autonm wrote: Great thread ... I have found the Waveshare Stepper Motor HAT to buy (in the UK) - but how do I decide which stepper motor is appropriate? Is there any calculations or is a stepper motor a stepper motor ?

Appreciate any model / parts numbers to look up for the motor side.

Also How are people attaching the motor to the scope / focus knob itself ?

Many thanks

This would be good point of reference regarding the stepper motor choice, etc: sourceforge.net/projects/arduinoascomfocuserpro2diy/

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Great thread here, thanks a ton for the installation script, saved tons of time. Just sharing with someone who can come here for troubleshooting - if FC keeps crashing after recording with this error in the end of dump:

"Error I see ./jre/bin/java: symbol lookup error: /home/pi/Desktop/Fire Capture/Ephemerides.so: undefined symbol: _ZN5Vec3DC1Ev"

all you have to do is delete Ephemnerides.so file (or rename it for later use if you want) and it solved the problem right away.

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Jon, many thanks! Adding custom driver didn't work, but you gave me idea to copy driver from usr/local/bin to usr/bin and it appeared in the list and WORKED! Super thanks for your help! Now off to get a motor and tuning the setup

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JonCarleton wrote: I noticed the stock compile for indi_wmh_focuser installed it in /usr/local/bin instead of /usr/bin with the indiserver stuff. Depending on the path setup, this may or may cause your problem. Open a terminal and type:
indiserver -vvv indi_wmh_focuser
and see what it shows. Don't start KStars or it will want to kill that iteration of indiserver and start its own.
Expect that it either runs, and shows happy wmh_focuser messages, or can't find the indi_wmh_focuser driver. or if there is a hardware issue it could try to restart several times and die. If it is "lost" on the drive, you can either leave it where it is and put a symbolic link to its compiled location in /usr/bin or actually move it to /usr/bin....or something else is going on entirely.

There is a method for adding "non-distribution" drivers to the lists in Ekos, but it would be good to verify the driver works first.

Jon, you were right - the binary sits in usr/local/bin... I have started INDI as you recommended here is what I got, but even if I try starting EKOS the driver is not in the list:

stellarmate@stellarmate:~ $ indiserver -vvv indi_wmh_focuser
2020-10-08T13:50:34: startup: indiserver -vvv indi_wmh_focuser
2020-10-08T13:50:34: Driver indi_wmh_focuser: pid=1576 rfd=3 wfd=6 efd=7
2020-10-08T13:50:34: listening to port 7624 on fd 4
2020-10-08T13:50:34: Driver indi_wmh_focuser: sending msg copy 1 nq 1:
<getProperties version='1.7'/>

2020-10-08T13:50:34: Driver indi_wmh_focuser: read defSwitchVector Waveshare Motor HAT Focuser CONNECTION Idle rw
CONNECT='Off'
DISCONNECT='On'
2020-10-08T13:50:34: Driver indi_wmh_focuser: read defTextVector Waveshare Motor HAT Focuser DRIVER_INFO Idle ro
DRIVER_NAME='Waveshare Motor HAT Focuser'
DRIVER_EXEC='indi_wmh_focuser'
DRIVER_VERSION='1.0'
DRIVER_INTERFACE='8'
2020-10-08T13:50:34: Driver indi_wmh_focuser: read defSwitchVector Waveshare Motor HAT Focuser DEBUG Idle rw
ENABLE='Off'
DISABLE='On'
2020-10-08T13:50:34: Driver indi_wmh_focuser: read defNumberVector Waveshare Motor HAT Focuser POLLING_PERIOD Idle rw
PERIOD_MS='1000'
2020-10-08T13:50:34: Driver indi_wmh_focuser: read defSwitchVector Waveshare Motor HAT Focuser CONFIG_PROCESS Idle rw
CONFIG_LOAD='Off'
CONFIG_SAVE='Off'
CONFIG_DEFAULT='Off'
CONFIG_PURGE='Off'

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Thanks Jon for your insights. I have already noticed low voltage warning, but was sure it was due large USB dock that I have attached during the SD card upgrade. If the power voltage issue is real, then half of the convenience powering everything with 12V plug via Pegasus Power Box is going straight to the trashcan... I will try your solutions later today and see if this works. Thanks again!

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Hello DYI astromotorists

I have jumped the gun and got Waveshare HAT, compiled the GIT and can find XML files as per Install_Manifest:
/usr/local/bin/indi_wmh_focuser
/usr/share/indi/indi_wmh_focuser.xml

But the Focuser driver doesn't show up in the KStars/EKOS drop down list.

My suspicion is that it is because INDIServer is started by Kstars, not manually and probably I have to add this driver somewhere, but there is nothing that suggests this in the INDI setup of KStars.

And since my Raspbian skills are pretty poor, I am a bit lost what to do. Any good ideas?

ps. I have checked usr/bin/ directory and there are bunch of familiar binaries with sort of driver names (indi_ccd and similar), this doesn't have wmh_focuser binary, should I move it from build to usr/bin? (sorry if dumb question)

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