Connecting Celestron CG5 Advanced GT

bonorden

I was able to connect my Celestron CPC to the Asiair...however, I’m having difficulties connecting my CG5 Advanced GT. I’m guessing it is because there is no USB on the hand controller (it has the serial connector...I’m using the adapter to turn it into a USB).

Anybody else able to connect the CG5 via a serial hand controller?

Thanks,

Jeff

Sam@ZWO

did you do 3 or 2 stars alignment at first?

bonorden

I did a three star alignment. But the Asiair doesn’t “see” the mount...only the cameras.

bonorden

Bump? I’d really like to use the Asiair with the CG5.

tcampbell

Did you get this resolved?

Older Celestron Nexstar hand-controllers have a modular jack on the back-side of the hand-controller which is the serial port. Newer Celestron NexStar controllers now use a USB jack. Which hand-box do you have?

bonorden

I have the older one with the modular jack (serial connection). I hope the only solution is to buy a hand controller with a USB port. These controllers aren’t cheap.

wvreeven

You should be able to buy a so called FTDI cable which are much cheaper than a new hand controller. One caveat is that you need to find one that works with Linux. Most of the cheaper ones are not compatible with Linux even if they work on Windows. I haven't used one in many years so unfortunately I cannot advise which one to buy but perhaps someone else on this forum can.

HTH, Wouter

bonorden

I found one on Amazon that stated it is FTDI and works with Linux.

I’ll find out in a couple of days if that solves it.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Jeff

bonorden

No luck with the FTDI cable.

Any other ideas?

Anyone else with a CG5 with a non-usb hand controller get theirs to work?

Thanks,

Jeff

wvreeven

Can you elaborate on the issue with the FTDI cable? What exactly didn't work?

bonorden

The cameras are recognized by the asiair...but the cg5 gets the error message “connection failed”.

I’ve tried all Celestron type mounts in the asiair selection/options. All come back with the same error message.

My CPC connects without issue.

tcampbell

Do you have the Celestron #93920 cable?

https://www.celestron.com/products/nexstar-rs-232-cable

This cable plugs into the modular jack on your Nexstar hand controller and provides the RS-232 serial DB-9 Female connector which will attach to the DB-9 Male connector supplied with the ASIair.

The RS-232 standard for the 9-pin connector (and earlier DB-25 cables) had many pins that served some function in the days before UARTs (Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter chips) were available. But today the UARTs do most of the heavy lifting and the only pins that are really used anymore are the "transmit", "receive" and "ground" pins ... just 3 of the 9 pins are used.

Pin #5 is ground. On the "male" side pin 3 is transmit and pin 2 is receive. On the "female" side, pin 3 is receive and pin 2 is transmit.

While that part is "standard" ... each vendor does their own proprietary thing when decided how those pins map to the modular jack that plugs into the scope or hand-controller. It's really not possible for ZWO to supply all the possible connectors because there are so many of them.

They supply the interface that gets you to the DB-9 male connector ... and you have to supply the cable that gets you from the DB-9 female connector to whatever it is your scope needs. (Some scopes are supported via direct USB and don't need the RS-232 DB-9 adapters).

Hopefully the correct cable will resolve the issue. If it does not ... you may need to contact Celestron.

I'm not sure about Celestron ... but some scopes don't leave the serial port enabled at all times (some don't enable it until after the star alignment is completed.)

bonorden

I have that cable but hadn’t tried it.

I just tested without success...however, it is daylight now. I’ll try tonight after an alignment and see if that makes any difference.

Thanks for the suggestion,

Jeff