[solved]Focuser being homed on connect, can't focus

[William Martin]

Running Scheduler/AC/FocusMax v4 and a Weather alert occurs. When Scheduler resumes one of the three sw packages has reset the focuser to its (0.00) starting position so Autofocus fails (donuts).

Bil

[Bob Denny]

It might be, but let's specifically solve this one: Scheduler definitely does not talk to the focuser so it can be eliminated. ACP connects to the focuser but does nothing until it needs to select a filter and adjust the focus for that filter (focus offsets). FocusMax of course uses the heck out of the focuser and I can't tell you for sure what it does. However I doubt that it simply sends the focuser to 0. You might want to ask Steve Brady if FocusMax would do this under any conditions.

When resuming from a weather unsafe event, Scheduler runs the StartupObs.xxx (vbs or js) script. Reading between the lines, it is during the execution of this script that your focuser is getting reset to 0. What kind of focuser is it? It is possible that whenever some program connects to the focuser, as part of that connection the focuser's initialization sends it to 0 so that it can know where it is? This should probably only happen the first time after it is powered up.

Try this:

1. Start up ACP but nothing else.
2. Temporarily change ACP's weather server to WeatherSim.Weather, the weather simulator.
3. Start Scheduler, wait till it initializes (dispatcher checkbox enabled).
4. Use the Scheduler Test menu, Test Startup.
5. Somehow watch your focuser and the ACP console, see if you can tell right where the focuser starts moving to 0, maybe take a screen shot to help you remember

With all of this info maybe we can see what's going on.

[William Martin]

Thanks for the detailed recipe. I will try all of the above tonight. This only started recently, after I updated FocusMax to v4, but I will watch it happen as above and see what's happening.

[Bob Denny]

You can do this during the day as long as you cover your scope to protect from the sun.

[William Martin]

Hi Bob. Yep, did all that and of course it wouldn't repeat. I have an ASA OZ3 focuser and it might be that the new FocusMax and the old focuser s/w are not quite working together. I did a autofocus from Scheduler and that worked fine. I will continue to monitor things. ACP has a location where the last good focus position is stored. I can't find it now to see what's there but I did an autofocus from ACP alone to reset this to the current setting.

Bottom line is that it seems to be ok but I will need to watch it.

[William Martin]

Aha. It was a bug in FocusMax v4. Now fixed with v4.1.0.20 as of 03/07/2015. Appeared when focus automation fails and probably occurred when my weather went bad. I will still watch and wait.

[Bob Denny]

Very good, thanks for letting us know, and I will move this to the FocusMax section.