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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Avalon mzero Stargo with lx200 protocol

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Hello Wolfgang,
I build it and test il yesterday night in my garage.
I do a synchronisation with th button in the indi panel, then I do some gotos.
The area pointed was always good.
Next step, I try it on the sky.
Very goog job !!!!!
Jean-Jacques
6 years 2 weeks ago #24118

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Great to hear. At least it works once on two different devices. :-)

I am already in contact with Luciano from Avalon. My next steps are some standard functions like unparking and tracking rates.
6 years 2 weeks ago #24119

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No three devices :
- an old laptop with ubuntu 17.10 32 bits.
- a newer one with ubuntu 16.04 64 bits.

I will try it on an asus Thinkerboard (lroge.scenari-community.org/KstarsEkosIndi/#Materiel).

It is a good idea to contact Luciano.
6 years 2 weeks ago #24120

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I have apparently been duplicating work Wolfgang has been doing. When I finished the Focuser and tried to get a telescope up and running I ran into issues with the serial port. I fixed that by making an Avalon driver that handles both Telescope and Focuser (AUX1). Instead of using the lx200basic as a starting point I rolled my own. My intent is to take this knowledge and write an updated bluetooth application.

Features:
- Set Site Location
- Set Park Location
- Park
- Unpark
- Sync Home
- Goto Home
- Set Movement Speed (Guiding/Centering/Finding/Slewing)
- Move mount (N/S/E/W)
- Abort Motion
- Goto RA/DEC
- Sync to RA/DEC
- Abort Telescope Motion
- Turn tracking On/Off
- Change tracking rate Lunar/Solar/SIdereal (the commands are implemented but I think they only activate when you try to slew to the moon or sun, I am trying to get clarification from Jasem)
- Get Firmware Info (Manufacturer/Firmware Version/Firmware Date)
- Change Focuser Speed (Not recommended, Avalon's implementation seems a bit strange, suggest leaving it at "2")
- Move Focuser by Time (Not recommended, still a bit wonky)
- Move Focuser by Absolute Position
- Move Focuser by Relative Motion
- Sync Focuser to Position
- Abort Focuser Motion

If you are interested in trying it out see: github.com/CanisUrsa/indi grab branch canisursa/avalon_work The readme in 3rdparty/indi-avalon should provide you with any information you need.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Wolfgang Reissenberger
Last edit: 6 years 1 week ago by Christopher Contaxis.
6 years 1 week ago #24204

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Hi CanisUrsa,
good to know! I will take a close look into your work. It looks like we should join our efforts, implementing two drivers independently might not be the best idea.

Wolfgang
6 years 1 week ago #24208

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There are a couple of problems that remain, sometimes a parsing error occurs during a park. The park / goto home commands produce a number of responses over time and it is hard to predict when I will receive them. The result is a race condition in which I send the command to query RA/DEC and as a response get one of the park command responses. It doesn't impact performance but does mean the RA/DEC won't update until the next poll cycle. I am not quite certain how to handle this or if it is worthwhile to handle it.

Another issue I have encountered is trying to make sure I update the various INDI::Telescope states (properties and otherwise). I think I have handled most cases but I am pretty certain some issues with the IDLE/OK/BUSY/ALERT indicators remain.

Take a look at the code and tell me what I think.
6 years 1 week ago #24209

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Hi CanisUrsa,
I took a first look into your code. It looks great, very clean, easy readable. Great job!!

Duplicating your work does not seem to be reasonable. The only thing we should think about whether the best base class is INDI::Telescope or LX200Generic.

As far as I could see is, that LX200Generic contains a lot of functions that worked out of the box in my implementation:
- Park
- Move mount (N/S/E/W)
- Abort Motion
- Goto RA/DEC
- Sync to RA/DEC

My idea was staying as close as possible to the standard LX200 implementation and implementing only the StarGo specifics.

What do you think?

Wolfgang
The following user(s) said Thank You: Christopher Contaxis
6 years 1 week ago #24210

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I had two main reasons for not utilizing LX200Generic as a base class. The first was to increase my understanding of INDI. The second is that Avalon has certain functionality (mainly AUX1/AUX2 control) that can't be accessed during things like slew and parking. I am pretty certain it could be made to work but I didn't want to cobble something together. I think it ended up making a more cohesive driver. I find utilizing inheritance too much can make code more difficult to understand. There are a couple of things I am not happy about design wise, the main one being the mixing of the telescope and focuser functionality. I may try to pull those two things apart but I haven't spent enough time thinking about how to handle that.

After speaking with Jasem I found out what I was missing for controlling the tracking rates so that should be fixed later tonight.
6 years 1 week ago #24223

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OK, good point, makes sense. Out of the same reason - getting a better understanding of INDI - I will continue exploring the LX200Generic based approach for a while...
6 years 1 week ago #24282

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Next features implemented: parking, unparking, tracking rates, slewing speeds.

@CanisUrsa: I think I found a way how to keep the tracking rates and slewing speeds in sync between the INDI driver and StarGO. Setting it from outside - e.g. with the Windows StarGO client - leads to updates in the INDI client.
Last edit: 6 years 1 week ago by Wolfgang Reissenberger.
6 years 1 week ago #24290

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I have the ability to set the tracking rates and slewing rates. I haven't figured out how to query what the currently selected tracking rate and slewing rate is. One status command you might be interested in is :X34# it will return something like m00# where the first 0 is for RA, second 0 is for DEC. The higher the number, the faster that axis is moving. m10# indicates RA tracking only while m54# would indicate a fast slew on RA, and slightly slower slew on DEC.
6 years 1 week ago #24350

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Avalon gave me the following hint which is working fine for me:
6 years 1 week ago #24363

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