Celestron Dew Heater Controller and ASIAir

BigJRocksIt

I have the Celestron 4X Dew Heater Controller that powers my dew heaters, has multiple 12V outputs, and has multiple USB ports. This device simplifies my wiring and offloads a ton of power requirements from my ASIAir.

My main question is that I see people out there connecting USB hubs to the ASIAir that allows for other devices to be recognized by the ASIAir. Is this supported by ZWO? When I attempt to connect the USB3 cable from the Celestron to the Air, none of the ZWO devices connected to the Celestron hub show up on the Air.

Should this work?

BigJRocksIt

After some research I have found a potential bug with the ASIAir Plus.

It seems that if I attempt to connect my Celestron Dew Controller from its USB3 B connector to the ASIAir USB3 A connector, no connection is established with the connected devices on the dew heater hub,

If you connect the dew heater hub to a USB2 A connector on the ASIAir all devices are recognized correctly.

I've attempted to swap multiple cables and nothing changes the result. This appears to be a bug, and I'd like to understand what is happening. If I'm only able to connect to the USB2 port on the Air, I'll be losing bandwidth for all the devices to communicate.

Jay

Corsair

Could you please post a link to the Celestron product you are using?

Also - be aware that Celestron products (other than mounts) are not guaranteed to work with the ASIAIR.

To diagnose the USB 3.0 ports on your ASIAIR you should test out directly connecting your ZWO camera to the USB 3.0 port on the ASIAIR Plus to see if it detects it properly and can use it.

Or - get powered USB 3.0 Hub like the one from UGreen - and plug that into the USB 3.0 port on the ASIAIR and an external power supply (note: NOT the power output on the ASIAIR) then test if connecting equipment to that hub shows up on the ASIAIR.

If either of those two methods works for the two USB 3.0 ports on the ASIAIR Plus then the issue is not with the ASIAIR Plus.

BigJRocksIt

https://www.celestron.com/products/smart-dewheater-and-power-controller-4x

This device has a powered, USB 3.2, port that connects to the Air. It's no different in functionality than any other similar device that I can see.

I appreciate the response; however, I don't agree with your "it's the other guy's fault" approach. This issue with the USB ports on the Air is well documented; I'm not the only person to experience this behavior. Of course, if I take a single device and plug it in to a USB3 port on the Air it works as a singular device connection, but I think you're missing the point.

The point is that if I plug the Celestron hub into the USB2 port on the Air it works as expected. USB3.2 is backwards compatible with all existing USB standards and by design should work with the Air's USB3 ports, but it does not.

Maybe it's the PI platform, a hardware issue on the Air, or something else entirely. I'm simply calling out that I'm not the only customer to experience this behavior, and I'd like to have an official response on it.

Corsair

BigJRocksIt
**The point I made was that you have to really diagnose the issue before saying there's an issue. Not "the other guy's fault" approach at all. **

That's why I was saying to test out both USB 3 ports with a different , externally powered (so not powered by the ASIAIR power outputs AND not trying to be powered by the ASIAIR USB 3 ports which cannot supply power), USB 3 hub that's purely a usb hub and nothing else.

You also want to make sure the cable between the hub and the ASIAIR isn't longer than 0.5 metres.

If it works with a different, externally powered, usb 3 hub then you know the issue is with compatibility between the Celestron usb 3 interface and tthe ASIAIR usb 3 interface.

I'm also assuming that your Celestron unit is being powered by an extremal power supply and not attempting to draw power from the usb 3 port on the ASIAIR.

Now if it doesn't work for this test case then you potentially have a fault with your ASIAIR that you will need to log with ZWO here: https://support.zwoastro.com/

BigJRocksIt

Corsair

I apologize if you were not able to infer that I had accomplished this testing by plugging the hub into the ASIAir's USB 2.0 slot. Again, all devices came up as they should. The issue is that the USB 3.0 port does not behave the same as the USB 2.0 ports where it should.

I've tried multiple cables, all under .5 meters.
The Celestron device is externally powered.

And to further prove that the ASIAir is malfunctioning, I connected the same Celestron hub, in the same configuration, to my MELE 3 Mini-PC and it works as expected. No changes in cables, no changes in devices, simply connecting to my mini-PC running NINA.

Sadly, I think this is it for using the ASIAir. I'm not happy about it either. I love the platform and how easy it is to use, but as my device is out of warranty even if there is something wrong with it, ZWO won't fix it. The MELE is way more powerful, supports all of my ZWO devices, and cost less.