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Skysafari 6 pro Starsense for Skywatcher Skyfi3 HC lockup Issues

I have been having issues since day one of owning the Skyfi3.

 

Background:

Was using Skysafari 5 pro, then upgraded to 6 pro. Both versions exhibit the same issue.

I have the latest firmware on Starsense, Hand Controller (usb), Skywatcher Adapter, etc and latest Skyfi3 firmware (1.3.3)

The starsense setup works flawlessly standalone without the skyfi/skysafari. Orion Sirius Pro mount.

My procedure is to power everything up and do an alignment without the skyfi on or plugged in. After alignment I connect the skyfi and connect skysafari. The scope's position is displayed.

I have skysafari setup to use skywatcher synscan, but have also tried orion sirius and avx. All do the same thing.

 

After some time of being in use and Im ready to move to another target, when giving a goto or slew command through skysafari, the scope will start to move, the Hand Controller will lock up, sometimes the mount will even slew in a random direction. When the HC is locked up, I will have a spinning asterisk symbol on the right side of the HC screen. The scope will not slew using the hand controller when this happens. Skysafari will display an error saying it can connect to the wifi but the scope is not responding. I have to do a full power cycle of all gear and re-align to fix.

 

Things I have tried. Different USB cables. USB cables with noise filters on them.

The only thing that has seemed to help is last night I slowed the readout rate in skysafari down to 1 per second from 4. The scope worked for 4 hours before locking up.

Date Votes

12 comments

  • 0
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    Bill Tschumy

    Eric,

    I talked to a Celestron engineer about this.  He said you need to specify the scope type as one of the Celestron NexStar types.  The StarSense hand controller does not use the Synscan protocol.

  • 0
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    Bill Tschumy

    I would use the NexStar GPS/SLT/SE scope type.

  • 0
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    Eric Walter

    Thanks for the recommendation. I set it to the nexstar AVX tonight and it locked up when I gave it a goto command after being on a target for 3hr.

  • 0
    Avatar
    Bill Tschumy

    Did you try the one I recommended?

    At this point you should probably capture a scope log file showing the lock up.  Hopefully you can make it happen reasonably quickly so you don't generate a huge file.

    The instructions for how to do this are in the Scope Setup Help (you can get to this by tapping the ? in the lower right of the Scope Setup settings).  Send the file to:

    "bill at simcur dot com"

    To be honest, I think this is more likely to be a firmware issue in the hand controller than a SkySafari problem.  But hopefully the log file will shed some light on it.

  • 0
    Avatar
    Eric Walter

    I sent the logs. I have been logging it for a few days.

     

    One other thing that is odd, when I selected the Nexstar GPS option in skysafari, it shows in the program like the scope is not tracking. After a few minutes, the object selected is no longer centered. Over several hours, the scope does not move. But a goto command will slew the scope back to the object selected. Then it will start to drift again. I am going to check my HC settings to make sure tracking is staying enabled. It starts off tracking after I align it because I can hear the motors.

  • 0
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    Bill Tschumy

    I will have to see the log.  We don't have an error code 0:35.  Maybe something was truncated.

  • 0
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    Bill Tschumy

    OK, I got your logs.  There is no error reported in the log.  The last line

    Received Binary at 2018/01/08 03:51:50 with error 0:

    35

    simply means we got error 0 (no error) and the return response from the mount was 35.

    When this locks up, does SkySafari actually disconnect?  Or do you stay connected but nothing works?

     

     

  • 0
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    Eric Walter

    Stay connected but nothing works, sometimes skysafari gets super super slow. It may or may not give a error that the wireless connection is working but that the scope is not responding. When this happens, if I disconnect/connect in skysafari, it will 100% have the error that a wireless connection was made, but the scope is not responding. The HC will have the spinning asterisk turning very slow and wont respond to slew buttons on the HC. 

  • 0
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    Bill Tschumy

    OK, this sounds like the mount has just gone haywire.  Does this happen with every GoTo or just some of them.  I will need to report this to Celestron.  If sounds like a firmware problem in their HC.

  • 0
    Avatar
    Eric Walter

    Sent more logs. Error -13. Scope locked up when slewing. Skysafari showed the scope location pointing into the southern hemisphere. Scope was actually pointed in the northern hemisphere.

     

    I just did a reset of the HC and am going to run another test.

  • 0
    Avatar
    Bill Tschumy

    Have you talked with Celestron support about this?  That might know something the Celestron engineer I deal with doesn't.  Have you checked to see if they have had a firmware update for the HC?

  • 0
    Avatar
    Eric Walter

    I have updated all the firmware but I have not spoke to celestron support yet since I have only been having issues when using skysafari/skyfi3.

     

    One thing I just figured out is about the tracking issue I just described above. It appears to be linked to the Set Time & Location option in Skysafari. When this is enabled, the HC disables RA tracking. The HC also subsequently locks up (even when USB is unhooked) when doing an initial alignment on the time entry step. Location and DST are blank and the date is several days ahead.

    I had to reset the HC and disable Set Time & Location to fix this. Now it seems to be tracking fine.

     

    Time will tell if the connection issues are any better using the NexStar GPS/SLT profile.

     

     

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