Pegasus Astro Forum

If Im reading this right, the bug is in v1.4.1 AND the fix for the bug is in v1.4.1.

Is this correct? If v1.4.1 changes due to bug fix, shouldn't the revision roll to 1.4.2?

Think it's meant to say that earlier versions than 1.4.1 has the bug and that 1.4.1 contains the fix.

I updated to 1.4.1 when it was available (a little less than a week or so ago?). I am still experiencing disconnects when connected via the Powerbox, but not when cabled directly to the PC.
It's not ideal and not what I wanted, and not how I wanted to use the FC3, but it works as a workaround while waiting for additional fixes.

I believe it was just a typo from Evans - I reproduced what he told me verbatim.

What he was saying was that they found a memory leak associated with the wifi function - which also caused FC3 disconnects even if you were not using the FC3 wifi facility. In my case - I was using USB thru PPBAdv and getting random disconnects. in firmware release 1.4.1 they patched this memory leak.

I have to say - since I upgraded to 1.4.1 last night I've ran the system for 10hrs with no disconnects.

Wheeljack are you using the exact same cable to connect to the PC that you were using for the PPB connection?

When I first purchased the FC3 I had a really annoying intermittent connection issue with it - turned out to be the USB cable! Brand new short cable, decent quality - but my connection issues at that time were solved by going back to the cable that PegAstro provided with the cube. I'm sure you've explored this, but just in case...

Kubit wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2024 11:08 pm Wheeljack are you using the exact same cable to connect to the PC that you were using for the PPB connection?

When I first purchased the FC3 I had a really annoying intermittent connection issue with it - turned out to be the USB cable! Brand new short cable, decent quality - but my connection issues at that time were solved by going back to the cable that PegAstro provided with the cube. I'm sure you've explored this, but just in case...

Earlier I attempted to swap cables with my imaging-camera. Same disconnects happened with the focuser, so I swapped back. Though, now that you mention it, that was prior to the recent firmware update, so I might try again now - just in case. The cable I use is a brand new Lindy-cable also of good quality, but there is a theoretical possibility that it might be broken of course.

Your success-story kinda gives me hope.

Was able to test for a couple of hours yesterday. Tried no less than 3 different cables (two of which were brand new), and experienced disconnects on all of them. Just to rule out my Powerbox, I switched ports there too, and the same thing happened.
Switched cables back to the PC and it worked again.

In the testing that I've done, I have consistency only when a USB cable from FC3 connects to a port on the mini-pc.

I've had other things go wrong as well, the result being that we think I have a bad board in my FC3. Pegasus support is shipping another one that will be here in a week. Hoping this will clear up all of the issues.

PaulH wrote: ↑Wed Jan 31, 2024 5:14 pm In the testing that I've done, I have consistency only when a USB cable from FC3 connects to a port on the mini-pc.

I've had other things go wrong as well, the result being that we think I have a bad board in my FC3. Pegasus support is shipping another one that will be here in a week. Hoping this will clear up all of the issues.

Yes, Evans offered me the same thing and I think I'm going to take him up on that.
I will say that Pegasus support in this matter has been great.

Agreed. Pegasus is a great brand. I have a Falcon Rotator, in addition tot he UPBv2 and FC3. Solid brand, excellent product performance, and top-notch support.

Falcon Rotator is probably gonna be my next big astro-purchase too.

Please update when you've received the new board and have been able to test it. If that solves the issues you had with the FC3, I'll ask them to send me one as well.

The new board shipped from Pegasus Support arrived today. It took 5 days to arrive, which is a land speed record, I believe.

I installed the board (easy to do), put the FC3 back on the Esprit, connected everything on the mount inside the house, and powered up.

I've done about 90 minutes of testing with the newest Unity, the Hand Controller, and NINA. I connected the FC3 USB port using the cable it shipped with to a) the mini-pc, and b) the UPBv2 port. Then I connected my 6-inch cable from the FC3 to the power box. Moving the focuser in and out with the HC, Unity, and NINA all worked smoothly with each other with 0 disconnections.

It appears that this has solved all of my issues. Big thanks to @Evans for making it happen!

Now if only it quit raining...

Jumping on this stream. I'm a new user of this focuser after having years of good experiences with other Pegasus products. I'm a Mac user using Kstars/EKOS via a RPi which acts as an INDI server. I have loaded the proper INDI drivers and cannot get the focuser to connect. Thinking the firmware might be a problem I've tried to update the focuser firmware from 1.1 to 1.4.1 but the Pegasus software is Windows based and, of course, I run a Mac (if anyone knows how to upgrade the firmware on this device any other way, I'm all ears). I've tried using Parallels and Windows 11, and after installing the Pegasus software and the required ASCOM software I can control the focuser from my Mac. Of course this isn't what I wanted but it was a path to getting the firmware upgraded. After many attempts I get nothing but error messages during the Unity upgrade process and I'm still on Pegasus firmware 1.1. Does anyone have this focuser and have you gotten it to work with Indi/EKOS? When I try to get it to work in Indi/EKOS, it just fails to establish a connection. I've played with ports (Including the one that calls out this focuser specifically) and so far, no luck.

I'm running Stellarmate OS on an RPi 4 and using it as an INDI server. I am running Kstars/EKOS on a Mac where I actually control the system.

Any insights would be very welcome.

Cheers,
Fred

PaulH wrote: ↑Sat Feb 03, 2024 10:02 pm The new board shipped from Pegasus Support arrived today. It took 5 days to arrive, which is a land speed record, I believe.

I installed the board (easy to do), put the FC3 back on the Esprit, connected everything on the mount inside the house, and powered up.

I've done about 90 minutes of testing with the newest Unity, the Hand Controller, and NINA. I connected the FC3 USB port using the cable it shipped with to a) the mini-pc, and b) the UPBv2 port. Then I connected my 6-inch cable from the FC3 to the power box. Moving the focuser in and out with the HC, Unity, and NINA all worked smoothly with each other with 0 disconnections.

It appears that this has solved all of my issues. Big thanks to @Evans for making it happen!

Now if only it quit raining...

Sounds really promising.
Was the focuser connected to the USB 2.0 ports on the UPBv2 ? Or the USB 3.0 ports?

I used USB2. But the times I connected to mini-pc, it was USB3.

That's really great to hear.

I got sent a new board for the focuser as well, will probably be here within the next few days. Will update with progress once fitted (and the skies clear again).

New board received. Easily fitted, easily connected. Everything worked fine for a little bit, but first focus-run I did when the clouds cleared ended up in a dropped connection just as the focus-run finished.
I need to physically remove the USB-cable (rebooting the powerbox from Unity is not enough) and re-insert it for the focuser to be found by Unity again.

I still believe this is a power-issue as the focuser itself is working perfectly when connected directly to the PC. These problems only start ocurring when I connect it through the powerbox.

Ack! I've had to power the main cam cooler on a separate connect to the battery, bypassing the powerbox; otherwise, I get low voltage warning. Maybe some issue like that...?

I've been down for several weeks with a broken focuser. It's going through a repair cycle, so I've not yet had reliable autofocus runs yet. Well, maybe a couple, right after the new FC3 board installed.

It's been completely clouded up here in NorCal since November.

Hello,

Finally, I have resolved the mechanical issues I had with my Esprit120 focuser and got out last night for image testing. The FC3 was connected to a USB2 port on my UPBV2 with the original FC3 USB cable. I was able to autofocus reliably,
until FC3 disconnected about 4 hours into my imaging session. NINA threw the attached error message. This happened once in a 5-hour imaging session. I warmed my camera (QHY268m,) disconnected NINA, rebooted the mini-pc after connecting the FC3 to a USB3 port on the mini-pc, reconnected everything in NINA, and re-cooled the camera.

I will be continuing testing for the next few nights with the FC3 plugged in to the mini-pc. Hoping this configuration, while not ideal, will avoid the disconnection problem.

More to come...

Edit: I cannot seem to attach the screen grab of the NINA error. The error reads:
ASCOM Driver Error
Unable to connect to PegasusAstro FocusCube3. Reason: Failed to create driver, The uniqueID: [dd754b58-78a5-4490-9774-15f9d2caedc5] doesn't correspond to a driver. Driver not found.

By moving the original USB cable to connect directly to mini-pc, I have not seen a repeat of the previous error.

However, I am trying to run Filter Offsets in NINA, and cannot get through the routine because after several AF runs NINA throws the following two errors:

1. ERROR: Failed to move focuser
and
2. ERROR: Autofocus failure. Starting the driver is required.

To fix, I need to exit and restart NINA (including warming and then re-cooling the camera.)

The Filter Offsets NINA plugin requires 12 consecutive AF runs (2 iterations of 4 filters (LRGB) - I've not included the SHO filters in these runs.) I can get trough 4 or 5 or 6 of the 12 runs before this error occurs.

I spent 4 hours last night to describe this behavior. I then started to image M101 in LRGB. The imaging run goes smoothly, until 1-2 hours in the same two errors are generated (so not just confined to theFilter Offsets plugin.)

@Evans - could this be a driver issue? Is there a new firmware version in the works? Do you have any suggestions for what to do next?

Thank you and clear skies,
--Paul

Circling back - I believe my issue has resolved. I managed to get through filter offsets and complete about 6 hours of imaging last night. Things I have learned:

1. High-quality USB cable plugged directly into the mini-pc, not the UPBv2 (I am using the stock cable that shipped with FC3.)

2. In order to prevent occasional FC3 disconnections (see last post,) I initialize the software in the following order: a) start eqmod, b) start Unity, and then, c) start NINA on top of Unity.

It seems that Unity installs and initializes the FC3 driver NINA uses more reliably than letting NINA load and initialize the native FC3 driver.

Good to be able to move beyond this phase! Thanks to all in the thread for the dialog, and to @Evans for your support.

Clear skies,
--Paul