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Edited: Jan 02, 2021

Shutter not connecting

Has anyone had issues with their shutter motor connecting? I can use the rocker to Open/close the shutter, but I cannot connect to it via ascom. In the putty terminal I see an endless repeat of XB->WaitAT, XB->Config,XB->Detect. I have power cycled it all a few times too. Seems like the wireless/bluetooth link is not establishing. @FRR returns 3.3.0 and @FRS returns nothing. I will send an email to Babak, but want to check here quick if I am missing something easy.

14 comments

14 Comments

Steven Green

Feb 23, 2021

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Many people have had connection issues. In my case my shutter motor was wired incorrectly. I suggest you take the motor housing off, two #4 small screws on top and two on the bottom. Take a photo of the boards on the right side of the unit, so you can see the color of the wires and the connection designators and send it to Babak at sales@nexdome.com and have him verify the wiring. In my case the wires were upside down. Here is how my motor is now wired.

Steven

neuropa3

Feb 22, 2021

Thanks I have cycled 4 times still not connecting.

Pete Mumbower

Feb 23, 2021

Replying to

@neuropa3 sometimes it reconnects on the first try, sometimes it has taken more than 4 cycles. It is frustrating when it takes a while. How are you checking that it is connected? I use PuTTy (free software) to connect to the rotator com port and when it connects, the XB->Online will appear.

neuropa3

Feb 22, 2021

thanks I will give that a try.

Pete Mumbower

Feb 21, 2021

@neuropa3 what I have found is sometimes it takes a few power cycles (turn off/on) the shutter motor power switch before it connects to the rotator and you can then control it via ASCOM. So what I suggest is turn off the shutter, wait 30s, turn it back on, wait up to 10min and if it has not connected, start these steps over. Once it connects, it stays connected until the shutter is turned off. Which you really should not have to do unless you run on battery's.

neuropa3

Feb 21, 2021

Also I make it move up and down with the rocker switch.

neuropa3

Feb 21, 2021

My Shutter will not connect either, I have updated firmware to the 4.0 still will not connect. I am using the new nexdome program rotator will connect and i can move dome. Nothing from shutter. All the stuff you all were talking about is Greek to me. I am computer savay but not that savay. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

cauchy

Jan 17, 2021

I am having the same problem. Able to issue @FRS to the shutter via USB directly and get the version back. Can you provide some more details about what you did?

Did you have to replace the shutter and rotator XBEE(s)?
What version of XBEE(s) did you go with?
Is the custom firmware available somwhere?
I've updated to 4.0.0 already, wondering if downgrading would be an issue with the custom firmware.

Pete Mumbower

Jan 17, 2021

Replying to

I just upgraded to 4.0.0 today and had the same issue again with the rotator and shutter XBee not taking. I tried so many different things tonight. I did end up getting them to talk. The only thing I did was power cycle the shutter unit a few times. Finally it connected. So basically power it down for 60s and turn it back on. Terminal into the rotator and wait a max of 15min to see if they start talking. If not, repeat above. That is the best advice and tip I got currently that seems to work.

cauchy

Jan 17, 2021

Replying to

@Pete Mumbower

Thanks I'll give that a try. Do you see the Rx and Tx lights blink on the shutter next to the micoUSB connection? I have yet to see those blink. I'm assuming those are for the XBEE connection.

Pete Mumbower

Jan 17, 2021

Replying to

@cauchy I only see those lights blink when the USB cable is plugged in. My best check is using a terminal program(Putty for me) and connecting to the rotator via the com port. When it is connected you will see: XB->Online and the shutter voltage (:BV920# for example) instead of the endless loop of XB->WaitAT, XB->Config,XB->Detect. As for your other questions above. 1) When I was having the problem initially, I emailed Babak and he offered to ship me replacement XBee, so I would do that first.

2) With mine, the rotator has a series 1 with the external antenna attached to the board, the shutter has a series 3 with the antenna built into the board. At the least, I would order exactly those. Exact match for the rotator series 1 seems to be hard to find.

3) The custom firmware is actually a hex to clear the memory. It is on the NexDome github site under the wiki area for troubleshooting. It is part of the troubleshooting step to first clear everything and then upload a fresh hex for either the shutter or rotator. From what I understand now, the recent shutter and rotator hex clear the memory as a first step.

4) As per above the custom firmware is just to delete/clear out whatever is in the eeprom. So I do not think being on 4.0.0 will be an issue with that. The only issue I can think of is you will need to uninstall the ASCOM driver and downgrade that also since the ASCOM driver and firmware are specific to each major version (3.x/4.x)

Pete Mumbower

Jan 06, 2021

Back to wrap this thread up. I am now able to connect to the shutter via the XBEE. I got in contact with Tim Long who wrote the current code. After some checks, he had me upload a custom firmware hex that clears all the code out. Then I downloaded and uploaded the latest 3.3.0 hex firmware for the shutter from the github repo. At first nothing was happening. So I took a break and came back to see it was connected. It must of took 10-15min for the XBEE to connect. But it has been solid since.

Pete Mumbower

Jan 03, 2021

Morning update: I checked that both the Xbee modules were seated properly for the Rotator and Shutter, they are. I also swapped the two and still the same, no connection being created. Does not seem like a lot of activity here on the forums, so I will wait to hear from Babak. But I will also order a new Xbee to swap out. I wonder if the issue is because the Xbee are from different series? 3 vs 1? I read online that might cause issues.

Pete Mumbower

Jan 03, 2021

Further update: I connected to the shutter via USB and can run the @FRS to get 3.3.0 as a return. I also can issue the open shutter and close shutter command and those work fine. So for some reason the XBee on the rotator and shutter are not communicating. I looked at both XBee boards and the Rotator has an antenna and the Shutter does not. Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.