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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Ekos scheduler - scripting help

  • Posts: 57
  • Thank you received: 4
Hi,

I am hoping to use the Ekos scheduler to be able to run a series of exposures during a given night from a permanant observatory (no automation yet). I'm running everything off of a battery, so need to conserve power.

Here is a typical scenario:

1 - turn on apogee fans and cooler an hour before imaging start time
2 - run series of calibration frames without tracking/guiding
3 - start mount tracking, slew, guide etc.
3 - run series of light frames
4 - run series of flat frames
5 - park mount, warm ccd, turn off ccd fans
6 - wait for me to come and roll the roof shut :-)

It looks like Scheduler can do all of this except turn off the fans. Can anyone put together a dummy script to show me how control the fans? I can't find much info on scripting - are there any tutorials?

Thanks!
4 years 6 months ago #43142

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Very interesting project, please let us know how it goes.

You can turn off the fans using indi_setprop:
indi_setprop "Apogee CCD.CCD_FAN.FAN_OFF=On"
4 years 6 months ago #43175

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OK, so I made my first ever bash script! Baby steps... :cheer:

#!/bin/bash
# Script to shutdown Apogee after imaging ends
 
# warm CCD slowly
echo "Warming CCD..."
indi_setprop "Apogee CCD.CCD_FAN.FAN_SLOW=On"
indi_setprop "Apogee CCD.CCD_COOLER_POWER.CCD_COOLER_VALUE=3"
sleep 5m
indi_setprop "Apogee CCD.CCD_COOLER_POWER.CCD_COOLER_VALUE=0"
sleep 15m
 
# turn off CCD fans
echo "Turning off CCD fans"
indi_setprop "Apogee CCD.CCD_FAN.FAN_OFF=On"
 
exit(0)

Is there a better way to slowly warm the chip? There doesn's seem to be a way to control the CCD temp setpoint via indi_setprop.
Do you think this code will run?
Last edit: 4 years 6 months ago by Starman99.
4 years 6 months ago #43226

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OK, so this does work somewhat. Interestingly, there are 4 different settings for fan speed control:

Apogee CCD.CCD_FAN.FAN_OFF=Off
Apogee CCD.CCD_FAN.FAN_SLOW=On
Apogee CCD.CCD_FAN.FAN_MED=Off
Apogee CCD.CCD_FAN.FAN_FAST=Off

So it turns out that if I want to turn the fan on high then I have to make sure that OFF, SLOW, and MED are all "Off". Makes sense once you know it.

Is there a way to query the Indi properties to find out which ones are writable and which ones are read-only?
4 years 6 months ago #43605

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indi_getprop is your friend.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Starman99
4 years 6 months ago #43630

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  • Posts: 57
  • Thank you received: 4
Thanks for the tip - that's a big help.

Here is my revised command to turn the fans on low, which seems to work:
indi_setprop "Apogee CCD.CCD_FAN.FAN_OFF;FAN_SLOW;FAN_MED;FAN_FAST=Off;On;Off;Off"
The following user(s) said Thank You: James Zhen Yu
4 years 6 months ago #43685

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