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Baader Steeldrive II won‘t connect

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I think I found the spec, Chapter 3 of www.baader-planetarium.com/en/downloads/...al_documentation.pdf
Also worth noting: baudrate 19200
The following user(s) said Thank You: Oliver
1 year 4 months ago #87882

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Actually, I just checked and I developed SteelDrive II INDI driver back in 2019. Baud rate is 19200 by default. From Oliver logs, it appears he was trying to connect at 57600 which will not work.
1 year 4 months ago #87883

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Thank you very much Jasem.

I've tried all Baud rates available with no success.
However, it works out of the box with TheSkyX and INDOGO AstroImager. :-(

@Hans: I've noticed that there is a new version of the FTDI VCP Drivers for macOS. I will try and report tomorrow.
1 year 4 months ago #87884

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Nah, no success at all :-(
Updated to Ventura, KSTARS 3.6.1stable and my Steeldrive won't connect with EKOS.
No problems with AstroImager and TheSkyX. Both rely on /dev/cu.usbserial-A907KE80.

I was saving the settings of Baader Steel drive II and got this:
[2022-11-07T17:05:05.766 CET DEBG ][           org.kde.kstars.indi] - Baader SteelDriveII : "[DEBUG] Auto search is disabled because /dev/cu.usbserial-A907KE80 is not a system port. "
[2022-11-07T17:05:16.463 CET INFO ][           org.kde.kstars.indi] - Baader SteelDriveII :  "[INFO] Saving device configuration... "
[2022-11-07T17:05:16.464 CET INFO ][           org.kde.kstars.indi] - Baader SteelDriveII :  "[INFO] Device configuration saved. "
[2022-11-07T17:05:16.465 CET DEBG ][           org.kde.kstars.indi] - Baader SteelDriveII : "[DEBUG] Configuration successfully saved. "

Here's the log:
[2022-11-07T17:06:41.674 CET DEBG ][           org.kde.kstars.indi] - INDI Server:  ""
[2022-11-07T17:06:41.675 CET DEBG ][           org.kde.kstars.indi] - Baader SteelDriveII : "[DEBUG] Toggle Debug Level -- Driver Debug "
[2022-11-07T17:06:41.890 CET INFO ][           org.kde.kstars.ekos] - "Baader SteelDriveII" is connected and ready.
[2022-11-07T17:06:41.898 CET INFO ][           org.kde.kstars.ekos] - "LX200 10micron" is connected and ready.
[2022-11-07T17:06:41.902 CET INFO ][           org.kde.kstars.ekos] - "ZWO CCD ASI178MM" is connected and ready.
[2022-11-07T17:06:41.906 CET INFO ][           org.kde.kstars.ekos] - "ZWO CCD ASI294MC Pro" is connected and ready.
[2022-11-07T17:06:51.346 CET INFO ][           org.kde.kstars.ekos] - "Failed to connect to \nBaader SteelDriveII\nLX200 10micron\nZWO CCD ASI178MM\nZWO CCD ASI294MC Pro\nPlease ensure each device is connected and powered on."
[2022-11-07T17:06:55.921 CET DEBG ][           org.kde.kstars.indi] - Baader SteelDriveII : "[DEBUG] Connecting to /dev/cu.usbserial-A907KE80 @ 19200 "
[2022-11-07T17:06:55.933 CET DEBG ][           org.kde.kstars.indi] - INDI Server:  "2022-11-07T16:06:55: Driver indi_steeldrive2_focus: Handshake lines currently set to 6"
[2022-11-07T17:06:55.934 CET DEBG ][           org.kde.kstars.indi] - INDI Server:  ""
[2022-11-07T17:06:55.934 CET DEBG ][           org.kde.kstars.indi] - Baader SteelDriveII : "[DEBUG] Port FD 3 "
[2022-11-07T17:06:55.934 CET DEBG ][           org.kde.kstars.indi] - Baader SteelDriveII : "[DEBUG] Connection successful, attempting handshake... "
[2022-11-07T17:06:55.934 CET DEBG ][           org.kde.kstars.indi] - Baader SteelDriveII : "[DEBUG] CMD <GET VERSION> "
[2022-11-07T17:07:00.098 CET INFO ][           org.kde.kstars.indi] - Baader SteelDriveII :  "[ERROR] Serial read error: Timeout error. "
[2022-11-07T17:07:00.098 CET DEBG ][           org.kde.kstars.indi] - Baader SteelDriveII : "[DEBUG] Handshake failed. "
[2022-11-07T17:07:13.413 CET DEBG ][           org.kde.kstars.indi] - INDI: Stopping local drivers...
1 year 4 months ago #87910

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Does it work from Raspberry PI?
1 year 4 months ago #87928

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I’m on Mac so I can’t try.
1 year 4 months ago #87932

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If there's anything I could provide to get this focuser to work let me know.
1 year 4 months ago #87963

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Yes, as I posted earlier in this thread:
Another approach is to try to access the Steeldrive serial port via another program like Screen or Minicom pbxbook.com/other/mac-tty.html in a console.
You have to 'talk' the protocol to see anything assuming it is ASCII based. This may help diagnose the issue
.
1 year 4 months ago #87972

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Hans, I‘ve seen your post but I thought it was not necessary as the focuser is working flawlessly with two different apps (TheSkyX and AstroImager) on my Mac with the same serial port driver (cu.usbserial-A907KE80).

And I must admit that I‘ve no clue what to do or 'talk' to my focuser or what to report here.
I‘m not in coding or something. Just a normal user.
1 year 4 months ago #87974

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I can't do much about the driver unless it's connected to some Linux machine that I can access remotely. I don't know how to debug drivers in Mac, but in Linux I can. When I wrote that driver a couple of years ago, it was working flawlessly with the focuser.
1 year 4 months ago #87988

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Noted. I still think this is the best way forward, as the only alternative I can think about is you setting up a full compiler and debugger. My hypothesis is there is a basic connection issue that might show with other tools as well. We may need a few rounds to get the needed info though. I hope you're up for it :)

The idea is the following : use a text terminal with a command line tool like screen to connect to the proper serial port and ask the focuser to report its version. That's all. If that works then the other commands will too.
If you use that URL that I pasted earlier to install screen and/or minicom then we can proceed. You may need both. Run these commands with the instructions below and paste us the exact input/output of the teminal text.

Like this :
20221110_142204 hans@T450s:~/ minicom --device /dev/cu.usbserial-A907KE80 --noinit --baudrate 19200

And in minicom you type
$BS GET VERSION
and press enter at the end. We need Minicom to send a line feed and a carriage return. We may need to configure that if it doesn't do that by tiself already.

And we expect something like the example answer from chapter 3.2.4 in www.baader-planetarium.com/en/downloads/...al_documentation.pdf :
$BS STATUS VERSION:0.700(Apr 5 2019)

Let's see how far we get.
1 year 4 months ago #88006

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Thanks you very much!

Ok here we go: after fiddling with minion 2.2 (too old) I managed somehow to get version 2.8 running.
I did what you suggested but I can't get anything back after $BS GET VERSION.

1 year 4 months ago #88015

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