Optec, Inc.
199 Smith Street ∙ Lowell, Michigan 49331 ∙ U.S.A.
www.optecinc.com
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Revision 10 –8/31/2012
USB hub in daisy-chain fashion to the first USB hub that only has the device plugged
into it. Bus powered hubs may not work with the Alnitak device.
2) We use an FTDI USB-to-serial converter in our control electronics that is quite
common in astronomical (and other) USB accessories. The Alnitak Astrosystems
controller uses the latest FTDI drivers and .dll's, and these will be installed automatically
(as per our manual's instructions) when you first plug in the USB cable from one of our
products if you have no other FTDI USB accessories.
If you have already installed other FTDI components on your PC they may interfere with
our product's proper installation. These FTDI problems come in two flavors:
1. Some cameras don’t play nice with early versions of our software. Contact us
if you have an older unit and start having problems with a new (to you) camera.
Our latest software takes care of this and we can let you know how to upgrade
your older unit.
2. We have found that if your drivers are old, you may get an "I/O" error when
you start up our controller application. You should update all FTDI devices on
your PC to the same driver version. Open Device Manager, expand Ports, right-
click Properties, and the Driver tab to check and update each device using an
FTDI chipset. The current version as of this writing is 2.8.14.0. Be sure all
devices are using the same driver version.
If you do get the error, you will need to run an FTDI uninstaller program that we have
included in the Alnitak Astrosystems installation directory. To run the uninstaller,
navigate to the installation directory and unzip the CDMUnistaller archive. Once the
archive is expanded, run CDMUninstallerGUI.exe. You'll get a window like this after
you click on the "Add" button:
