A fully implemented and tested driver, with documentation and support can easily take 4 or 5 days to get to the release stage by the time that all the bugs and inconsistencies have been ironed out. Then support for it can amount to another couple of days over the next year or two. How much would you charge for 50 hours of your professional time?
This was much simpler because almost all of the tricky stuff - connecting to the real hardware - is delegated to the original drivers. The whole point of ASCOM is to simplify connectng to hardware.
You speak in pounds not dollars, does this mean you are also in the UK?
Hi Chris yes I’m also in the UK near Wakefield. I operate in a different world to software development so my mechanics £12 an hour is really not comparable. Having no understanding of the complexity of driver building is the exact reason I asked in a previous post if I could make a donation to show my appreciation.
Where are you situated?
I have a similar situation that may necessitate dual filter wheel use. My question is: can Chris’ driver be used to create combinations of slots between the two wheels that are part of sequenced events? i.e. Event 1 uses slot 1 from wheel 1 and slot 2 from wheel 2. Then, event 2 uses slot 2 from wheel 1 and slot 3 from wheel 2 etc…
I know there are very few people interested in such an application, but before I saw this post, I was thinking this was either not possible, or hugely expensive to undertake, so this gives me some hope yet…!
No. the only allowed options are:
1,1
1,2
1,3
1,4
1.5
2,1
3,1
4,1
5,1
It assumes that slot 1 on both wheels is empty so that eack position selects a single filter from the other wheel (except for 1,1 of course)
You can select one of these at any place that a filter can be selected.
Thanks everyone for this discussion - and Chris most of all for the driver!!! I am using two 2" x 7’s tied back to back like Curly’s (except I haven’t machined anything - had to drill out the screw holes all the way through the body and bolt them together). I should go into full testing within a week (once the skies clear), but initial tests are very promising. I am using a different sequencer but so far it sees all 13 of the usable filters (14 is the open slot on the 2nd filter wheel and not shown I believe). I know this is an old post, but I had to say Thank you to Chris and Curly. Good to know this is something others are doing - yes it is limited but still… Thanks again! - Paul