ASI6200 Issues

matheissen

I have an ASI6200MM-Pro. There are two issues:

When I use the ZWO Native driver (version 3.21.0), the bin 2x2 images come back as 4784x3194 pixels. This is incorrect. When I use the ZWO ASCOM driver (version 6.5.14.0), they come back with the correct size of 4788x3194. The native driver is cutting off 4 rows of pixels. Using 3x3 binning also gives different pixel sizes. 3192x2129 for the native driver versus 3192x2128 for ASCOM. Granted, these are just small differences but it means I have to have complete libraries of bias, darks and flats for both drivers in order to calibrate the images. I would think the two drivers would generate images of the same size. The both create 9576x6388 images at bin 1x1.
When I take Biases using very short exposures (0.05 sec or less), the camera (or USB or something) hangs up quite often and I have to power it off and power it on. Sometimes I even have to reboot my system (a Windows 10 Intel i7) to get the camera to reconnect. I have this problem with EVERY imaging program - NINA, SharpCap, SGPro and even the ASIStudio/ASIImg (version 1.7). It's possible this is a hardware or configuration issue but I don't have a different computer to try it on.

w7ay

matheissen When I take Biases using very short exposures (0.05 sec or less), the camera (or USB or something) hangs up quite often and I have to power it off and power it on.

It could be a bug in how ZWO reads out the data from the sensor to their on-camera DRAM buffer, and the DRAM fills up before it can be transferred to the computer.

If so, see if you can put in pauses between the bias frames, i.e., instead of expose-expose-expose... do expose-pause-expose-pause-expose-pause... so that the expose duration + pause duration is sufficient time so the DRAM does not completely fill up.

If a sequence of 0.5 second exposures don't crash the camera, for example, you just need to make the "pause" duration equal to 0.5 seconds.

Chen

Tech@ZWO

matheissen
1 We will test it asap.
2 I think you have tried different cables, ports, computers, and 12V power supplies, could you also refer to this guide to catch the log when testing in ASIStudio? please directly connect the camera to PC, don't use any hub. thanks.

how-to-get-sdk-log-without-dbgview-on-windows.pdf

549kB

BTW, how often does this problem appear?

matheissen

w7ay

I've tried that with 2 second even up to 8 second pauses between frames and it still hangs up. The hang ups are intermittent. It can take anywhere from 5 frames to 30 frames before it hangs. I've never been able to get a single clean run of 80 bias frames without it hanging. It will hang up faster (fewer frames) with no pauses than with a 2 second pause but it always hangs.
I found a program called "USBTreeView" to look at the USB architecture. It has the ability to do a "Restart Device" and a "Restart Port" (for the hub). Doing a "Restart Port" will clear the hang but I have to disconnect then reconnect the camera in the imaging program (e.g., ASIImg) before it will connect and take pictures after a hang.
I don't know enough about the interactions between the camera, the USB hardware and all the other various firmware, driver and software programs that controls all of this to know where to look next.
Question: does the ASI Native Driver go through ASCOM at all to talk to the camera or does it just go straight to the USB controller to the camera? Note that I have this problem whether I use the Native driver or the ASCOM driver.

w7ay

matheissen I've tried that with 2 second even up to 8 second pauses between frames and it still hangs up.

OK, I just tried it with my 6200MC and asking ASIAIR to take bias frames.

The ASIAIR automatically chose 0.001 seconds. I had set the gain to 100, no cooling, no binning, writing to a Samsung T5 SSD.

The interesting thing is the ASIAIR does not appear to try to double buffer at all. It appears to take an image, wait for it to transfer completely (and even displaying on the iPad screen), before it starts to take the next frame. So it is taking about 7 seconds per bias frame.

It successfully finished 40 frames without mishaps.

Perhaps you might try single exposures, and waiting for the download of each frame to complete, before issuing the next exposure?

Try a different computer too; if your camera crashes the same way with a different computer, you may have a defective camera.

Chen

matheissen

w7ay
I just tried it taking single frames with both SGPro and Nina. Both failed in fewer than 30 frames taking them one-by-one and pausing between frames after they are downloaded and displayed. I used various exposures from 0.001 to 0.05. Neither of them take as much as 7 seconds to download and display a frame in bin 2x2. This is with nothing else active except the ASI6200 (and an ASI EFW which I only use at the beginning to set the filter). No mount, no cooling, nothing else. The 12VDC power IS turned on to the camera, although I don't have the dew heater or cooling operating.
This is a remote observatory and I have no way of switching computers to try a different one.
Do you have any explanation for why the ZWO Native driver returns different size images than the ZWO ASCOM driver does in all bin modes except 1x1?

w7ay

matheissen Do you have any explanation for why the ZWO Native driver returns different size images than the ZWO ASCOM driver does in all bin modes except 1x1?

I only use macOS and iOS (with Indigo and ASIAIR), so have no experience at all with ASCOM. But I have noticed that ZWO has lately (last year or two) been changing their ROI sizes to make the number of bytes in scanlines evenly divisible by 8 or 16 (I forget which now). This is probably to make downloads faster with buses with wide lanes. I remeber having to reshoot a set of calibration frames some months ago because of that.

As to the bias frame problem, if you can do it with your remote computer, you might try ZWO's ASIStudio suite. If that also fails, it looks suspiciosly like the camera has a problem.

Chen

matheissen

Tech@ZWO

I made the change to RegEdit but I'm not seeing an asicamerasdk.log after running the 6200MM with ASIImg out of ASIStudio. I have version 6.5.14.0 of the ASI ASCOM driver and version 3.21.0 of the Native driver installed. Do I need to restart something or reboot or something? Attached is the screen shot of RegEdit.
The problems we're having are constant. I can't get through a run of Biases with ANY capture software. I've tried NINA, SGPro, ASIStudio and SharpCap.

matheissen

Tech@ZWO

By the way, here's the ASIImg log from the run. It's the only log I can find.

asiimg-2023-02-21-13-46-18.txt

1kB

matheissen

Tech@ZWO

My bad. I edited the wrong camera in RegEdit. I fixed that and here's the asicamerasdk.log . I opened ASIImg. connected to the 6200, turned on cooling, ran a preview of a 0.001 bias frame then attempted to capture 80 frames in Autorun. It captured one frame then failed.

asicamerasdk.txt

81kB

Tech@ZWO

matheissen Thanks, we checked the log, and speculate the problem is may on the USB port, did you try other USB port on your computer? it will be better if you can test it on other computer.

Also, about the first problem you asked, it is because the sensor has a rule when read out, the pixel count of the width side must be a multiple of 8, the pixel count of the height side must be a multiple of 2.
In ASIStudio, there are hardware bin and software bin, hardware bin is completion of pixel merge on the sensor, the pixel count on the width side must be a multiple of 8, so we cut four pixels for simplification.
In other software, there is only software bin, it is completion of pixel merge in the software, not subject to this rule, and ASCOM may report error if we cut four pixels.
I forwarded this to our team to see if we can optimize it in the future. thanks for your feedback.

matheissen

Tech@ZWO

Thanks for your reply. We will run a test with a different USB connection to the camera.

In reference to the binning, am I correct in the interpretation that, with the ASI Native Driver, the binning is done on the camera and only the reduced size image is downloaded, whereas with the ASCOM driver, the full-size image is downloaded and the binning is done in the driver (that is, on the computer)? Is that the difference between hardware and software binning?

Tech@ZWO

matheissen Yep

matheissen

Tech@ZWO

I ran some tests and it appears to be an issue with the USB hub we're using. I still have one question. I'm using a program to scan the USB ports and it provides all kinds of information about the devices. One of the parameters is "demanded current" which is different for each device. For the ASI6200 is says the demanded current is 512 mA. Does the 6200 really pull 512 milliAmps on the USB3 line? Is that still true even if I'm supplying 12VDC/3Amp on the 12V power line?