I have left it on add point as it doesn't seem to do any harm with nearest point alignment. After doing taking down the mount for maintenance or similar I clear the alignment data, make a loose model by syncing in a few places (around 10 or so) around the sky and save that as a base alignment data which then gets loaded for every subsequent session. That way the first slew is usually already fairly close and plate solving does the rest. This is also useful during the light summer nights here in Finland or day time imaging of planets when plate solving can't be used.

Thanks a lot, i will try to follow your model.

Have you selected "kstars updates all devices"?

Yes, I used to have a GPS device connected to the computer too and used it when mobile, but it didn't make much sense anymore with fixed place and network syncing for time.

Tried again today with no luck. The mount is all over the place, jumps erratically in kstars, complaints about limits, goes into an endless GOTO-tracking loop, crashes into the pier, you name it....

Do you have in the EQMOD Options tab set "Align Method" to "EQmod align" or "Alignment Subsystem"? No idea what any of it is...

I use EQMod align. Those erratic jumps sound a lot like what I had with my previous HEQ5 mount which had a bit loose power connector and that manifested itself as occasional serial port errors. I ended up changing the power connector to a screwed one and that cured those issues. If you enable logging for EQMod, does it report any serial errors? Or does the power led blink / fade or is it stable?

My very same behaviour! Erratic random jumps and get lots of " [WARNING] Horizon Limits:" in the log page. Posted the very same question a couple of hours ago... Looking for a solution or an advice!

I'm not sure I have the same issue, but I had a lot of random tracking aborts with my SW EQ6-R Pro. Jasem researched the problem and it looked like the mount was sending occasionally random position information back to EKOS. So he suggested disabling aborts due to these positional communications by doing the following:

Go to INDI Control Panel --> EQMod --> Horizon

Then uncheck "Abort Tracking" and also set Limit GOTO to "Disable".

Finally, go to INDI Control Panel -->EQMod -->Options --> Configuration --> Save

It worked for me and (best I can determine) doesn't have a downside. EKOS will still abort tracking based on the altitude parameter set in the mount tab.

Hope this helps!

Ron

Hi Ron,

  thanks for the reply and that's what I actually made to normally run everything, but the issue is still there and I can't use pulse guiding but only ST4. Not a real disabling problem, but an annoyance that prevents the use of a lot of cool Ekos feature!

Hi Jarno!

I soldered the wires to my EQ6 instead of using the usual power plug. Eventually I will make this mod, but I need the connectors:
www.myastroscience.com/eq6powerupgrade

And this seems to have solved my problem. I could now create a small mount model and it hits the targets within the expected accuracy. So Thank you very much for the power plug tip

Good to hear that helped, yes the regular barrel connector is not a very good choice for powering a device that is constantly moving. Also there seems to be some tolerances that some cables fit better than others and thus might work better. Skywatcher has better connectors in some of the higher end mounts like EQ8, but I guess there is a cent or two to be saved by not using those in the cheaper models...

Hi guys,
I created two topics on this subject, got some advise but still cannot make it to work.
Reuse EQMod alignments that is. I have an HEQ5.
-- I clear AlignData.xml
-- Create Mount Model. 6 points for example. (Mount Model tool in the Align Tab).
-- Save AlignData.xml
-- Park mount
-- Restart RPI
-- AlignData.xml gets read in. Align tab shows 6 alignment point and 3 triangles
Everything should be OK, right?
But the mount behaves exactly the same as before - the first goto is 3000-7000" off...
What am I missing?
Thanks!

Could it be that EQMOD thinks your scope is on the wrong side of the pier? I had that problem a few nights ago. Not sure how I fixed it. Did many things and suddenly it worked....