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FocusCube2 Edge8 not enough steps

Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2023 3:32 pm
by mjoop
Hi all.

I have a FocusCube2 on my Edge 8, and I think I'm missing something. The focus knob will go through 45-1/2 rotations for the full mirror travel. My FocusCube2 uses over 43,000 steps for one rotation. If I set 0 at 1-1/4 turns in, and let the max limit go to 44-1/4 turns so that the motor doesn't go beyond the mirror limits, that yields over 1,800,000 steps for the full travel. The Unity software has no problem with that. ASCOM (v.6.6) and N.I.N.A. (2.1) do have a problem. They limit the max to 999,999. At f/10, my focus point for photography is around 1,200,000. I know that I could simply change this to a position of 500,000 and be happy ... at f/10; but I haven't tried to use this at f/6.3 (I use the Optec Lepus reducer) or with my HyperStar at f/2 yet, so I don't know where their focus points will end up, and changing positions arbitrarily doesn't make for easily finding focus points when switching focal lengths. It doesn't seem to be a limitation of the Pegasus driver, since the Unity software is fine with going well beyond 1,000,000.

What do folks do about this limitation of ASCOM/N.I.N.A.? Is there a way of saying to the driver that 5 motor steps gets reported as 1 step to ASCOM/N.I.N.A.? That would still seem to give fine enough control for an excellent focus, no (8,600 steps/revolution)? Do folks who use the Edge at f/10, f/7, f/6.3 and f/2 both photographically and visually find a zero point that works for all of them - if so, where is that point? What am I missing here? It'd be great if ASCOM/N.I.N.A. would simply add a digit to the max limit field, but I don't hold out much hope that that would ever happen.

Thank you.
Mike.

Re: FocusCube2 Edge8 not enough steps

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2023 8:33 pm
by Evans
I think there is a limit on the ASCOM driver of nearly 1 million steps. I never thought that someone would need more.
Will check how we can increase the limit to 2mil.