Hey Dan,
I don’t doubt your findings, but just wanted to share that I have been successfully using the ZWO ASCOM drivers for two cameras for some time now, and I’m not seeing any issues. My process is slightly different to yours though:
- I generally use the ASI app for initial manual focus, and when done, I close it.
- If I need to do anything in PHD2 (e.g. re-run calibration, tweak PA), I load PHD2, do the work, then close it too.
Once I’m prepped, I load SGP and tell it to “connect all”. The sequence I see is:
- SGP first connects to the main imaging camera (+filter wheel) [no integration or downloads going on at this point]
- SGP then connects to the mount
- SGP then loads and connects to PHD2, and PHD2 connects to the guide cam
I then begin my sequence and (so far) have been able to image without any hangs / driver conflicts / download failures. Again, I’m using the ASCOM interface in both SGP and PHD2
In the past I had tried pre-loading PHD2, connecting to the guidecam, starting looping etc, but it always caused me issues. For my setup at least, allowing SGP to manage loading, connecting, looping etc in PHD2 has been working best.
Again, I have not tried manually connecting to the guidecam while in the middle of a main cam integration or download, or connecting to the main cam while PHD2 was already looping. Given the general flakiness of these camera drivers I can imagine that that might cause issues.
Steve