I did some testing with versions v21 and v23 and my QHYCCD cameras, a QHY22 and a QHY168C. The QHY168C worked fine under both versions, cooling down to my setpoint (-10 for testing) in 10 minutes. I have ASCOM logs for this camera, but since it worked, I don’t know if it would be of any help.
The QHY22 is another matter. It works fine under v21, cooling down to -20 in 10 minutes, but under v23, it does a very slow cooldown and after 10 minutes, stops at about 1 C at 20% TE power. This is quite repeatable. Unfortunately, I can find no logs for this driver, so I don’t know what it is doing. If I reinstall v21, then all works as normal. I don’t know if the SGP logs would help as all it says is changing from 8.38 to -20.00 in 600 seconds, then says complete 10 minutes later.
I posted something similar to my above on the QHY forum (in the Tech Q and A) and Dr Qiu replied with the following.
In old driver. the temperature control is done by the host
computer and the software will check the temperature every two seconds.
At this time the QHY22 sdk will do a temperature control.
I guess the SGP new version is checking the temperature with a
longer time so QHY22 sdk can not do the temperature control on time.
Maybe SGP just check the temperature every 20sec? So the QHY22 control
will become very slow.
In our new ASCOM it control
the temperature by the timer itself. So may not effect by the
modification of the SGP control method.
I will check how to do it. Maybe allow our new SDK support QHY22 etc."
Since I don’t know how SGP interfaces with the QHY cameras, you may be able to make use of his reply. In a way it makes sense with what I am seeing…the QHY22 does cool down, but at a very slow rate, so after my 10 minute cooldown time, it is only half way there.
That is interesting. That said, the cooldown process is not dependent on reading temperature (except once at the beginning). The fact that SGPro only hits the camera once every 20 seconds or so should not have any impact on the cooldown process itself.
How often did v21 hit the camera during cooldown? I noticed that in addition to my QHY22 cooling down to set temp in v21, the QHY168C, which works in v23, also seemed to cool down quicker under v21 than v23.
SGPro has no need to query the temperature during cooldown.
What do you mean by this? A cooldown happens over a user defined period of time. When you say that it used to be quicker, do you mean that when you just set the TEC temp (no cooldown), it is slower?
I’m using a QHY9 with v2.6.0.21 and only noticed one issue, probably user generated.
I set up some sequences and equipment profiles at work, then copied the sgp, sge, and the sg_ui_config.xml files to my field laptop. That night I could not connect to TEC to see anything, the panel would not come up. I removed SGP and resinstalled 2.6.0.21 and it worked fine after that.
I just assumed it was a bad copy of the xml file or the settings on the first computer, paths, etc didn’t match the second.
What I mean is that the percent power of the TE was greater for v21 over v23. For v21, the power was hanging around 50% or so most of the cycle until it hit the set point, while under v23, it stayed lower, about 25%, then ramping up near the end to the set point. In both cases, the starting temp was the same and the final power was the same. There was about an hour of off/unpowered time of the camera between the runs. Like I said…a head scratcher…
I performed several camera cooling tests this morning on my QHY8L camera. I brought the camera into the house and then tried cooling it down first using V21 and then using V23. In my profile I have “Cool down to -15 in 7 min”.
Big differences between versions:
Minute Temp Power%
V21
Min 1: 15.6 6%
Min 2: 16.4 11%
Min 3: 9.2 41%
Min 4: 1.7 46%
Min 5: -2.7 43%
Min 6: -4.6 44%
Min 7: -7.2 50%
Min 8: -9.5 59%
Min 9: -14.0 70%
Min10: -16.5 66%
Thanks for the report. Unfortunately we have plenty of data on the SGPro side. We don’t see any issue with the SGPro process to cool the camera. What we need is to see what the camera is doing. Has anyone found how to produce QHY camera logs?
So it does seem like this is the issue. I’ll contact QHY to see if they can address this behavior. Even with a cool down of 0 it still takes FOREVER for the temp to actually cool. SGP does not control the power. We only set the temperature. So setting a temp of -20 on my QHY11 I would expect it to eventually hit that temperature no matter how often I check that temperature. Apparently though, the QHY driver will only increase the power when we poll for the temperature. So if we never ask for the temperature the driver will never increase the TEC power to make the camera cooler. And likewise I guess it will only increase it a certain amount per poll.
We’ll decrease the poll period and I’ll also contact QHY about addressing this in a manner that doesn’t rely on the client asking for the temperature to make the TEC functional.
Dr Qiu said that he may be able to get a new version of the ASCOM driver out for the QHY22 and maybe the other older cameras that is incorporated into the new capture/guiding ASCOM drivers. This way all the cameras will behave the same as my 168C, which has no problem with v23. Also we will get ASCOM logging. Keep your fingers crossed…he said maybe this weekend.
I’m not sure about the drivers. But we addressed this a while back in SGP and it should be working in pretty much any version after 2.6.0.23. If you find otherwise please let us know.