help with PHD 2 guiding software please

robert10

i really don`t know what i`ve done wrong but had spent almost 5 hours wasted on those clear skies last night trying to get PHD to guide properly,

almost went out the door, i`m using the zwo asi 120 camera and all had been working well with no problems, i visited the zwo website looking at the new asi120 s version and found driver updates, firmware updates and so on so installed them, camera seemed to work ok with no problems,

then last night went out and tried to start guiding, i selected the ASI camera ascom driver and it seemed to calibrate on a selected star but as soon as it started to guide the RA (blue line) was up and down like a yo yo and the DEC (red line) hardly moved at all along the graph. i tried a 2 minute sub and it was awful with star trail.

any ideas or settings i missed or need to implement ? i`ve tried everything i can think of from reinstalling Phd 2 and Phd 1 to windows system restore with no luck, don`t want to miss another night and i can`t settle until it`s fixed.

any help gratefully received.

Sam@ZWO

you can test like this at day time

start phd and connect camera though ASCOM

then click the menu "Tools-manual guider"

click the direction button to check if your mount moves

it may moves very slowly but you can still tell from the image

or you can download the lastest PHD2 which support ASI Camera natively

http://openphdguiding.org/snapshots.html

robert10

is there any way i can reset the cameras firmware back to how it was when it left the factory, still don`t seem to be having any joy with getting this camera to guide properly as it once did.

robert10

still no luck guiding properly last night,

i downloaded the new version of phd 2.3.0h but made no differance. i did get a few error messages now and again concerning the 2008 re distributable software saying error about something or other.

software i downloaded for my asi 120mm camera was,

asi firmware upgrade tool and upgraded it to verion 3 selecting the compatable option.

asi camera ascom setup v1.0.0.7 (ascom camera driver) as i`m using eqmod to pulse guide, is that right ?

and the asi 120mm mono camera driver asi 120mm setup v2.2

any help at all Sam would be gratefully received, spent almost 11 hours trying to get it to work as it once did.

Sam@ZWO

the firmware won't affect guiding

the firmware name without compatible is the firmware out of factory

guider doesnot work well may caused by unbalance of your mount.

its very easy to check if the camera's ST4 port works well or not if you have a multi meter.

measue the direction pins and the common pin, they will be connect together if you guide in that direction

robert10

thanks Sam for the help,

at the moment i`m not using the st4 port but am pulse guiding with eqmod

robert10

hi Sam,

can you tell me which of the firmware updates i should be installing please as i have 2,

one says asi 120mm.icc and the other asi 120mm-compatible.icc

i`m confussed as which to use.

i`m running a windows xp sp3 desktop with usb 2 ports on it.

here`s a picture of the files.

zwo fw update.JPG

Sam@ZWO

asi 120mm.icc is the default firmware

you should use it if you can preview successful

robert10

thanks Sam,

what is the asi 120mm.iic compatible file used for ?

also can you tell me where the drivers are or should be stored in windows xp for this device, i have one usb port using the older driver and when i switch usb ports that uses the newer driver.

not sure whats going on there.

thanks Rob

Sam@ZWO

there is some computer cann't install the driver properly.

so no image can be shown. then need to flash the compitable firmware if such problem happen.

don't bother about old driver and new driver.

the driver itself won't have problem if you can show the image properly.

there is dll which comunicate with driver. we usually update it instead of the driver

ky1duck

i am having the same problem after getting my asi120mc. using phd2 2.3.1 every thing worked great with my SSAG but after hooking up my new asi120mc. phd2 finds it hooks up great goes through the calibration just fine and starts guiding. but then the RA tracking stays almost flat and my DEC starts bouncing up and down like a yo-yo. never had this problem before and didn't make any other changes to equipment. just guide camera swap.

windows xp

asi120mc with orion 50mm guide scope

ascom 6.1

asicamera ascom driver 2.2.2014.717

asicamera ST4 Telescope ascom driver 1.0.0.3

ioprton iEQ45 mount

paulkccd

I had a similar problem with PHD2 and Losmandy Titan. After a few hours of experimenting, I found a PHD configuration that worked well: reduce maximum correction from 2000ms to 100ms in both, RA and DEC. This allowed me to guide for a number of hours with very good results with 0.2sec guide exposures. ASI120MM was mounted on a 80mm F/6 guide scope.

Regards,

-Paul

Sam@ZWO

there is some problem with native support of PHD2 V2.3.1

so you need to install the latest snapshot of PHD

http://openphdguiding.org/snapshots.html

paulkccd

Thank you, Sam! Andy told me that this fixes the problem when using ASI driver in PHD, but the problem remains in the ASCOM driver. Is this something that can also be fixed?

Regards,

-Paul

Sam@ZWO

Hi Paul

the ASCOM and native support should works

but there is a small delay with the ASCOM driver if PHD didn't read the image as quick as possible

robert10

hi Sam,

i`m trying to update the driver to the current version, but when i connect the camera and it looks for the driver i`m given this choice and i`m not sure what to do.

asi 120mm driver update.JPG

i`ve been selecting no and it seems to be showing the new driver in device manager, is this correct or should i be clicking yes ?

thanks,

Rob

Sam@ZWO

Hi rob

you can click yes to update the driver

robert10

when i clicked yes it through up a yellow question mark in device manager, seems to be a driver confussion, so i uninsulated the camera and old and new drivers in system 32/drivers and system 32/driverstore, reinstalled the new driver for the 120mm and the asi ascom driver, no problem loading the driver now but still doesn`t want to guide when using the asi ascom driver in phd 2.3.1

so after being disheartened i selected the zwo camera at the bottom of the list of cameras available in phd and that works spot on, i`ve now had some of the best graphs i`ve ever had in phd and no problems doing 20 minute sub lengths, so if anyone else having problems with this camera when guiding try the zwo camera option, worked for me.

Sam@ZWO

thanks for the feedback.

there is some problem with old driver. and seems you fixed it anyway.

that's good news PHD2 native support works now.

we will check the ASCOM problem