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Digital Domeworks Timout
Has anybody heard anything further regarding the ASCOM Driver for DDW and the random timeout messages that ACP ends up reporting? My assumption has always been that there is a timing bug in the ASCOM Driver that only shows up once and a while. The symptom is either that under ACP Control, the dome will randomly stop slaving, or ACP produces an error (exception timeout DDW), and terminates the script. I have been in touch with the folks at DDW (Technical Innovations) quite a while ago, and even though they said they were working on getting support for the driver, so far I have not heard anything. This kind of puts a fly in the ointment of a fully automated observatory when you get these random timeouts!
If nothing comes along soon, I know that Cyanogen offers dome control electronics (with ASCOM Drivers) that can be retrofitted to existing dome motors, but the cost is fairly high.
Am I alone?
Paul
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Bob,
Sorry...
I just noticed your fix it driver. I will go ahead and give that a try. I am assuming that if I run into trouble I can always go back to the drive r I have today by re- selecting DDW in the preferences?
Paul
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Yes, you can change back and forth at will. U of Hawaii reports that it might have reduced the problem but it's still there. This is a shame because I believe the right approach is to clean up the driver itself. I'll ping TI again on this...
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Thanks Bob, I will give it a try. It is very nice of you to try and come up with a solution, and I for one appreciate it very much! If I can stay with the DDW TI hardware it will save well over $1,000.00 not having to purchase and install another dome control system that has a reliable ASCOM Driver!
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Hi Paul,
We're also using DDW and are seeing the same problem. We've been using the "wrapper" driver and it has reduced the problem, but not nearly enough. I appreciate the work, Bob has put in to this, but we're coming to the conclusion that the DDW system is simply not workable for us. We also have an automated system and the nearly nightly Timer Exceptions are simply unacceptable, especially as we get in to less predicatbale weather in winter.
We're looking at solutions and the Cyanogen MaxDome is high on our list so far.
-Josh
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Thanks for the feedback Josh. Keep me posted if you would. I am not aware of other solutions besides DDW and Cyanogen to control the TI Dome. I would be interested in hearing about any options you find. Meantime I am going to try Bob's wrapper also.
Best,
Paul
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Bob,
Any reason you can think of why after apparently successfully installing the DDW Wrapper Ascom driver on one of my computers it fails to show up in the dropdown menu under dome selection? On another I tried it on computer it does.
Paul
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It didn't get registered for ASCOM. Did you install with administrator privileges? What happens if you install it again? There's a limit to how much I can do on that thing... it's basically an unsupported hack I did in a last ditch effort to help DDW owners, and I am really behind due to having been out at the conference. If worst comes to worst, I can remote into that system and look around to see what's going on, but I just can't do it for at least another day...
I called Jerry at TI today and passed along the situation with you, Josh, and others. He knows it's an ongoing issue. I don't feel right about posting the details of our talk though.
