identical problem. I tried every way. it does not work!

12 days later

Oh NO this is terrible news! I've spent the past two weeks installing the ZWO focuser, the ZWO camera, the ZWO filter wheel, mounting the Asiair Pro and getting to know my new the CGXL mount. Then I found this page about it not working with CGXL. LOL. Rats am I disappointed. Will have to figure out some other way.

    jimcutler Misery loves company. You can choose between using the ASIAir Pro with a Celestron alt-az mount, which seems to work, or enter bulletin board hell and try to parse endless discussions of USB drivers, SD card mechanics, and other ephemera. ZWO is disinclined to resolve the issue, I'm afraid.

    I am curious, too, about what workarounds might be available to salvage as much as I can of my ZWO peripherals, including the EAF, main camera, guide camera, etc., given the incompatibility with Celestron GEM mounts (at least those with the "Prolific" USB driver).

      4 months later

      Same problem here…brand new cgem II will not connect …..product was
      advertised as being compatible…….very frustrating!!

      17 days later

      Ive been running the AsiAir pro on a CGX and CGX-L without issue for over a year....yes on rare occasion it would run amuck but it hasnt in 9mo i have had zero goto errors (though i am present for every Meridain flip..not because the mount will not line up but because the focus is sometimes a mess)...I simply downloaded the App to my tablet connect the Hand control via the USB cable the wifi wont work....opened the the mount tab and found the CGEM, CGX, in the list and connected...I always set the home position with the App and then you have to turn the tracking back on....I have had almost ZERO issues with it working on both mounts.....I did find that even though the 2 Asiairpro are password protected my 2 tablets would sometimes connect to the wrong one..not sure how that was even possible...i fixed that by changing the SSID names....I also added a Wifi booster to each as the wifI is HORRIBLE with the ASIair......2 feet from the unit and it has to reconnect...Now it never has to and i have had ZERO dropped connections in 6mo....Not sure what you all are doing wrong But i am 100% using the ASIair with the CGX-CGX-L NO ISSUES.

      Older Celestron mounts are ok. I have 3 CGX and an AVX and a CGEM 2 and they all work with the Air. The newer ones have a new Prolific chip and have problems. Hopefully something gets figured out for you guys.

        I, too, have a brand new CGEM II that simply will not connect to the ASIAIR Pro... I decided to get it based, partly, on the fact that a buddy down the road has the same rig and his connection works without issue. His CGEM II is older than mine, which perhaps adds more to data to @dfisherows assertion that a newer Prolific chip is causing issues?

        • w7ay replied to this.

          dfisherows ... do you happen to know which chip the new units have? The one that I know works appears to be the PL2303SA. It would appear that Prolific only make drivers for Windows and Mac (not for raspberry PI).

            astroMartin I, too, have a brand new CGEM II that simply will not connect to the ASIAIR Pro

            Can you check if the USB port of the mount is back powering the USB of the ASIAIR? Since your mount is being powered by its own 12V source, it is possible that the power pin of the USB connector at the mount actually carries power that is higher than the voltage of the USB connector in the ASIAIR, and causing backpowering.

            If you suspect that backpowering is a problem, you can slice open a USB cable (easier to do with un-shielded USB cables) and snipping the power line (usually red), and then taping everything back carefully making sure the red wire does not short to anything else.

            Check "back-powering" in this Raspberry Pi documentation:

            https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/raspberry-pi.html#back-powering

            The "upstream device" in your case is the ASIAIR (Raspberry Pi).

            FWIW, I have found that most power hubs cause ASIAIR to be erratic (some causing the ASIAIR to not even boot). I have so far only found a single Anker power hub model that don't backpower the ASIAIR.

            Chen

                w7ay ... was this meant for someone else? I didn't specify how it was all powered?

                I've tried my rig with the mount being powered by 12v from ASIAIR (as I do with my iOptron) and I've tried it with it's own 12v supply. Either way the USB goes from the CGEM hand controller to the ASIAIR Pro. How would I be able to tell if there was a "back power" problem? For me the only "symptom" is that I get an "Unable to connect" error in the ASIAIR app.

                  Is your asiair latest udated? I don’t recall if celesreon deraults to 9600 baud, but it should be set to that when connected to the HC

                    Kring ... as far as I can tell all the app and ASIAir Pro is up to the latest (1.8 and 8.83). The Baud rate appears to be 9600 and unchangeable.

                      7 days later

                      Updated information... I borrowed a friends CGEM II hand controller. Still a USB model but older than mine... connected without any issues whatsoever. Does this seem to indicate that the newer HC's have a different (and incompatible) USB chipset?

                      19 days later

                      Further update: I acquired another (older) HC, this one from an NXS mount. Once I updated it to the current GEM firmware it, too, connected with no issue to the ASIAIR Pro.

                      So, to recap:

                      Brand new HC: NO connection
                      Older HC 1: Connected
                      Older HC 2: Connected

                      Yes, it's the Prolific USB chip that's now being used that's likely your issue. this was a problem that showed up last year as well for SkyWatcher folks when they updated the EQ6R-Pro mount to the new chipset.

                      to fix that, it requires pulling down a new image from ZWO and doing an full reflash of your AAP operating system... that was the fix at that time, but I have heard that the latest version should have already had the chipset drivers. So if you are felling like giving it a try. I'll put the link here from a prior thread. it certainly won't hurt anything; but may or may not fix it. you can also search here and on cloudy nights for additional details on the Prolific Chip issue.

                      Here's steps to flash your AAP
                      https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/manuals/How_to_Restore_ASIAIR_OS.pdf

                      Here's the new image with Prolific Driver installed:
                      https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MLd0TO7yzPsiqIzVpUVn743DaEnKzox9/view?usp=sharing

                      Here's the thread to readup on it:
                      https://bbs.astronomy-imaging-camera.com/d/12655-how-to-connect-the-new-sky-watcher-eq6-r-pro-to-asiair

                      let us know if you go for it and it resolves your issue or not.

                      a month later

                      hi every one, same problem just got a brand new CGEMII and there´s no way to connect it to AAP, anyone has solved this problem, i will try the upper procedure, any advice ?
                      it´s really sad than ZWO do not get involved to solve this issue this is my third AAP i´ve been using it in EQM-35 and Az-GTI with out any problem i felt very confident i didn´t think it wouldn´t work at all!!!

                      2 years later

                      I have 2 ASIAIR PRO'S. I run a double scope setup on my Celestron CGX-L. For more than 2 years I have had no problems using the PRO, UNTIL 4 nights ago. The mount won't connect on either of the two Asiairs. Nothing has been moved, changed, altered in any way. They run separately from each other. Ive checked everything, wiring, ect. Hooked everything to the PC, EVERY THING WORKED AS SHOULD.
                      Why all of a sudden it won't recognize the mount is beyond my comprehension. I dont see any update to ASiair that would have changed anything. Any ideas out there?

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