tell the whole story - Wolfgang's (@sterne-jaeger) device is a combined SQM, humidity, temperature, cloud and wind (soon to be rain) sensing unit along with an optional website. Really great project (if a little harder to calibrate than I would like). - like all things INDI hardware, it's hard to find through this website - something I am hoping to help fix.

I'd love some help in starting an INDI hardware hackers section or web page to get some structure around these projects - they make great sense to the guys who understand Arduino well, but are tough for newbies or people who can follow a recipe but aren't so good with raw ingredients if you get the analogy.
3 years 7 months ago #58075

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Thanks for the detailed reply. Your impression of Switcher and the others lines up with the impression I've been getting.

Weather is on the to-do list. I mounted a rain sensor earlier in the week but it's not hooked up to anything yet.

The initial need is to get my observatory roof automated. I have a sequence of panels to operate with linear actuators to open and close the observatory. The controller is built with a Mega providing the smarts.
I have my Dark/Flat Flap built as well so want to revisit software for that at some point. A few other potential projects floating around on the later list.

I can see benefit in what you are proposing. Something to help get through those early steps.
3 years 7 months ago #58079

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Sounds like you've been busy! Weather + SQM is obviously super helpful (if you're looking for a rain sensor I love the RG-11 - oceancontrols.com.au/hys-001.html) and of all the INDI-open-source hardware projects, it's the most robust IMHO. The other project that works great is the Arduino Flip-flat/Flatman clone - but I've not tried it with a flap for darks (with a truss Ritchey- Chretien the flap doesn't help much ;-) YMMV

Focus controllers is another area that's super confusing - soooo many options, not all of them well through through. The best I've found so far is Robert Brown's Arduino ASCOM Focuser Pro - it shouldn't be labeled as ASCOM as it appears to INDI as a Moonlite so it's great! sourceforge.net/projects/arduinofocuscontrollerpro/

One of the other things buzzing around my head is adding Bonjour and Wifi/Ethernet (PoE) support for all these little devices both into the Arduino source code (there's a great Bonjour library for Arduino that makes the first part easy) but then re-writing all the INDI drivers for hardware to enable network support so that you can more easily add all these devices to your observatory without running bloody USB cables everywhere) - it's a dream but again if you look at what Wolfgang built with WeatherRadio it's not a crazy dream.

In my ideal world: focuser, flats, weather, power/switching and sensors can all be network connected to INDI and "findable" by Bonjour names (so no more hosts.txt or hard coded IP addresses) and ideally some way of mixing and matching the sensors you are interested in into the dashboards/tabs in EKOS eg: for temperature use the sensor on the focuser if there's no other temp sensor available, for cloud cover use the SQM with a weighting factor as a proxy, etc) - I have a feeling this might need to be a standalone server that consolidates all the sensors and dispatches all the commands, possibly linked to Watchdog for shutdown, but the less complexity the better.
3 years 7 months ago #58109

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Does the reference to OceanControls mean you are in Australia? I'm pondering getting more into the RPI Zero Wifi as the smarts for accessories in the future. Not doing much with the GPIO's yet (had a play with trying to do a very low power GPS tracker for hiking last year but struggled to get the GPS module to do what I expected).

My Arduino work in recent years has been very limited, my focuser is a very basic version of MyFocuserPro 2. My most ambitious and successful Arduino project was a Dew Heater controller www.iceinspace.com.au/63-597-0-0-1-0.html which from what I could tell at the time had features which were not all that common.
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3 years 7 months ago #58110

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Guilty as charged! Melbourne SQM 18.2 skies on a good night, but that's life near a big city.

So that was YOUR project! Impressive! I'd seen it and contemplated building it before I invested in a Ultimate Power Box V2 to cover both focuser and dew control - but in hindsight my $900+ would have been better spent on Arduino, if only I had the insights I do now. The whole Arduino thing seems so daunting from the outside - hence the desire to better document it.

As the kstars/EKOS/INDI software side is getting to a degree of maturity that's closer to commercial (and based on my recent experience with TheSkyX - BETTER than most commercial software) it's time to tidy up some of the legacy/unsupported hardware projects surrounding it and make it just as easy and robust for people to kit out the rest of their astro gear.

Keep sharing away and well done!
3 years 7 months ago #58112

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I'm just outside Brisbane.
I was running the whole ASCOM, SGP, PHD2 etc stack previously. That worked pretty well for extended parties (eg Qld Astrofest) but the need to have a Windows Laptop involved didn't fit when I setup my little observatory. I looked at the Pi sometime back but didn't get all of the pieces together. The shutdown gave me some extra time to revisit that (saving an hour and a half to two hours a day not commuting is pretty nice). I came across Astroberry and have been loving the integration of the Kstars/Ekos/Indi stack.

The basics work very well although regular use has exposed shortfalls in my kit, a new ASI camera is on it's way as my old Canon 550D cameras are starting to show their age. I'm keen to automate the bad weather detection, close up the observatory thing as my work hours don't fit well with late nights.

Bob
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3 years 7 months ago #58113

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Jealous - love Brisbane (family up there and used to have a house up near Fraser Island myself - will get back there one day).

Yes, Im a UN*X/MacOS guy - not a fan of Windows at all so jumped directly to Stellarmate based on the recommendation from a bloke up in Cairns. Fought my way through using it with an old LX-90, gave up and went down the EQ6R then EQ*R path (and now a Paramount ME - this hobby will kill ya!).

Like you, I can't afford to stay awake all night baby sitting an imaging run. You need WeatherRadio in your life! Roughly $100-200 in parts depending on sensors and housings - add in a few bucks more for a Davis anemometer and $100 for the RG-11 and you've got a rock-solid little system. The housing is the pain. The only alternative I would recommend is the AAG - simply if you don't have time to mess around making your own housings.

When you have five minutes maybe we can pull what we know together into a (hopefully) useful How (and where) To guide.
3 years 7 months ago #58114

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Time for an update on my progress.
I've discovered that the 16 channel relay board I've been working with to control the roof of the observatory is not electrically isolated from the control circuitry despite having opto-isolators on the control pins. The smaller variants of the board are/can be fully isolated. All worked well on the table in the house but when combined with the observatory I think it set up some ground loops that somehow crashed most of the rest of the observatory. Sigh. Some days of wondering how much gear had been toasted. After a lot of fiddling everything except my home assembled Eqdirect cables appears to working again (which had me really concerned for the mount).

Bluetooth connection for the mount is good though. My first attempts at using bluetooth for the mount control had not gone well with guiding going haywire (I had used bluetooth years ago under Ascom but could not recall how much guiding I was doing at that stage). I found a note that a management module could play havoc with bluetooth serial connections, removed the module (and now can't find the step in my history).

The roof controller is currently running using a single push button to toggle it's state while I wait for a Wifi variant of the Arduino Mega to replace the standard mega I'm using to control the relays. Simplifies the open and close steps.

I've also been trying to introduce myself to the ESP8266 Di Mini modules. Ages spent trying to get the drivers to work and then it just worked on one PC so I'm not sure what that is about.
I'm currently working on using one as a replacement for the bluetooth module I'm using for Eqmod (mostly because I know how to do it with bluetooth so the number of variables is reduced). They look promising as way of doing connections without USB cables everywhere and the risk of odd currents causing havoc. Other than the 3.3V issue with the pins the modules look like they would be a good alternative to Arduinio's for most of my applications (adding in voltage level shifters is an additional complication ).
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3 years 7 months ago #58467

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xthestreams, do you have a suggestion on a particular WeatherRadio build? The most promising site that I found appears to have had it's links hijacked by an asian porn site.
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3 years 7 months ago #58951

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