Hi William and Bob


I have also had issues with the USB cables in the MX and com errors when the camera’s (SBIG STXL) USB is plugged into the Versa Plate. I solved the camera issue by running a dedicated USB line from the camera directly to my office desktop (150’ distance) using a Icron USB Ranger extender. USB dropouts are now very rare. The only USB device connected to the Versa Plate is an Optec focuser which has had no issues. I also minimized the cables running through the RA axis. This seems to have eliminated the cables tangling which did occasionally pulled the USB cables from the sockets on the MKS5000 board.


I generally do monthly Windows 10 updates. In between updates I have the updater paused to prevent unexpected reboots and changes to the Windows operating system that sometimes cause issues with observatory software. My computer’s operating system has Windows 10 Home 21H2 at build 19044.1415. The two updates you listed had not been installed so I did that this morning.


Thanks for the power plan suggestions. I had already set the computer to never sleep but not the USB hubs. They are now set to never sleep as well.


I had not thought to check the MaxIm logs. I discovered something interesting at the moment the two failures occurred. These are the MaxIm log entries at the time of each of the two events.


11:07:02$5 Guider algorithm 'Single Star' ended
11:07:02$5 Guider Calibration Completed
11:07:02$4 Camera Exposure Aborted


I don’t understand the first two log entries since I don’t use autoguiding and auto guiding is disabled in ACP. The MX can take 3 -5 minute exposures with no apparent tracking issues. The exposures I use are 90 seconds or less so autoguiding is not necessary. I went backed and looked through several Maxim logs for nights that completed successfully at the time specified in the ACP plan. After the last image had downloaded those same two log entries also occur but not the third one (Camera Exposure Aborted). Could this have triggered the error seen in the ACP log? If so, why was the source of the error given as ASCOM.SoftwareBisque.Telescope?


I have turned on the Trace feature under telescope setup in ACP. The next time this occurs maybe that trace log will give some additional clues.


Thanks so much for helping with this issue!


Ed