Camera Recomendations - Forums

Topic starter

Apr 12, 2020

I'm looking for a camera recommendation. I currently have a ZWO ASI1600mm Pro and ZWO ASI294 MC Pro. I'm getting fed up with both camera. Regardless of the computer or the cables I keep losing connection with the ZWO camera's. At the same time I lose connection with my ZWO Filter Wheel. Filter Wheel and Camera are plugged into separate USB ports. These disconnects happen whether I'm plugged into my Pegasus UPB2, My laptop or even when using them with my Eagle3 Pro. At first I thought it was a cable issue. Changed cables, Than tried different computers. I have even uninstalled ALL ZWO software and reinstalled All software. Still have the same issues. The only camera that I don't have an issue with is my QHY5II guide camera. I have done some research on the ZWO drivers and software. With ZWO you can't just install the ASCOM drivers for ZWO, There own ASCOM drivers don't know what you have. You MUST install the ZWO native windows drivers for the ZWO ASCOM drivers to recognize any ZWO product. And to boot windows 10 Pro does not support the Native Drivers any more. Hens this seems to be where the issue lies. Connect - windows sees you are using something it don't support and boom, drops the connection. Only way to get it to come back is to reboot. This is not a good think when you are remoting into the equipment and are in the middle of an imaging session.

This is why i'm ready to toss ZWO through a wall and am looking for recommendations. on other cameras and what makes them great. Either CCD or CMOS. I'm somewhat leaning towards CCD but the jury is out on this one.

Thanks,
Mark.

cyberkatis

Apr 13, 2020

Sorry to here that. I use Windows 7 for all my astro needs so never have had that issue. Great laptops out there for 300-500 bucks that would maybe provide better connectivity over the long run…..anyway best of luck to you!!

Rich Sky

Apr 13, 2020 · Edited: Apr 13, 2020

Hi Mark,
The issue is not with the camera but possibly with your PC usb power management.
Don't give up, you have a great camera, in my opinion, with the 1600 MM.

Are you using a PC with Win10 ? If yes, the issue is with WIN10, Power management.

Go here to know more about solving the usb power management issue.

This post is in the rasa group
USB power management

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Glenn

Apr 13, 2020 · Edited: Apr 13, 2020

Hi Mark,

I am new to Astrophotography but built many PC’s over the years. The USB port can be a pain when it doesn’t want to work. A few things to try are to remove all drivers and then when you reinstall always make sure you plug the same device into the same port. I personally use a 4 way hub so I only have one lead going to the pc. I would say your USB ports will be the issue and not the cameras. It may be down to length of usb leads. If not run through a powered hub anything over 3m for usb 3 and 5m for usb 2 can become unreliable. Damn frustrating when it all goes wrong and I have had the same problem where my DSLR would not be detected. Buying the hub fixed those issues for me.
Hope some of this helps. If not I am awaiting delivery of my first Astro cam. Altair Astro 183C pro Tec. I’ll let you know if it works

glenn

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Mark Ellis (PhoenixAstro)

Topic starter

Apr 13, 2020

I've also been building PC's since the mid 80's I'm all too familiar with the limitations of USB, hens I have been using an Active USB3 cable going to a powered unit on my mount. However I have had the same issue with 3 seperate machines. PC, Laptop and my Eagle 3 Pro that is on my mount and is connected via Remote desktop. I have tried several USB cables, both 2 & 3. I have brought the image train into my office and hooked them up to the computers directly. The real crazy thing is, when 1 camera loses connection, the zwo guide camera and filter wheel also loose connection. If I mix and match, ie my QHY 5ii and my SE filterwheel, I only lose connection with the ZWO. This has led me to believe that it's with the ZWO drivers and software that is the issue. I have contacted ZWO and I may have been talking to a brick wall. I've done everything they suggested before they suggested it. Un-installed native drivers and ascom, swapped out usb cables, swapped out power cables even cussed at it with many 4 letter dirty words.

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Mark Ellis (PhoenixAstro)

Topic starter

Apr 13, 2020

Thanks Rick, I'll looks at it.

However the issue has been the same with 3 different machines, Win 10 Pro on 2 of them, and Win 10 Pro Enterprise on the dedicated astro computer. You can read my reply to Astrobloke. I did read a forum post not too long ago on ZWO site about there Native drivers not being compatible with windows 10 64bit system. I don't know anyone using a modern system that it's 64bit.

Glenn

Apr 13, 2020

I wonder if it’s a driver conflict because of the different cameras. I know if I swap my eos 70D with my EOS R I have to start from scratch or things in APT get all funky and doesn’t work properly. I would try just having one installed and see if it becomes stable. Then if you add another or connect another see if the problems start again. Of course if that is the case it means uninstalling and installing before a session each time you want to change a camera, not ideal at all.
outside of that not sure what else you could try.

Mark Ellis (PhoenixAstro)

Topic starter

Apr 14, 2020

I wonder if it’s a driver conflict because of the different cameras. I know if I swap my eos 70D with my EOS R I have to start from scratch or things in APT get all funky and doesn’t work properly. I would try just having one installed and see if it becomes stable. Then if you add another or connect another see if the problems start again. Of course if that is the case it means uninstalling and installing before a session each time you want to change a camera, not ideal at all.outside of that not sure what else you could try.

I haven't done what you suggested, however I have had just the ZWO camera hooked up and after about 15min it failed. Rebooted the system and plugged in the other zwo camera by itself and it failed in a shorter time. As for your DSLR issue, that may have started when Canon came out with the 5DmkIV & 6DmkII They did some mager firmware modifications starting around that same time. I noticed an issue when I went from the 6D to the 6DmkII. I think Canon went backwards on the 6DmkII. I have since moved over to Nikon D850 for my super widefield stuff.

Anyway, I've been thinking of moving away from the CMOS camera and going with the old school CCD cameras. That's why I was asking for recommendations on cameras.

Bob J

Apr 14, 2020

Hi Mark,
I also use a ZWO 1600 and a 294c on my Eagle 3S 64 bit Win pro. I do not experience any of the issues you speak of. I use ASCOM through SGP. In fact I have a ZWO 174 Mini for a guide cam running at the same time. And a ZWO EFW. I also have a 290 and a 174 for solar running on the same rig with no issues.

I did have disconnects when I was using USB3.0 active extension cables coming from my PC which was around 20 feet away from the cameras, but that all ended when I bought the Eagle. The disconnects mostly happened when it was real cold outside. Biggest issue with USB 3.0 is not as much the length but the amount of connectors I have found out the hard way.

For what it is worth I went "old School" back to a camera I bought several years ago and like an idiot I sold to buy the 1600. I bought one again and I am not sorry I did. In fact I couldn't be any happier. It is an Atik 460 EX Mono. No amp glow, darks can be scaled to any sub length. Quality is second to none. Only drawback is no USB 3.0 so downloads take a little longer.

With CCDs going away I wanted to make sure I had one before they all but disappeared.

CS/Bob

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Mark Ellis (PhoenixAstro)

Topic starter

Apr 14, 2020

Bob J:
Hi Mark,I also use a ZWO 1600 and a 294c on my Eagle 3S 64 bit Win pro. I do not experience any of the issues you speak of. I use ASCOM through SGP. In fact I have a ZWO 174 Mini for a guide cam running at the same time. And a ZWO EFW. I also have a 290 and a 174 for solar running on the same rig with no issues.

I did have disconnects when I was using USB3.0 active extension cables coming from my PC which was around 20 feet away from the cameras, but that all ended when I bought the Eagle. The disconnects mostly happened when it was real cold outside. Biggest issue with USB 3.0 is not as much the length but the amount of connectors I have found out the hard way.

For what it is worth I went "old School" back to a camera I bought several years ago and like an idiot I sold to buy the 1600. I bought one again and I am not sorry I did. In fact I couldn't be any happier. It is an Atik 460 EX Mono. No amp glow, darks can be scaled to any sub length. Quality is second to none. Only drawback is no USB 3.0 so downloads take a little longer.

With CCDs going away I wanted to make sure I had one before they all but disappeared.

CS/Bob

Thanks, I'll take a closer look at my trace with the drives. Did you have to install the ZWO native drivers also to get them to work? They would work with just the ZWO Ascom drivers on my stuff. Ascom drivers didn't even know the camera were there until the Native drivers were installed. Anyway the Atik cameras are one of them I'm looking at along with the SBIG.

Bob J

Apr 14, 2020

Thanks, I'll take a closer look at my trace with the drives. Did you have to install the ZWO native drivers also to get them to work? They would work with just the ZWO Ascom drivers on my stuff. Ascom drivers didn't even know the camera were there until the Native drivers were installed. Anyway the Atik cameras are one of them I'm looking at along with the SBIG.

Yes sir ...I had to load the native drivers before ASCOM. I think that ZWO actually has that listed on their download page. I needed to load the native drivers regardless as I also use Sharp Cap for solar imaging which runs better with native drivers.

Also with my regular PC, I found that connecting to USB3 ports that are not physically located on the motherboard causes more disconnects, ie add-on usb boards connected via an internal USB cable. With USB3.0 the more the connectors the more impedance that is created in the line. You can usually get away with this with USB2, but USB3 is whole different story.

One other thought came to me since I wrote the original post...an odd thing was occurring with my Eagle 3S that may or may not be an issue for you. I have found that even though I have it set to on start up to enable all of my ports, it sometimes fails to do so. Even though it appears that they are. I have just resigned myself to going to the advanced tab and select reconnect right after powering up.

CS/Bob

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Jeff Coldrey

Apr 14, 2020

Hi Mark. I've used 5 different ZWO camera's in various pairings under both Win7 and Win10.
They have worked fine for me using native drivers, ASCOM, or a mixture of both.
The only times I have had issues have been due to:
1. Camera power supply problems (not enough amps to cover various devices)
2. Too high transfer rates for image transfers to PC
- I set main camera to 80% bandwidth into a port on a dedicated USB3 card for the PC front panel
- I normally connect guide scope to USB2, and constrain it to 40% bandwidth
3. Having another device (eg. USB stick) plugged into a USB port on my front panel

Hope some of that helps.
Good luck!

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Ron

Apr 14, 2020

Mark,

Not sure if this is helpful to you, but maybe to someone who reads this at a later date.

I just upgraded my Windows 7 PC to Windows 10. I expected to have to reinstall a lot of software but found nearly all worked as previously. The exception was that I could not get the PC to recognize the ZWO filter wheel, even though it found the 1600MM camera! I tried reinstalling drivers, etc. but nothing seemed to work. Out of desperation, I plugged the filter wheel directly into the USB port of the laptop and it was found. After that, plugging it into the camera hub worked as well. There definitely seems to be some odd USB issues happening.

Hang in there, try as many configurations as you can, and I think that once everything connects correctly, the problems will be solved.

CS,
Ron

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Dave Erickson

Apr 14, 2020 · Edited: Apr 14, 2020

I understand the frustration and have had issues with the ZWO cameras as well under windows 10, make sure you have minimal length USB cables. I put the computer relatively close to the camera to shorten the USB cable, check for ground loops. IMHO the native drivers always work better than ASCOM for me. Run camera control software as administrator. I am completing a new interface using a Latteepanda Alpha to run the camera, dome, mount, etc. Been doing burnin during the quarentine and no issues thus far.

I recently got a QHY600 and had a few startup issues particularly with the filter wheel. I now run the FW on a separate USB2, be sure to change jumper settings on the FW.

I have SBIG STL11000m's that have never had an issue, one from the 2004 first production lot is still working flawlessly after more than 15 years. Also SBIG 8300M and C cameras that have never had issues. These cameras have worked on XP, Win7, and win10… Still running one on win XP.

Regards,
Dave

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dkamen

Apr 14, 2020

Hi,

I cannot speak for Windows but on Linux where the driver is also written by ZWO, their cameras are very bandwidth hungry because they constantly transmit image data which is the driver's responsibility to buffer and discard. If you have a USB3 cable they will try to use all 5 gbps of available bandwidth, or at least enough of it to cause problems. Especially with two of them. I always have to change bandwidth usage to 40% on INDI, and ironically cameras work better if plugged to USB2 (less available bandwidth to hog).

Also it could be the case that your copies are less than stellar quality. I would reach out to ZWO support, I understand they are very helpful.

Cheers,
Dimitris

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