Hi NMAC (or anyone who has it),
Could you please send me the document containing the command set. I am also trying to get my MCU modded HEQ5 working with EQMOD?
Thank you,
Markus

Hi! I know I have it somewhere! It was very hard to find it at the time.
I will search for it. I remember it as a small subset of the LX200.

Found the page I used for a reference!
It's for a similar project but as you can see at the bottom of the page, the protocol is the same.

web.archive.org/web/20190308052918/http:...gbdt.com.au/eq6-old/

The original file is this one the the site if offline and there are no copies of it:

eq6.update.rajiva.de/eq6/data/mcu_doc.pdf

I will search for this file.

also see my original posting about this:

indilib.org/forum/mounts/2148-rajiva-mcu-update.html

and see the zip file attached, it may help too!

That's awesome NMAC, thanks for that.
I did some rs232 port sniffing and compared the values between using V4Control and ASCOM with the ASCOM LittleFoot Driver and I think I may have found an (hopefully the) issue.
As part of the ASCOM connection test, it passes a request to the mount for a few things, which are: #0:VX#, #:GR# and #:GD#. The mount replies to all of the requests, but it sends an extra character with the #:GD# which I believe kills the ability for ACSOM and EQMOD to correctly connect to the mount.
When the mount receives #:GD# it returns - "+00ß00".
It's very strange that the "ß" is in there, but V4Control still works fine with that, but ASCOM doesn't like it.
The Latitude and Longitude ASCOM shows after the connection (in Device Connection Tested) is 1612345:00:00.000 4898765:00:00.000, with the first numbers in each being clearly wrong.
When trying to connect in the LittleFootClassic Setup it errors saying 1612345 is out of range.

I am using MCU Firmware 4.17D and I did reflash my MCU Firmware to 4.10D, but is still had the same issue.

My next thought is to try and get the MCU firmware and modify it to remove the "ß", or try and get the ASCOM LittleFoot driver source code and modify it to correctly read values with "ß" in it.

Do you know if there is a later version firmware that 4.17D? I did see messages from Rajiva (from many years ago) talking of a version 6 Firmware, but can't find anything close and it seems there are no longer any traces of Rajiva on the Internet (maybe he was NEO )?

Any thoughts on the "ß" in the value returned by the mount?

I remember having that char issue. That and another related to values precision. Tried to modify an old OnStep driver as it was the
most suited one. I had some things working, tried to debug ASCOM connection with CDC but eventually I gave up.

About the firmware that's the same as mine and it was the last one available at the time. There was another one, I think, but not compatible
the the MCU hardware. You would need to replace the MCU board for a new one.

Meanwhile I found the original file describing the protocol. It's attached. I hope you get it
working I would have to get mine too!

And now I found the most recent file for the LittleFoot Elegance.
Maybe this is the new one for the new firmware as it is v6.18.

I knew I should save this files

Hi Kisa,

You asked for thoughts, so here is what I think
Even if I would have that mount I would not hack the firmware to get rid of the "ß"..
First of all, all other mounts would be incompatible with the driver.
Second, If there is a entry point in the firmware that points to a address beyond that point where the character is then the point would be shifted by 1 byte and you would probably end up with a bricked mount.
Also if the software that does the upgrade checks for a checksum of some kind it would not flash the mount.

So imho it's best to modify the driver so it can be used by everyone with the same mount and firmware.

Cs
/Markku

Ummm, that doesn't sound promising. Did you ever try the ASCOM LittleFoot Driver, it seem specifically for our MCU's (based on the name anyway)?
Do you know if the v6.18 is a compatible upgrade for the v4.17D MCU? Mind you I'd still need to find a version of it if it was

Thanks for the thoughts Markku.
By hacking the firmware, I'd decompile it completely down to the C it was written in and change it there, then recompile it, so that would avoid the addressing issue. Though the checksum check could be an issue, or maybe not as the installer uses the version number in the filename to check against, but I don't think I'd risk it, too much of a pain to remove the MPU to reprogram it .
I'm thinking of setting up a serial man-in-the-middle Arduino to pass all the serial comms with the exception of the problem causing characters? Never done it or sure if it's possible, but it would probably be the easiest option as I've never written a driver before and reverse engineering a MPU's code is no easy task.

Yes I did try that driver, and it worked very well.
That one worked for both versions of the hardware, the LitteFoot and the MCU as of version 4.17D.

I have a faint memory the 6.18 was specific for the new version of the Littlefoot and it wasn't compatible with the MCU hardware.
I maybe wrong but I remember trying to upgrade mine and I couldn't do it.

Ummm, that's a worry then. It's the ASCOM LittleFoot driver that is giving me the issue with not handling the "ß".
Any thoughts as to why it's giving me that issue and worked fine for yourself or how to got around the issue?
I'm using the MCU upgrade, were you using the same or the Lightfoot (I assume they are different?)?

It worked find on Windows with that ASCOM Driver.
On INDI it only worked with and very old version of the driver and INDILib, < 1.4, I guess .

The most recent ones never worked. In your case you get that "ß" char. In my case I could never get anything.
DEC coordinate always gave me a null value. I could only read RA coordinate.