Hi.
Thank you for the great project.
I made a version with manual buttons and I have several questions:
- when i use manual control, change position of the focus is not displayed in the control program. Is it normal?
- Slow motion speed of the focuser in manual mode is good, but how to increase it to move the focuser to a long distance?
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Hi
Yes, the application has no way of knowing that the position has changed.
BUT
if you were to change the position by pressing the buttons, then click on the app Move +100 button, what happens is the app queries what the position is BEFORE doing the move - so in this way it knows it has moved!
You can always turn on the refresh update position timer.
Slow motion - No. Sorry. The push buttons are only effective for small distances when you are fine tuning the best focus position, not for making huge moves. You would need to rewrite the push button logic if you wanted to do that - for instance if its held down for more than 10s then jump 10steps instead of 1, BUT, there is always a trade off, add more code, impacts on response etc, if its too busy processing push buttons it might not have time to respond to something else
I and others have attempted in the past to add this code feature with minimal success. One such mod I believe was to wire a switch to one of the spare input pins and if that switch was on the PB would increase by steps * 10 rather than 1 step.
Most users would have the focuser set to near focus position as the focus position is saved
in eeprom and restored when the controller reboots. So there is no need to home the focuser each time.
See attached zip file for the switch idea - the focuser ino code though is many versions behind but you can get the idea and make the necessary changes to the latest 277 firmware?
You will however run into issues with the switch idea - holding down the PB triggers a move by 10, so if you keep holding the PB down there are more and more triggers for move +10, and the focuser can only step so fast - you quickly reach the point where u release the button but the focuser is playing catchup will all the Move +10 requests that it will end up keeping moving long after the button release. You never get something for nothing. Sometimes its best to change how one is using the focuser than making the focuser behave the way one desires.... (due to limitations in hardware and logic)
Hi.
Thank you for the great project.
I made a version with manual buttons and I have several questions:
- when i use manual control, change position of the focus is not displayed in the control program. Is it normal?
- Slow motion speed of the focuser in manual mode is good, but how to increase it to move the focuser to a long distance?
Hi
Yes, the application has no way of knowing that the position has changed.
BUT
if you were to change the position by pressing the buttons, then click on the app Move +100 button, what happens is the app queries what the position is BEFORE doing the move - so in this way it knows it has moved!
You can always turn on the refresh update position timer.
Slow motion - No. Sorry. The push buttons are only effective for small distances when you are fine tuning the best focus position, not for making huge moves. You would need to rewrite the push button logic if you wanted to do that - for instance if its held down for more than 10s then jump 10steps instead of 1, BUT, there is always a trade off, add more code, impacts on response etc, if its too busy processing push buttons it might not have time to respond to something else
I and others have attempted in the past to add this code feature with minimal success. One such mod I believe was to wire a switch to one of the spare input pins and if that switch was on the PB would increase by steps * 10 rather than 1 step.
Most users would have the focuser set to near focus position as the focus position is saved
in eeprom and restored when the controller reboots. So there is no need to home the focuser each time.
See attached zip file for the switch idea - the focuser ino code though is many versions behind but you can get the idea and make the necessary changes to the latest 277 firmware?
You will however run into issues with the switch idea - holding down the PB triggers a move by 10, so if you keep holding the PB down there are more and more triggers for move +10, and the focuser can only step so fast - you quickly reach the point where u release the button but the focuser is playing catchup will all the Move +10 requests that it will end up keeping moving long after the button release. You never get something for nothing. Sometimes its best to change how one is using the focuser than making the focuser behave the way one desires.... (due to limitations in hardware and logic)
Cheers
Robert
Last edit: brownrb 2018-10-29
Thank you, everything is clear.