Rotator not connecting causes mount disconnect

[William Bristow]

Steve.

Possibly your new RJ-11 to USB adaptor has a device isolation or power regulation issue and is allowing an impermissible current flow or voltage spikes back to the host computer.

Remember that inside the OnLogic computer all the USB ports will be connected to only one or two motherboard USB chipsets and any current overload or over-voltage spikes on one of the physical USB sockets may propagate across other USB devices sharing the same chipset, causing them to disconnect before Windows has a chance to shut down the USB device causing the problem.

Some compact motherboards incorporate the USB chipset directly into the south-bridge chip which means that sporadic USB disturbances can be even more disruptive as other non-USB peripheral devices sharing the south-bridge may be affected too.

Where practical, use isolated USB to RS232 adaptors, or, include a USB-USB opto-isolator in the path between device and computer to help mitigate against such problems.

Was anything recorded in the Windows system logs with a time stamp that correlated with the disconnects?
There should have been something logged if Windows saw a USB device misbehaving or suddenly disappearing while actively transferring data.

William.

[Steve Reilly]

William your reply is a bit over my head. To be clear the USB to RJ-11 cable from Optec is apparently what was causing the issue. With it out of the loop and using the older cable with the RJ-11 cable and Optec supplied original RJ-11 to Serial adapter it seems to be behaving. Only when the new USB to RJ-11 cable is use (from Optec) is the problem apparently happening. That and the mount is connected via LAN and only the backup port (serial) is used. The network cabling is directly from the CP4 to the NUC, not over the network. The NUC has a 2nd LAN port for the network connection. That has been working fine since it was 1st started back in May. I've also tested the backup connection on the AP1200 by disconnecting the LAN connection and seeing the serial port pick it up using APCC. One issue we discovered and I have discussed with Howard at Astro Physics is the fact there is no LAN connection made when the LAN cable is reinserted which is something they are looking at for an upcoming update.

[Yves Laroche]

Steve,

According to what you wrote in earlier posts, you seemed connecting your mount (probably GTOCP4) via the ethernet connection and use a COM port as backup.

Are you willing to do another test with your new Optec RJ-11 to serial connector? If YES, may I suggest you connecting your 1200GTO mount with only physical COM port, NO ETHERNET connection. As I already wrote, I got ACP mount disconnections when bridging two connections in the past. On my side the bridging seemed the problem, but it might be just a kind of trigger that interfere with the mount connection. Who knows?

Originally Posted by Steve Reilly
One issue we discovered and I have discussed with Howard at Astro Physics is the fact there is no LAN connection made when the LAN cable is reinserted which is something they are looking at for an upcoming update.


Concerning the issue you discussed with Howard, you should discard the ethernet mount connection for the moment. Maybe it could help you to find the real solution. My two cents.

Regards,
Yves

[Yves Laroche]

One issue we discovered and I have discussed with Howard at Astro Physics is the fact there is no LAN connection made when the LAN cable is reinserted which is something they are looking at for an upcoming update.

Hi Steve,

Just because of that issue, I will suggest you even more, to try the test I already suggested in my recent message.

Yves

[Steve Reilly]

Hey Yves,

Sounds like a reasonable test to do. I have freezing rain at this point and think maybe it more prudent to do as a normal startup procedure? If so I could do the test tomorrow when its supposed to be clear again. I'd love to discover this problem's root before leaving on our anniversary trip end of next week. Of course the system won't be running while I'm not here. I did that in the past when I was running rescue squad on Thursdays and was rewarded with a rainy night that was busy and the roll off roof never closed as it never saw/read the mount parked. Hence now the clamshell dome, can park anytime w/o collision concerns. Still not there for unattended runs.....if ever again without someone knowledgeable onsite..

If you think the test is capable without the dome open I can run that after lunch today. All I would need to do is reconfigure APCC and the ASCOM mount driver.

[Yves Laroche]

If you think the test is capable without the dome open I can run that after lunch today. All I would need to do is reconfigure APCC and the ASCOM mount driver.

Steve,

You did test your system without clear sky, so nothing prevents you to do the same today.

Yves

[Steve Reilly]

I have a call into OnLogic to see if there would be any reason that the LAN connections on this PC would have been set as bridged before shipment. I've had other systems I've built with dual LAN that were used in other observatories including my roll off roof which had none of these issues. The same equipment was moved out to the dome so the only difference was the addition of the Pegasus, the Powerwerx, and the new RJ-11 to USB cable. Still waiting on the call from tech support.....

[Steve Reilly]

This is what I've found in the manual on the LAN Ports. I know that I haven't bridged the ports and the only time I can remember doing anything similar was way back when I was using a wireless modem to boost the signal to the RoR observatory and that's no longer in play anymore, not even powered, actually sitting on my shelf in my office.

LAN1 - Intel I219-LM
The Intel I219 LAN Port on Helix supports up to 1Gbps link speeds over standard shielded CAT5e or
CAT6 cables. The connector is the industry standard RJ45 connector. This port also features Intel’s
vPro(R) technology enabling remote out-of-band management and security features (requires Intel
Core i5 or higher). The LAN link state is shown by the two LEDs enclosed in the port. The description
is included below.


LAN2 - Intel I210-IT
The second LAN Port on Helix supports up to 1Gbps link speeds over standard shielded CAT5e or
CAT6 cables. The connector is the industry standard RJ45 connector. The LAN link state is shown by
the two LEDs enclosed in the port. The description is included below.
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[Steve Reilly]

Steve,

You did test your system without clear sky, so nothing prevents you to do the same today.

Yves

The testing will have to wait. It's raining hard and cold, maybe tomorrow. But as far as bridging goes I highly suspect its not as this network is just over a year old now and the fiber optic modem isn't accessible as the telephone company one was. Configuration in that has to run through the provider (FireFlyVa) and the only networking here is now 99% cabled or wireless (laptops and cell phones). There are two switches in the network, all 10,100,1000.

[Yves Laroche]

The testing will have to wait. It's raining hard and cold, maybe tomorrow.

Hi Steve,

Did you get a chance to do some tests. Thanks!

Yves