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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Raspberry Pi HQ Autoguiding?

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I'm new here interested in building the Pi4 server as part of the autoguider camera enclosure. Can you recommend a pi camera model suitable for autoguiding? Can the HQ bin under PHD controls? Does binning effectively increase the pixel size?

Thanks
3 years 1 week ago #68835

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Am revisiting the idea this weekend - had dropped it as my RPi4 died and I had moved to another SBC (NanoPC T4) that is hardly drop-in compatible to the Rpi camera lineup.

However, am currently having worse and worse performance from my T7C, I found a solution to both the NanoPC compatibility and inconsistent pi cam support in INDI:
www.davidhunt.ie/raspberry-pi-zero-with-...amera-as-usb-webcam/

It’ll use a 10$ Pi Zero to turn the Pi Cam HQ into a USB UVC webcam. From there, it should JustWork (TM). I gain almost 100% sensor size, going from 1/3.2" to 1/2.3", smaller pixel size even with 2x2 binning and faster bandwidth. Down the road, also possibility of bluetooth connection if needed (although then still need to power the Pi Zero which is powered via usb otg anyway) and to add other pi-compatible sensors (thinking GPS/temp/humidity). Funnily, Arducam sells a picam-to-uvc board, for 100$. Here total cost will be 12-13$ (board + small SD card).

To be continued soon ;)
2 years 9 months ago #71881

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Replied by Outta on topic Raspberry Pi HQ Autoguiding?

Hi,

I do not know about your luck but I finally made guiding with HiQ camera working and it seems I have brilliant results.

SNR for 35/135 and 60/330 telescopes is baffling 300-800.

Now the hard part :) How I made it work.

So I used indi-rpicam driver. That driver has few faults, downloading is slow ~7s, and as I found out later 1s exposure does not work, binning is not implemented.
So I edited driver, first thing I did is hardcoded 2x binning and this instantly reduced download speed to ~1s and from ekos images were brilliant
But every time I tried to turn on PHD it got stuck and timeouted. Later on I noticed that even from EKOS 1s exposure would freeze whole cam. So i went code digging and foud oart of code that says if shutter_speed > 100000(1s) do something too smart for my brain to understand. But i noticed it is only bigger than 1s so I added >= there and that solved all of my problems.

After this I have brilliant guiding performance, on around 20 targets I pointed to i never had trouble finding guidestar, and lowrst SNR I got from 1s was ~200

In the thread below(end of page 6) you can find changes I did for enabling binning

indilib.org/forum/ccds-dslrs/6990-driver...camera.html?start=60

I will not make pull request for this as it is hardcoded binning, and my free time and knowledge about ekos is not good enough.

As for 1s bug, I do not have code at the moment but search for 1000000, there is not much millions in code, and replace > with >=

I will maybe make a pull request for this fix in near future if i configure git.

Quick guide how to install this edited driver:

Clone git for indi 3rd party if you knkw. git or just download only indi rpicam.
github.com/indilib/indi-3rdparty
Save it to
~/Projects/indi-3rdparty/indi-rpicam
Then open Terminal and type this only first time(prerequisite):
sudo apt-get install libnova-dev libcfitsio-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev zlib1g-dev libgsl-dev build-essential cmake git libjpeg-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev libtiff-dev libftdi-dev libgps-dev libraw-dev libdc1394-22-dev libgphoto2-dev libboost-dev libboost-regex-dev librtlsdr-dev liblimesuite-dev libftdi1-dev libgps-dev libavcodec-dev libavdevice-dev
sudo apt-get -y install libindi-dev
And then type this in
mkdir -p ~/Projects/build/indi-rpicam
cd ~/Projects/build/indi-rpicam
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ~/Projects/indi-3rdparty/indi-rpicam
make -j4
sudo make install

I made all this from my phone so typos and errors might happen.
And that is it, you are good to go.
Happy coding and happy guiding.
Last edit: 1 year 11 months ago by Outta.
1 year 11 months ago #81866

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You may have solved my issue I've had the past couple weeks where my Rpi camera crashes on EKOS load while trying to use it for autoguiding! I can't find the driver file though - I know I have it installed because I can see it and select in in EKOS, but on Stellarmate OS I'm unable to find where the actual driver file itself is to make that code change... You wouldn't happen to be using Stellarmate also, would you? Or perhaps you know a shortcut to get to the drivers files from within KStars/EKOS? Thank you!
1 year 10 months ago #82729

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Replied by Outta on topic Raspberry Pi HQ Autoguiding?

Hi

I am using astroberry not StellarMate but it is all linux it should be the same or similar enough.

Follow this post, you can download zip of thr file there:

indilib.org/forum/ccds-dslrs/6990-driver....html?start=72#82546

For the first attempt you can maybe try to just unpack zip and type in terminal:
sudo make install
it might work if not follow full guide how to build it.
1 year 10 months ago #82752

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Following those instructions only gets me so far... I don't have a Projects/INDI-3rd-party folder in the same location as that script suggests. I'm looking through the file system now to see where the 3rd party folder is on StellarMate so I can execute the second half of your script. I got the prerequisites installed perfectly though, so thank you for getting me started.
1 year 10 months ago #82753

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I went ahead and installed Astroberry, installed all 3rd party drivers, ran the code you suggested in the other thread and... still crashing :( I'm totally at a loss for what to do.
1 year 10 months ago #82756

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Update: I removed the camera and plugged it back in... it works again, for now. Wowzers.
1 year 10 months ago #82757

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Replied by Outta on topic Raspberry Pi HQ Autoguiding?

Hi Dash,

First of all please use EDIT button :) you do not have to post a new post for every update if you are latest poster. It will be easier for other people to find helpful advice if there is not too much clump.

I know my guide is not the best in details but I wrote it on mobile phone not on PC so it is a bit harder to do it properly :)
For this either mkdir and upload my code to that folder, or change path in script to location where code is. If you are familiar with GIT github.com/indilib/indi-3rdparty there is guide how to clone it in repository, and then you can overwrite ~/Projects/indi-3rdparty/indi-rpicam with code you have in other thread. i linked above, or manually do changes from this thread.

That is good, from moment it started working for me it did not crash not once, except it lags for 15 seconds when downloading Full Res image from DSLR. I solved that by extending connection timeout in PHD2 to 30s but that is not related to driver it is due to DSLR, RPI bus and processing power.

You can confirm that edit of the driver is working if default resolution is 2028x1520 and not 4056x3040. Also pixel size should be 3.1x3.1
1 year 10 months ago #82764

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