CAA Questions: Page 3 - ZWO User Forum

CAA Questions

KaRh41BI

I've been waiting for the ZWO CAA for a while and always made it by with DIY rotators. I finally got one a few weeks ago and I am so disappointed.

First of all, the advertised pointing precision is meaningless when there's a constant 1-2 degrees of backlash/slop in the unit itself. It seriously WIGGLES back and forth. And it's not just my unit - several in our local group have purchased and are now selling their CAA units for just this reason.

ASCOM integration is awful. Relative/absolute positioning is incredibly poorly defined and the logic between how and when the unit decides to move CW or CCW is far from intuitive and not spelled out anywhere I can find.

And what is the comment about there being a 'mechanical' zero position that the CAA can't cross? I've seen this thing spin the SAME WAY several times over 360 degrees and thoroughly wrap cables into an absolute mess.

The product was promised a long time ago and took forever to come out but still feels incredibly rushed. Slop in the hardware and buggy/incomplete software MONTHS after release is unacceptable. I already moved away from ZWO on all my other rigs and I'll be selling the CAA now as well. I'll go back to DIY or maybe a Falcon.

KB1911

ZWO Studio v1.15 had the option to set a new 0,
but that was removed in v1.15.1.

kotka

ZWO - any solution on the way to protect us from cabling issues?

I’m so tired to see the picture like this every night:

Tech@ZWO

kotka what software you used to control CAA? ASIAIR or others? could you submit a bug report in ASIAIR If you use it?
CAA has a machine limition position, so should not have this issue, maybe we can figure out the problem via the log, thanks.

KB1911

Are you using AA or ascom? I am using N.I.N.A with no problems.

kotka

Tech@ZWO

Hi, I use AsiAir. My scope is in remote observatory, shall you need log - just let me know how I can get it out of AsiAir

KB1911

Tech@ZWO

Is there any way to download ASI Studio v15.1? It had the Edit option for the Current Position, which allowed changing the Zero position of the CAA.

Tech@ZWO

KB1911 Sorry, It's a immature function so we removed it. it can not remember correspondence between the mechanic angle and plate solve angle, when the users plugged the CAA, the angle will be changed, which will cause some confusions.
May i ask what is your use case for this function? We're currently optimizing the CAA function, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Tech@ZWO

kotka If so, can you please submit a bug report in the ASIAIR APP(About -> bug report), it will auto include the log inside it. thanks.

tomas-kocanda

Hi friends
can you share some info about fixing above issues? Its mentioned many times here and at the FB groups including official ZWO Astro group bu no real response.
As I mentioned several times (and others too), users with anything else then refractors cannot use flats shooted with different angle then lights. Not only is not clear, what angle has been shooted each flat (especially with strange rotations what does not solve the 180° limit option in current beta or current full version of AsiAir), but mainly with fact, that shooted flats is impossible to identify what angle been used when the flats series been shooted. For stacking its real pain. Probably best would be to include CAA angle in the name of any file (flats, lights..) so will be immediatelly visible in WBPP or other stacking sw, that those lights are with 124° angle and it need matching angle flats identified by degree value in name. Or flats can be grouped by angle in sub-folders and easy group renamed before processing. Its real pain to return from shooting and guessing what flats are what angle as there is no way how to identify it other the exact shooting time and written notes. Maybe even autorun logs with this info would help too. But easiest will be simply ... aXXXd somewhere in the filename (like a124d) what would identify that those files angle is 124 degrees.
Here is quick example from SCA260 scope, what is super cassegrain - rotations by 90°. Impact on flats is massive.
Please let us know the progress. Many of my friends (mainly with RC or newtonian scopes) decided to not buy CAA until this will be solved.

Tech@ZWO

tomas-kocanda Thank you for your feedback, we have added the ' files name including the angle' requirement into the todo list, for the flat requirement, I forwarded to our team. thanks.

tomas-kocanda

[unknown]
photo was not possible to upload 🙁

Grignesco

The 180 degree limit with Asiair sometimes does not work, the behavior is random.
I have now done 20 sessions with the CAA and I have verified that sometimes everything goes well and when the meridian changes the CAA stays in its place. Other times the CAA decides on its own to rotate, despite the 180 setting.
Now I limit myself to using it to remotely center the frame and then disconnect it to avoid trouble. Unfortunately in this way I give up subjects with mixed vertical and horizontal frames.
The software with unreliable behavior absolutely needs to be resolved.

Tech@ZWO

Grignesco Sorry for the trouble, could you please submit a bug report in ASIAIR if the limition does not work next time? the log will help us to analyze and locate the issue. thank you.

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