iKarus Stellar Mate Plus, User Manual

Page: 164 / 227

The StellarMate Plus Manual
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foremost to power problems. Therefore, please invest in reliable power supply for
all your equipment!
Some filter wheels are connected to USB as regular USB devices while others are
connected as Serial-To-USB devices. For the latter case, you need to purchase a Serial-
To-USB adapter suitable for your filter wheel model from the manufacturer. When you plug
in your Serial-To-USB devices, they are assigned a specific port under StellarMate
(e.g.
/dev/ttyUSB0
). However, this port is not static. That is, next time you plug in the
same device on another session, it might get assigned another port
(e.g.
/dev/ttyUSB1
). Since INDI drivers require the port name to communicate with the
device, this could lead to communication issues. With the help of StellarMate Serial Port
Assistant, you can assign permanent designations for your devices so that they always get
the same port whenever they are connected.
If your Filter Wheel mode does not uses a Serial-To-USB chip, you will not see any settings
for serial
Port settings in the driver and can therefore connect directly.
Operating Filter Wheel
Filter Wheels are relatively simply devices. There are two primary controls for most filter
wheel drivers:
·
Filter Slot : This is the current active slot of the filter wheel. It starts from 1 to the
maximum number of slots available. To change the filter, simply change the slot number.
·
Filter Names: On first connection, filter names (e.g. Red) are generated by the driver.
Change the filter names to reflect the actual installed filter using the Capture Module in
Ekos (KStars).
Time & Location
In order to ensure smooth and accurate operation of the astrophotography workflow, both
time and location information must be precise across all devices in the system. Therefore,
the time and location on StellarMate must be in sync with the time and location on all
connected devices, especially mounts.
StellarMate Plus Controller is equipped with a Real Time Clock (RTC). This ensures that