Seems that the EQ6-R Pro uses the Prolific chipset for the USB->Serial converter. And I see that the current version of StellarMate OS on an RPi still does not support it in it's standard install (it did before if I used the bleeding edge, but that caused other issues).
It detects the chipset just fine... it simply cannot apparently connect, getting a serial timeout error.



Is there any plans to get the stable version of StellarMate OS compatible with the Prolific chipsets in the near future without bleeding all over everything?
Or is there something special that needs to be set somewhere in the bowels of the OS/Stellarmate to use the detected Prolific chipset?

I know I can pull out my old crappy serial->FTDI USB cable and hook in that way, but one of the whole reasons of getting the new mount was to eliminate yet another dangling cable.

You need to change the baud rate to 115200 if using the USB port on the mount.

Thanks for the suggestion... I've tried every baud rate selection, down to the point of saving it, shutting the EKOS connection down for the chain and starting it back up, and the same error keeps repeating on a serial timeout error.
This is a brand new (delivered today) EQ6-R Pro mount. I haven't checked to see if it's running the latest firmware though.

Firmware version shouldn't matter. I've used the USB port with various versions of the kernel over the past couple years, and never had this issue. Are the latest mounts using a new chipset that older ones aren't? Mine is also a Prolific chip.

Here's the exact Prolific chip in my mount. Is yours the same?

Nope, different... still a Prolific, but it doesn't show as a PL2303, the ID last 4 are different so a different chipset apparently.

<code>
lsusb |grep Prolific
Bus 001 Device 018: ID 067b:23d3 Prolific Technology, Inc. USB-Serial Controller</code>

Luckily I have an EQMod cable that is supposed to be coming... the bad thing I think it may be coming out of Ukraine.. so no telling how long it will take to get here, if it does.

According to this thread indilib.org/forum/stellarmate/8412-troub...-port-and-eqmod.html support was added for that particular chip in kernel 5.5. What kernel are you using? "uname -a" will tell you.

Now, to add "weird" into it... I hook in through the handset, it detects the same chipset and once I do an alignment, it works fine.
It's just when the same cable is hooked directly into the EQ6-R Pro that the serial communications times out.

If you're plugging into the handset, and not putting it into PC Direct mode (it doesn't sound like that you are), and that works, then that sounds to me like you're using the wrong driver. Are you using the Synscan driver, or the EQMod driver?

And solved... Derp moment.
You have to change to EQMod for the mount type from SynScan.

Carry on... nothing to see here but a newbie.

Glad you got it working! Don't worry, you're not the first person to get tripped up by that, and probably won't be the last.

I don't know why, but I thought EQMod could only be used with an actual EQMod cable that plugged into where the hand controller went. I "assumed" that when you used USB, you were simply bypassing but still talking to SynScan.

All I know is so far, I'm LOVING this EQ6-R Pro with my ZenithStar 103 rig. RA/DEC is staying well below 1.0 (total RMS around .74 and don't have the rig fully balanced yet), and I was lucky to keep RA at 2.5 and DEC at 1.3 with the old rig.