BYEOS and ASCOM focuser

[Guest Robby9newbie]

I have the premium edition of BYEOS and a Meade LX200ACF with Meade's microfocuser. I am also using Stellarium Scope to control the movement of the scope via the POTH hub and I also enable the ASCOM focuser when connecting. Once Stellarium scope is connected I then connect the ASCOM focuser in BYEOS.

What I have noticed is that when I use the focuser controls on the right side it seems like a single pulse is sent to the focuser for all 4 speeds which is perfect. If I use the focuser controls on the left side the focuser goes into a runaway mode and continually moves the focuser. The only way to stop the focuser is to click on the halt button. This makes it extremely to do any type of fine focusing when you are using both the left and right focusing controls. 

Is this a bug and if so is there a fix for this?

Thanks

Robin

[admin]

Hi Robin,

This is weird.  Is the Meade's microfocuser an absolute or relative focuser?

Regards,

[Guest Type of focuser]

I am not sure if it absolute or relative but I believe it is a relative focuser.

[robby9876]

I did some more testing inside today and this is what I found

Lets assume that the focuser controls on the right side moves the focuser in and the left side moves the focuser out

1. If I use the focus controls on the right side a single pulse is sent to the focuser and the focuser moves in a slight amount. This is what I expected to happen
2. If I use the focus controls on the left side the focuser moves a fair amount out (about a 3 second pulse) and then it moves the focuser back in with a net difference of what appears to be a single pulse in the out direction. I am guessing that this is clearing any backlash in the focuser. The net result is NOT a runaway condition and the focuser moves out the equivalent of a single pulse

As usual this is just another user boo-boo that I can add to my growing boo-boo list as I was too impatient!. When I was moving the focuser out I never let it finish the cycle as I thought it was in a runaway mode and I always hit the halt button to stop it instead of letting it do it's thing!

Thanks for all of your help

Robin

[admin]

Relative focuser are tricky to operate because they do not implement the required ASCOM methods to make it robust. This being said, the focuser should not be "running away" like it does.  I'm not sure this this is a bug in BYE or ASCOM... probably BYE... but I can not reproduce with the 1 relative focuser I have here for testing

[Guest Bug in ASCOM or BYEOS?]

I will do a setup inside and test the focuser with Meade's native software, ASCOM using the pop up ASCOM hand control and then BYEOS. Theroreticaly I should be able to narrow it down to one of the three. 

I will update the post when I have some results

[admin]

Try 3.1.12 in the pre-release download section, I made a change and this may solve the issue.  Keep me posted.

https://www.otelescope.com/files/category/24-pre-releases/

 

[robby9876]

Guylain

I downloaded version 3.1.12 and some testing last night with the focuser and it still happened. This morning I setup the scope inside to some more testing and when I connected via the ASCOM POTH hub I saw a setup box for the focuser called "Focuser Backlash Compensation". The Final Direction was set to "Out" and the "Steps MS" was set to 3000. I changed the "Steps MS" to 10 and low and behold it works perfectly.

Chalk up another "Rookie Misteake"  for me!

Robin

[admin]

Hi Robin,

Glad you got it to work.

Regards,