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Shutter motor - how do I make it run?

Ok, dumb question, but I'll ask. I installed my motor on the shutter and hung the changer on the magnetic contacts. At first I though the battery might be too low for the charger to do it's thing, but then I measured the voltage across the contacts and found 12.7 volts. So there is a charge on it. I'm still in the install process, and was trying to manually run the motor to get a few inches of the track rolled into it so I could mount that on the dome. I do have the power connector plugged in too, but nothing happens when I push the rocker switch. I don't have any magnets or dome rotator installed yet (I had the familiar double side tape issue - another topic!), so not sure if I'm missing something that needs to be in place?

74 comments

74 Comments

Ron Crouch

Nov 04, 2018

I would not try 2 yet. Will not work at all with ASCOM. Power supply is fine but when not rotating it drops to a low power mode.. I would replace but need a big fat plug to go into rotator. I do not want to cut the existing plus my other good 12V (5A mean well from Jameco) I use inside house to power camera when I bring scope inside.

Tom Gwilym

Nov 04, 2018

Replying to

I'll look at mine again closer. Ok, I'll stay away from 2.0 for now, I run ASCOM so it would need to connect to that. I'd be happy to beta test that when needed.

Ron Crouch

Nov 04, 2018

Regarding rotator voltate. If you are looking in POTH ASCOM setup->rotator and move the dome there like to calibrate to do a full turn you will the the voltage jump up to 12.6. When it stops it might drop. I'm convinced the power supply is a silly low-energy thing. If you are using 0.5.2.3 there is a tiny change needed in PDMShutterclass.h around if the way typedef struct is used. On line 138 change to:

} Configuration;

Configuration config;

Note the removal of the ; after the } and the next line setting config. without that there will be warnings about typedef when you compile PDBShutter.ino

Rodolphe showed me how to fix.

Just so you know I have tried latest "2.0" and it will not work for me so I stayed back on 0.5.2.3.

Ron

Tom Gwilym

Nov 04, 2018

Replying to

Ok, I'll check that also. So your power supply wasn't putting out 12v?

I'd give 2.0 a try, it's easy to go backwards if needed again. Is there a direct download for that somewhere?

Tom Gwilym

Nov 03, 2018

Just an update since I haven't reported here lately. I did replace the Arduino and the Xbee in the shutter motor. Tried it out and found it works! It was a problem with the Arduino that it came with (or maybe the Xbee transmitter?) Anyway, got it working. Still showing 4 volts on the rotator, but it runs, so I'll check out the solder connections on the shield and see if I find something odd.

Quite a learning experience, but I feel I have a good idea of how this thing runs now and learned more about the Arduino.

I tried programming it with Linux, but for some reason I kept getting errors when compiling the software. Put it back on windows and it worked. Still trapped in the Microsoft world for now.

Tom

Ron Crouch

Nov 03, 2018

Replying to

Great!! My rotator ALSO show low volts. It's the power supply. BE SURE to in POTH ascom preferences set in rotator low volt of like 0.5. If you do not it will zombie and require complete reboot of PC.

Tom Gwilym

Nov 04, 2018

Replying to

@Ron Crouch

Thanks, good idea! I'm a total bonehead, I finally figured out how the POTH works with everything. Connect it all to to POTH, then in whatever software links to devices, set to POTH - NOT Meade! Ugh...been doing it wrong for so long. Learning should go faster now that I'm not in Seattle skies now. Just need some warmer jackets for Wisconsin night (then run back in house and remote it). :-)

Rodolphe

Oct 28, 2018

•

just a quick post to show what voltage I see if I use test Arduinos that don't have the shield and 12V plugged in :

As you can see these are in line with an Arduino only powered by the usb port and the fact that some of you see there type of voltage instead of 12.xx V makes me think there is an issue with the shield (bad solder points ... ).

Rodolphe

Tom Gwilym

Oct 28, 2018

Replying to

Got the new one installed with the firmware. My experiment with Linux just wouldn't work. Something with folders and names. I think there may have been a permissions issue. Worked fine with Windows. I am getting the blinking Assoc LED on this one - the other wasn't blinking.

Next I'll swap it out and see what happens.

Tom Gwilym

Oct 27, 2018

I did just get my new Xbee and Arduino. I'll update that with the latest firmware and probably try putting that into the rotator, or just "shuffle" the cards but leave the current Arduino off since it seems to be showing the wrong voltage. I was trying to program it last night with Linux version of Arduino IDE, but just kept getting errors. I'll give in to Windows again and try that way.

Ron Crouch

Oct 27, 2018

Update! If ASCOM logs show constant "Serial Receive Short message (P)" at connect something is wrong even if ShutterState is returned as 1 (closed). After my re-cal of shutter this goes away. and I just see the constant reporting of that with no Short message (P)..

Ron Crouch

Oct 27, 2018

Hi Tom Hi Rodolphe,

Last night/this morning I had a similar event! Last night there were a couple of weather/cloud closure events and lost the shutter on the 2nd one. This morning I restarted things and looked and in ACP It was reporting ShutterError. Always look in Documents\ASCOM at the log!! The log showed that on dome closing (ShutterState =3) it never completed. Dome was closed but the magnetic switch had not been tripped! Just opened a little with the rocker then re-closed and the switch tripped OK. Now ACP Dome knew about it and all was well. So I opened dome slewed mount/rotator to Casper then ran the weather script manually. Dome put charging tabs on position, shutter closed but once again the state of "closing" never moved to "closed" in logs. So the shutter motor was stopping about 1/8" too high for magnetic switch. Charging tabs still reached.

Now the really witchy part.. We had tons of rain and the little gutter on dome under the shutter was of course full of water. I brushed that out. Now things worked. No way!! Anyway I redid the shutter calibration.. (with rocker open slightly, then close then immediately hold switch til fully open. Closed with switch and things are fine again. Yesterday I did mess with setting raincheck interval = 0 and it totally broke things. I set it back to 30. Maybe stuff got hosed.

For Tom my message is what do the ASCOM logs say when you connect to POTH and then wait about a minute? If you see a constant repeated "Serial Receive Short message (P)" followed by ShutterState Get Value (4) it means the shutter firmware cannot see either magnetic switch and is asking over and over.

Ron

Rodolphe

Oct 15, 2018

•

I dowloaded the release 0.5.2.3 (which inside is really version 0.5.2.2 of the firmware) and was looking at this code in our other conversation. The GitHub repo is on version 2.0.0.0 so a lot has changed there.

You would need to checkout an earlier version before the 2.0.0.0 changes we committed (and I'm about to commit my fixes for the XBee stuff).

If you want the 0.5.2.2 from git you need to do :

git checkout d21df2048b9977c12f97d11eb6451bcf949c05ed

This is the commit id of the last version before 2.0.0.0

this checkout will give you exactly the same code as the 0.5.2.3 zip file. You also need to disable logging before uploading or it will break a bunch of stuff as it sends spurious debugging info in the middle of the rest of the commands/responses.

Rodolphe

Oct 17, 2018

•

Replying to

@Ron Crouch

As I said .. if it ain't broken, don't fix it.

If you want to send your current zip file to Tom, go ahead, the more datapoint we have to troubleshoot his issue the better.

And no, you're not distracting me or Pat from dev :) . I do this as a hobby, I have a day job that is not related to anything astronomy :) (and I'm not working for NexDome either).

So if you get the git repo file, DO NOT OVERWRITE your working ones, just compare them to see if they are indeed the same as the zip file ones. DO NOT UPGRADE your controller if it's working.. at least not until version 2.0 is out and tested. The last thing we want is for you to break your working setup.

Rodolphe

Tom Gwilym

Oct 17, 2018

Replying to

@Rodolphe

Sure, send me whatever. I'd be happy to be a beta tester if Ron's is working and doesn't want to mess his up! I am quite computer saavy, but the command kind of lost me.

"git checkout d21df2048b9977c12f97d11eb6451bcf949c05ed"

Is that a checksum or some kind of download command for later versions from Github? I just probably need to google this, but haven't tried yet. I just need a URL to the lcoation of the latest .zip file and I'll grab it.

Oh, the new Xbee module arrived today. The Arduino should arrive tomorrow. Then I'll "shuffle" the card around and see what happens. :-)

Tom

Rodolphe

Oct 17, 2018

•

Replying to

@Tom Gwilym

The git checkout is checking out a specific commit ID from git that is the one that was used before some of the 2.0.0.0 code went in git and should match what's in the 0.5.2.3 zip file.

If you do a git log and look at the comment, the one before the 2.0.0.0 commit has the Id above :

commit 1bec67282497a4e1358798fae6bad2d73d2d3a78
Author: pmeloy <37521182+pmeloy@users.noreply.github.com>
Date:  Wed Aug 15 09:47:44 2018 -0700
All but radio initialization done
Having troubles with rotator radio initialization - keeps eating the first few commands regardless of how much delay I put in.
No time to work on it so if someone wants to take a stab at it, have at it!

commit d21df2048b9977c12f97d11eb6451bcf949c05ed (tag: 0.5.2.3)
Author: pmeloy <37521182+pmeloy@users.noreply.github.com>
Date:  Wed Jun 20 10:40:42 2018 -0700
Fixing international number handling
Low power consumption on Shutter, multi-language support, added settable rain check interval (checktwice not implemented)

As it's tagged you could also just do

git checkout 0.5.2.3

Thats would get you the same commit.

If you want the latest (2.0.0.0) code, git checkout master gets you to the head of the project.

Ron Crouch

Oct 15, 2018

Hello Tom & Rodolphe,

As you both know I have an installation of PDMNexdome which works and Tom has a version which does not work. I clone current Git version and start looking. I do this because in a conversation with Rodolphe regarding homing from ACP issues he referred me to lines in RotatorClass.h. I find the same lines in my WORKING installation at a significantly different line number. This means that what Tom and Rodolphe are looking at differs from what I am using. I had also sent a zip on the versions I installed to another NexDome user and his installation is happily working the same as mine.

There are significant differences in the files of what I will call my working installation and Tom's failing installation. There are discrepancies between Version as sated in file name versus declaration of version inside of the ino files which I am using. FileNAME says 5.2.3 but Version inside the file says 5.2.2. I had offered some time ago to send a zip of the installation which I and at least one other user know works.

My working RotatorClass.h is 761 lines long. The file I get if I clone master from Git is 771 lines long. Side by side in NotePad+ with Compare plugin running there are significant differences. So I offer one last time to put a zip of the files I have been using which I know work properly for the most part someplace accessible.

Finally. I will state once again that IMHO that the driver reporting of rotator voltage is a red herring. My drvier does exactly the same.. Varies between 5.4V and 12.6V typically. YET!! no failures ever!! If the voltage really was being reported properly no way would my dome work. I have also checked the soldering of those 3 voltage divider resistors on the shield and all is fine there. I would offer that something is amiss in the code which is reporting.

Best to all,

Ron

Ron Kramer

Oct 11, 2018

all this info is above my pay grade, but I'd first figure out why you're not getting 1250 ish power. You're way under and nothing will work right without proper power. 12v 4 amp recommended. Once rotator has proper power - then look for connection readings from the shutter.

Tom Gwilym

Oct 11, 2018

Replying to

True. Here is a summary of what does/doesn't work on the rotator:

- Rocker - motor works fine

- Goto [heading] in the POTH screen - doesn't work. I get an error (I forget at the moment what it says)

- Voltage - says 4-5 volts (not the 12.5+)

- Rotator controls (despite the low voltage) does operate in the setup screen with the directional controls.

Rodolphe

Oct 11, 2018

•

@Tom Gwilym

So as I was debugging the 2.0 firmware XBee issue I had an idea.. what if the XBee on the shutter wasn't properly configure or was used for something else before it was put on your board and is not on the right channel ...

So one thing to try :

On the rotator code, in the ConfigXBee function in PDMRotator.ino :

ATString = "ATCE0,ID7734,AP0";

ATString +=",CH0C,MY0,DH0,DLFFFF"; <--- Add this line

ATString += ",SM" + String(sleepMode, HEX);

On the shutter code, in the ShutterClass::ConfigXBee method in PDMShutterClass.h :

_ATString = "ATCE0,ID7734,AP0";

_ATString +=",CH0C,MY1,DH0,DLFFFF"; <--- Add this line

_ATString += ",SM" + String(_sleepMode, HEX);

This will force some value back to what is expected.

Compile, update both controller and try it out ...

This is juts a guess.. you still can have a defective Arduino or XBee module, but at least we would have tried our best from the software side.