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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Connection problem with Meade 14 GPS

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My club has a Meade 14 GPS scope permanently mounted and aligned on a equatorial wedge in its observatory.  I've been using Stellarmate on an EQ6 and a refractor, so I'm hoping it will be a simple switch to this scope and mount.  I got a USB-RS 232 cable, which connected right away.  My problem is that when I try to sync the mount to my KSTARS position, the scope indicators moves to the right position, but then immediately jumps far away - maybe 6-7 hours of RA.  My guess is that the GPS is conflicting with KSTARS in some way.  I'm wondering how to fix this problem.

I pointed the scope manually, and guiding worked well.  It calibrated quickly, and was able to track well, even at the 3600mm focal length.  (I was using an Off-Axis Guider for the first time, so it was a pleasant surprise when it worked right away.

Any suggestions on how to fix this?  I'm wondering about some way to disable the Meade's GPS and just do everything from KSTARS.

Thanks.
2 years 6 months ago #75611

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I have a 12" LX600 that has a bad GPS receiver. Never gets a lock. But it used to do the same thing your GPS does - sync off somewhere, usually the same number of hours west of the actual coordinates. Five hours west, AFAIR. After messing around with it for several months I turned the GPS off on the hand controller and picked up a US$19 U-Blox USB GPS receiver and hooked that to the Raspberry Pi. I added gpsmon, the Indi driver, and set KStars to sync everything to the GPS.

Because the telescope needs date and time, I wrote a little C program to push the date and time out to the scope after power up. Without that I had to set the date and time manually. That may be an Autostar II command. I don't know what the 14" GPS uses for a controller.
HTH,
The following user(s) said Thank You: Thomas Munnecke
2 years 6 months ago #75639

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Thanks... I guess bypassing the GPS is the way to go. I don't think I really need the GPS, since my location is fixed at the observatory and can use network time from the Pi. Setting the time and date is a pain on the handbox. Are you willing to share the code?
2 years 6 months ago #75640

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If you disable the GPS and then power cycle the scope, and the display stops on the daylight savings prompt, the code should work for you. If not, it won't help.
$ lx-init time /dev/ttyUSB0
Replace "ttyUSB0" with your scope port name. It will print the string it sends to the scope, and you should see either "", or [1] below that. [1] means the scope was listening and ack'd the command anything else means it either doesn't understand the command or it wasn't at the daylight savings prompt.
The attached bz2 file has a compiled RPi executable and the source code. If it looks familiar, 90% of it is the TTY driver from Indi. 

File Attachment:

File Name: lx_init.tar.bz2
File Size:7 KB
Last edit: 2 years 6 months ago by David Allmon.
2 years 6 months ago #75642
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