Dear all,
I very much like SGP. I have started mono imaging (LRGB and NB) last year and I very much benefit from the possibility of setting focus positions and flat exposure times for each filter. Very, very nice!
Nevertheless, I have some trouble. It’s possible / likely that this is actually not a direct SGP issue. However, I hope that I can receive some helpful comments or ideas here in this forum.
It sometimes happens that my imaging PC freezes. Everything stops working and no more images are acquired after that event. Also the mount tracking stops. I looked into the windows log files but did not find any alert or something like this. Updates are deactivated (after installing all recent ones). Power saving and sleep mode are also deactivated. I also installed the app “Coffeine” which triggers a certain key periodically to really make sure that the PC does not go into energy saving / sleep mode or whatever. I have no idea why that freezing happens. This issue already occurred very rarely when I started imaging with SGP two years ago. But now it happens every second night, so that I loose imaging time (usually this happens in the second part of the night where I am in bed). This is very sad as clear skies are very rare events in my region.
I use an i5 mini PC with Win10 Pro, 8GB RAM, 128 GB SSD + second 500GB SSD. It’s an ACEPC CK2 (seems to have vanished from the market this year).
I am using the lated SGP4 64 Bit version (the 4.0.700). The sequences likely were created on an older version of SGP (where I likely also had this issue). I have ASCOM 6.5 SP. A ZWO asi2600MM and asi178 (guidecam), EAF focusser and an EFW filter wheel. These devices are all connected (USB + power) through a Pegasus Astro Powerbox Advance. I use a CEM 70 mount with ipolar. PHD2 2.6.10.
Cable issues are very unlikely. Two years ago I spend a lot of time finding out which cables are good, what is the maximum length, etc. Never had any download issues with images since I optimized cables two years ago.
Everything is powered by a 230V AC waterproof powerline in garden where I installed to power transformers, one for the mini-PC (that one which came with the PC) and also a second 12V converter (150W) which provides 12 DC output. The PC has wifi connection, and in each night I control it through remote desktop. I also have a small TFT and small keyboard for direct access at my imaging rig.
Any ideas what could be the reason for freezing? I would be very, very happy to get some feedback and to solve this issue. I have no idea at present what could be the reason. The only app which was not running so stable was the user interface of the Pegasus Astro Powerbox Advance. I have seen a lot of times that it has caused a crash in some windows component (.net framework? I am not sure). This happened when I leave the user interface of the box in the temp/humidity graph display mode for a long time. After some time, I ended up with an error warning, and afterwards the user interface of the powerbox was unable to display the temperature / humidity graphs anymore (just red crosses). I am wondering if this user interface or driver or whatever could also cause this windows freezing trouble.
One more thing. I also made shooting sessions for my dark library in the basement of our house. I just use the same mini-PC, my second Powerbox and my ZWO cam with the filter wheel. No other equipment. Last week it has also happened that during the mini pc froze during a four day extensive dark shooting session. I used a different power supply (but same type as I use it out in the field).
So… I have no idea what is the reason for freezing. But since this happened two times during my last 3 imaging nights, I really need to solve it. I have no ideas whether this is a software or a hardware issue. Any comments are HIGHLY welcome.
Thank you very much
Best wishes
Jan