How to disable beeping of am3 mount

Astrop

I've replied in the post "am5 beep too loud" but no one from @support have responded. The last reply from @ASIMount@ZWO was over two years ago, I've just acquired an am3 and even when muting settings in the asiair under mount settings, and in the Stargazing app, the mount still makes constant beeping when undervoltage power is supplied, I use batteries so this cannot be avoided so easily. As a user of such a mount I should have the option to use it silently as you know, it's intended to be used at night when most people are asleep.

My Skywatcher and ioptron mounts don't do this, so why does my am3???

support

Hello, I'm sorry for the unpleasant experience, if your equatorial instrument makes a continuous beep, it indicates that your power supply is under voltage, and you should not continue to use it at this time.
Undervoltage of the power supply may cause abnormal goto, abnormal operation of the device, and damage to the device.
Please replace the mobile power supply with a continuous 12V output before use.
I will also report this issue to the product manager to optimize this aspect of the design.

Astrop

support it was stated in January 2023 by zwo in this thread that the mount beep can be muted, doing so doesn't mute the noise:

https://bbs.zwoastro.com/d/14922-am5-beep-too-loud/13

I'm aware that proper power works, it's that with my setup I usually use batteries so I want to make it mute, it continues to function fine with no issue under voltage. All my other mounts do too, and they don't make noises to notify me of the issue.

Why can't the beep be turned off with the am3??? It's a simple question you haven't answered.

ASIMount@ZWO

Astrop I am so sorry for your trouble, The design intention of "muting off" is to prevent your equipment from being damaged or shooting failure due to unnoticed low voltage beep during shooting, which would be a very serious accident. Would you accept if we reduce the current beep sound to a sufficiently low level to avoid disturbing those around you instead of completely "muting off"?

Astrop

ASIMount@ZWO Would you accept if we reduce the current beep sound to a sufficiently low level to avoid disturbing those around you instead of completely "muting off"?

It needs to be very very quiet if so, quieter than the asiairs quietest beep setting as even that's quite loud in the middle of the night.

ASIMount@ZWO

Astrop I see. we will optimize the feature asap to give users a good experience.

Astrop

ASIMount@ZWO or another option if it's possible to implement is to make one of the LEDs flash slowly on and off, there's one under the power button I believe which would be a logical place, at least a user can tape over it if a blinking led is a problem. The issue with sound is it's more difficult to muffle, some people might have a usage scenario where a neighbours window may be mere metres away.

ASIMount@ZWO

Astrop good idea .

Astrop

Just to update, this request was implemented in the latest mount firmware so thanks ZWO for listening.

24H1d3p0

thank you for this update, i found this post when looking for the same "problem".

my question:
at what minimal voltage will it really become harmful to the motor controller/gearing?
i noticed the beeping at 11.3Volts, which is a pretty normal voltage for a battery pack when its not "empty" at all yet.

i design hardware myself, and we chose a battery threshold of 10.7V before we alarm if i'm correct,

I don't mind beeping alarms if they are really necessary, maybe the voltage alarm threshold can just be lowered?

cheers, tony

ASIMount-ZWO

24H1d3p0 The design of the voltage threshold for ASIMount depends on the required operating voltage of the AM and the potential loss caused by external connecting cables. Currently, 10.7V is the lowest voltage value we can design.