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Focuser fails to connect

General Discussion
Luca Amerio
2021-11-03
2021-11-05

  • Luca Amerio

    Luca Amerio - 2021-11-03

    Hi Everybody
    I received a MFP2 from a fellow astrophotographer who was giving away its equipment. It is based on a 28BYJ-58 motor controlled with a ULN2003APG board.

    I watched few videos on YouTube from the official list and installed a bunch of drivers (ASCOM, CH340) and the two clients (ASCOM and "normal").

    I'm not sure I installed everything, so please point me in the right direction if you think I might have missed something.

    However, when I open the client "myFocuserPro2 2.4.8.8", I select the COM port and then I click "Connect" I receive two error messages:
    1) Timeout Exception in ReceiveResponse: No response from controller.
    2) Error: No response from controller

    The controller is connected to a 12V power source and one of the four lights (D) turned on.

    Is there anyone that would be so kind to help me debug this and understand how to fix it?

    Thank you very much
    Luca

     

  • brownrb

    brownrb - 2021-11-04

    Please do the following steps
    connect the controller to your computer with a USB cable
    If you have not installed the Arduino IDE then do that now (you cannot use the web based version for this, you have to download 1.18.6 and install it
    Once installed
    Start the Arduino IDE

    Select Tools, Port and set the port to that used by the controller
    Then
    Open the serial port monitor (top right) and set the port speed to 9600
    In the bottom right setting box make sure it says no line feed/carriage return

    In the top text box type
    :04#
    then click send (do not press enter key)
    if it is a myfp2 controller it will respond with
    Fxxxxxxxxx,
    xxxxxxxxx#
    where the first group of x's is the controllername and the second set of x;x the firmware version number

    If you got that answer then it is a myfp2 controller

    If there was no response
    try typing
    :GF#
    and this will give the same info if it is a myfp controller (a version 1 controller)

    If either gives no answer, then the list of reasons is long as to what that might be.

     

  • Luca Amerio

    Luca Amerio - 2021-11-04

    Hi brownrb, thank you very much for your help.

    I did what you suggested and I got the following responses:
    :04# -> FmyFP2ULN \n 291#
    :GF# -> P19500#

    (\n stands for new line as the response was split on two lines)

    PS: I'm using Arduino IDE v.1.8.16, not 1.18.6. Was yours a typo? I don't think version 1.18.X exists.

     

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