RainbowAstro RST-135 works with the ASIAIR!

w7ay

Simply select RainbowAstro RST-150h as the mount model. It appears to also work with the RST-135.

I have been able to test slewing speed and directional buttons, and GOTO Target (tested with M101 as object). With M101 as target, the mount appears to slew to the correct location; I can't tell for sure without real stars, since it is pouring rain outdoors right now. But it looks right.

The tracking switch in the ASIAIR telescope settings window also turns tracking on the mount on and off.

GOTO Home position also works perfectly (the RainbowAstro 135 uses west horizon as the default home position, and the ASIAIR home button moves the telescope there).

The only thing I cannot test until the clouds clear are pulse guiding and a GOTO after plate solving. Since GOTO Target works, there is reason to expect a GOTO after a plate solve will also work. If not, I will post a follow-up message when there is a clear night. I will also post a followup if I find any problem with pulse guiding.

- chen

w7ay

Unfortunately, the ASIAIR appears to sometimes lose connection with the RST-135 after a GOTO. Perhaps it is not completely compatible with the RST-150h protocol that the ASIAIR uses?

- chen

Tech@ZWO

Hi chen

We will forward your problem to our development team.

Any further questions, do not hesitate to contact us.

w7ay

Jiang xian sheng,

It turns out the problem is caused by a failure in my RainbowAstro RST-135 mount itself. It is not a bug in ASIAIR.

After a few connection losses the other evening, the USB port finally completely failed (USB-RS232 was no longer seen). It stopped working not just for Raspberry Pi, but the FTDI port was also not found by MacOS X (IOKit) and Windows 10 (ASCOM). The mount's own self test (a yellow LED) also indicated a failure.

The RainbowAstro dealer (they are also a ZWO dealer -- Cloud Break Optics in Seattle, Washington) sent me a replacement printed circuit board. The replacement board arrived today, and after swapping out the old board, ASIAIR can now control my RainbowAstro RST-135 again.

I am currently using ASIAIR Beta 1.2 (iOS), and I now select the new "RainbowAstro RST/MC700GE-II)" menu item in Beta instead of the old "RainbowAstro 150h." Please convey my thank you to the development team for adding more complete support. So far, things are working (daytime testing, so I haven't tested everything yet).

The RST-135 (unlike RST-150h) also supports WiFi, but ASIAIR does not show that capability yet. Could your development team work with RainbowAstro to add WiFi as a connection mechanism between ASIAIR and the RST-135? It will reduce yet another cable. I am always available to beta test :-).

- chen

Tech@ZWO

Hi chen san:

"Add WiFi as a connection mechanism between ASIAIR and the RST-135"

In fact,the AIR can connect to some wifi_mount.We got an AZ_GTI（skywatcher）and it works perfectly with AIR

How it works：

1 to the AZ_GTI by the mount's APP(it's named SynScan )

2 wifi in the APP.(Input your ASIAIR wifi ID,password and change the IP from DHCP to static）

3 all the settings and exit the mout's APP（Example： SSID, Psaaword ststic IP：10.0.0.10）

4 on your ASIAIR,your AIR SSID should be ASIAIR_123456(same with your former settings)

5 Settings change to EQmod,choose Ethernet, input IP:(10.0.0.10),port:(11880) UDP (the port number and UPD/tcp mode depends on the mount Manufacturer)

I checked on the telescope settings,no "Ethernet mode"in rainbowastro RST/MC700GE-||.I will forward this to the development team

w7ay

Jiang xian sheng,

It looks like the RST-135 USB port failure is not related to the disconnects that I see from ASIAIR (iOS, ASIAIR Beta v1.2). There seems to be still a GOTO bug.

When I perform a GOTO from ASIAIR (e.g., GOTO Vega), the RST-135 mount successfully moves to Vega. However, all communications between ASIAIR and the RST-135 USB port is lost from that point onwards.

At that point, I cannot even shut down ASIAIR in the ASIAIR Settings window.

Interestingly, if I now connect the RST-135 (without rebooting it) USB port to a Windows machine, ASCOM thinks that the RST-135 is working.

I next tried to force quit the ASIAIR app on the iOS device (iPad Pro, iOS version 12.3.1), then relaunched ASIAIR app, but it will still not connect to the Rasberry Pi.

Without touching the mount, I next performed this sequence

- force quit ASIAIR app in iPad,

- powered the ASIAIR Raspberry Pi off,

- powered Raspberry Pi back on,

- connected to ASIAIR WiFi and relaunched ASIAIR,

After this, ASIAIR app now works. It connects successfully to the RST-135 mount (without repowering the mount), and it even shows where the mount is pointed (in my test, Vega. I am doing this in the daytime, so the camera is just seeing the wall of my room :-).

It looks like with the RST-135 ASIAIR Beta app on this iPad, the app is hung after a GOTO command from the ASIAIR Telescope window. The mount appears to be OK (as shown when I could reconnect to the mount after I rebooted the Raspberry Pi and relaunched ASIAIR app.

Slewing the mount using the direction keys does not cause the same disconnect problem. Only the GOTO Object function in the ASIAIR Telescope window has a problem.

Is there some log in the Beta release of ASIAIR that I can send to your development team to track this problem down?

- chen

(陈谷)

Tech@ZWO

Hi chen san

Appreciated for your feedback.

We will get an RST-150 in Mid-late June to debug.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

w7ay

Jiang xian sheng,

Could you please test with a RainbowAstro RST-135 instead of with the RST-150h? It is conceivable that the ASIAIR works correctly with the RST-150h, but not with the RST-135.

Is it also possible for you to send a ASIAIR to your partner at RainbowAstro? Perhaps they can tweak the RST-135 firmware to make the ASIAIR happy, if the problem happens to be a difference between the protocol details of the RST-150h and the RST-135.

The RST-150h is an older model that used a more expensive strain wave gear ("harmonic drive"). When I replaced the CPU board on my RST-135, the silkscreen markings on the board is specific to the RST-135, so there may be differences even though the 150h and the 135 bear close external resemblances and dimensions.

So far, I think there has only been one RST-135 manufacturing run in May 2019. So there may not be that many RST-135 around yet. But, because of the price difference, I think there will eventually be many more RST-135 than RST-150h. I am one of the lucky/unlucky ones to receive my RST-135 from that first manufacturing run :-).

RainbowAstro released new RST-135 firmware last weekend, but the new firmware is still freezing the ASIAIR whenever I perform a GOTO from ASIAIR (the new Star database in Beta 1.2 is very nice, by the way -- but the star names show up in the Telescope window in Chinese and not English)

Thank you for you attention to this, Mr. Jiang.

Chen

Portland, Oregon, USA (unfortunately, far away from both Suzhou and Seoul :-)

Tech@ZWO

Hi Mr. Chen

We only got the 150'S protocol at present and added it to Air,there might be some difference between “135” and “150".I will forward your require of "135" to our team.We have sent an Air to RST for testing, you will be informed immediately as soon as there is any update from RST.

"star names show up in the Telescope window in Chinese and not English"

Can you capture the screen?(I checked it and did not found the same problem with yours')

w7ay

Jiang xian sheng,

I have not found a way to include an image on this forum, so I uploaded an iPad screenshot to my web site:

http://www.w7ay.net/site/Images/Vega.png

Please see where the red arrow is pointing at after Vega is chosen as target object.

Best regards,

- chen

Tech@ZWO

Hi Mr.Chen

Oh,I saw it. :

The "Named Star"was new additions.

It has been fixed by our IOS developer.

thanks very much for your feedback

w7ay

Jiang xian sheng,

When your team gets a RainbowAstro mount to test, could they please also test the Home button in the Telescope Setup screen using iOS Beta v1.2?

The Home button works -- the mount slews successfully to home (horizon, west azimuth). But after that, the ASIAIR also loses connection with the mount and the app hangs, just like ASIAIR does after performing a GOTO.

By the way, GOTO fails not only with the Object database, but also when you manually enter a coordinate.

I suspect that all these problems are related.

Curiously, the slew button works without crashing, and ASCOM on a Windows PC can also execute a GOTO using the Stellarium program.

Best regards,

- chen

Tech@ZWO

Hi Mr.Chen

"I suspect that all these problems are related"=>Completely agree with you,We got same feedback of 150S'.

The 150 should arrive shortly, please be patient.

Tech@ZWO

Hi Mr.Chen

The RST150 will arrive the week after next.

Thank you for waiting.

RST150.JPG

w7ay

Very good, Jiang xian sheng!

When there is a fix, could you please submit it to iOS TestFlight? I use iPads with ASIAIR.

Thanks,

- chen

Tech@ZWO

HI Mr.Chen

The RST150 arrived.

We will debug on it by the schedule.

Thanks again for your testing and waiting.

RST150H.jpg

w7ay

>> The RST150 arrived.

Wow, you have the better RainbowAstro RST-150h mount -- I only have the RST-135, ha ha.

A big difference is that the newer (and cheaper) RST-135 supports WiFi from the hand controller, but RST-150h does not (yet) support WiFi. So you may not be able to implement WiFi connection between ASIAIR and the RainbowAstro mounts.

I hope you can quickly find the crash after a GOTO in the Telescope Setup window. It happens to my RST-135 every time after I perform a GOTO in ASIAIR. The mount slews to the right location, but after it finished slewing, ASIAIR loses connection with the mount. The mount's USB port itself is not dead at that point, since I can connect a PC to it without having to reboot the mount.

My RST-135 is also still at Rainbow Robotics' Las Vegas office to get the altitude bolt updated. I apologize in advance in case you release a beta that fixes the problem, and I cannot test right away.

Thanks, and have fun with the strain wave gears -- you really do not need counterweight, and no need to balance the OTA on the mount either, as long as the tripod does not topple over :-). Hobym in Korea also have strain wave gear mounts, but Hobym supports the LX200 protocol, so presumably already works with ASIAIR.

Cheers,

Chen