Hello,

I am a complete newbie to KStars and Ekos, so please apologize any dumb questions or assumptions. I currently have a Skywatcher AZ GTi mount without handcontroller (I control it via the synscan app on my iPhone) and I would like to know, if it is possible to connect this mount to Ekos on my Mac. Is there a INDI driver that can communicate via WiFi? Do I need the handcontroller to connect? Do I need a direct cable from the Mac to the plug for the handcontroller on the mount? Any help appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Amin

The INDI Synscan driver can be used to connect to WiFi given you have the IP address and port used for the WiFi dongle on the mount. Not sure if anyone tried it before, but please give it a go and report back if it was successful or not!

Thanks for your quick reply. I managed to select the right driver and got the IP address from the device. I found somewhere on the internet the port should be 11882 with no password, but Ekos says connection refused.

Can you connect to it from any other desktop program?

I haven't tried yet. What program or procedure would you recommend?

My Macbook connects successfully to the WLAN provided by the mount and the synscan app on the iPhone can communicate successfully with the mount.

UPDATE:

I found this link inter-static.skywatcher.com/downloads/synscanwifi_102.pdf in which it says port should be 11880 and protocol set to UDP.

Now I get the error message Mount not responding. Any hints?

ANIOTHER UPDATE:

I read somewhere, that the SynScan driver is used when connecting via the hand controller to the mount, so I tried the same wireless.

I connected from Ekos to my iPhone running the SynScan App. I used port 11882 and the ip-address of my iPhone, Ekos now says SynScan is online but then a dialog appears saying: "KStars detected INDI driver indi_synscan_telescope crashed. Please check INDI server log in the Device Manager."

Where can I find the log?

People are able to control this mount using skysafari but you need 2 devices to do so. In that case you could skysafari as aux and connect via ekos?

I am curious about this thread as i have this mount in pre-order. Being able to directly use this mount via ekos/indi would be nice.

Thanks for your reply. The mount is great especially for traveling.

I would like to get it working with Ekos as well. Currently Imam trying a few roads in parallel, either connect via WiFi directly to the mount, that would be the most convenient, or via WiFi to my iPhone.

If that does not work, I could try a direct cable connect between the USBport and the handcontroller port on the mount, but I heard somewhere, that the port on the AZ GTi is different from the EQ mounts. Not sure about that, right now.

The last possibility would be a connection via the handcontroller, but I haven’t got one yet.

Still any help appreciated.

It boils down to the WiFi controller. Is it using the same protocol as the wired serial one? or is it different? and if it is different, then what is it exactly? I don't have the hardware here so I can't play with it to test it out, but you can probably try to sniff the traffic with something like WireShark and figure something out.

Would it help to have a look at the logfile? Can you tell me where to find it?

It might help a bit, but what we really need is a description of the protocol used by the WiFi mount dongle. You can find the log HOWTO in my signature.

EDIT: Ok I just read that it crashed. Do you have TeamViewer installed? If yes, please send me a private message to arrange for a session to debug this remotely.

Hello Jasem,

Thanks for the offer, I just send you a private message.

Cheers

Amin

Were you able to get this working? My mount refuses to connect on ekos using syncan driver.

Tried below with 11882 and 11880 , both gave me network is unreachable.