ASIAIR mini completely failing GoTo

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Nooa Jutila avatar
Hello, everyone. I will start with useful information:

I am using an AsiAir mini with an HEQ5 Pro.
The HEQ5 and AsiAir are powered separately and properly.
I have polar aligned and I have plate solved.
It has worked before, but for the last month it has sucked so much, it's completely useless.
When I GoTo, the telescope traverses into a seemingly random direction, plate solves, and continues this schizophrenic chase across the sky until it either hits my tripod or I stop it.
I cannot figure out why.
Any help or ideas, please.
Pleiotrope avatar
Recently ZWO issued a series of firmware updates that weren’t the most stable, including issues with meridian flips and plate solving. They seem to have fixed most of the issues in v2.2.2 (I think). If you’re already on that version, have you tried restoring it back to the original and re-updating it?
Well Written Concise
Paolo Sirtoli avatar
Hi
i had a similar problem: goto ended in a 90 degrees off position. This was solved turning on first the asiair and then turning on the mount and activating it.
hope it helps
P
Johannes Maximilian Möslein avatar
Did you turn the mount manually (by unlocking the clutch) after you power on the AIR and the mount? This will mess up communication between the devices.
If not, you can try replacing the USB/connection cables, as those are the most common sources of errors.
Helpful Concise
David Payne avatar
Might be way off base, but home the mount and then use the clutches to put the scope into the AP Park3 (pointing straight at the pole).  Power down the mount and restart it.   It should still be in the home position and everything should be synced up.
Oscar H. avatar
sometimes if the phone location is turned off or you don't put in your coordinates, the AA thinks you're somewhere in the other hemisphere (China I guess), and it slews and solves, slews and solves, non-stop

turning on location and restarting the AA and mount solved the problem for me.

this was with an AA app version from sometime earlier last year; I have updated to the newest version and haven't had a problem; I noticed guiding numbers looked better with this new version

try turning off the mount and AA then back on, but also make sure you put in the correct date/time/location in your hand controller (assuming your hand controller requires that like my AVX HC does)

I also want to give everyone a tip if you already put in the correct coordinates and time, or your time was off a little accidentally, and you're slewing the ground or a yard fence, or a house or anywhere with no stars:

when this happens, once the slew is complete, before the app has a chance to try to platesolve, cancel the platesolve, release the clutches and manually push the scope to the opposite direction it was slewing to (so, if scope went from sky to ground, push it back to the sky), tighten the clutches again, continue slew

if scope points to the ground or the horizon still, repeat process, release clutches, point to sky, tighten clutches, slew again, and this usually should be enough to be pointing to the sky, and the AA can take over.

this doesn't disrupt communication between devices, like Johannes is saying; or it could be that every mount acts differently? idk, my mount is fine with it.
Johannes Maximilian Möslein avatar
if scope points to the ground or the horizon still, repeat process, release clutches, point to sky, tighten clutches, slew again, and this usually should be enough to be pointing to the sky, and the AA can take over.

this doesn't disrupt communication between devices, like Johannes is saying; or it could be that every mount acts differently? idk, my mount is fine with it.

Yeah I guess every combination between control unit and mount may act different. But i have the same (ASIAIR Mini) that @Nooa Jutila is using, and it definitely had the error every time I did this.
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