Hello all,
Yesterday I worked in remote with 2 PCs. One was running an INDI sever and the other Kstars and Ekos.
Both were connected via wifi. The data flow goes from 200kb/s to 1.2Mb/s between the 2 PCs.
The camera is a Nikon D5300. The size of each capture is 48Mb.
First I choose to store my images on client side and it took more than 3mn to get it on my PC. During this time no capture where done.
Next I choose to store it on local side and there were no lapse between each capture but I haven't any feed back on each captures.
I have 2 questions:
1/ In local side storage would it be possible to have a feed back through a reduced image in size and resolution to be sure that all works fine ?
I imagine a parallel process that take the final capture and crush it in jpg and half resolution and send it to a control viewer on the client screen.
2/ Or in client side storage would it be possible to have de-synchronized processes between capture and image data transmission to avoid long latency duration ?
I had exactly the same problem you have. I won't answer your 2 questions, but here's how I solved it.
Your wifi bottleneck is quite easy to avoid if you accept to put the WIFI (indi server side) on an external device, like a Netgear XWN5001 (Or a newer version of course).
Then, you link your PC (indiserver side) through an ethernet cable to the Netgear Hotspot. Once correctly tweaked, the wifi gives you a 150Mb link and a practical 92/96Mb per second transfer rate. I use this on a daily basis (with a raspberry Pi as indiserver) and I can guarantee you that your images (I own a 24 MB D750 Nikon full frame) will be on your PC (Kstars side) in a bunch of seconds. Also, remember the few seconds of the transfer help the sensor of your Nikon to cool down, which is not a bad idea.
Of course you need to have an AC outlet nearby. I won't pretend it's a miracle solution, but it works (fast) and I'm happy with that.
I agree with you Marc. But as you mentioned it is usable only if you have an AC plug close to you. But when you are in the field this doesn't work.
If we use RPi or any equivalent device it is because it is robust material (nights are not gentle with materiel under our latitudes) , lightweight and very low consumption.
So, software solutions might be more adapted than material ones that implies more consumption.
If WiFi in the field is the bottleneck, perhaps this might help. I use an Amplifi router, creating it’s own network. It’s one of the few/only routers I know that is fed via usb-c. A simple Anker powerbank is enough to feed the router throughout the whole night. No ac power required. Dew/frost has so far not been a problem.
It gives very fast WiFi connections. 30Mb files from my asi1600 transfer in 3-4 seconds.
If there is a lightweight fits viewer that wouldn't be too much of a burden on the rpi you could do some kind of monitoring outside of indi. I tried `ssh -X user@remote` then just using the fits viewer in a remote kstars to display on the local system.