Gemini Snapcap - Flatfield Panel Stays On

I have one of the flatfield Gemini Snapcaps panels. In most respects it works well in SGP. However, I have found an irritating ‘quirk’. That is the illumination of the panel. I ran some flats (in fact the Flat Calibration wizard). I was then messing around in SGP and I noticed that the illuminated panel was remaining on (in the setting it was on when I ran the flat). So I figured that I had to manually switch it to illumination ‘0’ in the dialogue box.

However, when I disconnected the panel from SGP and reconnected, the panel was illuminated again. So this time I took a couple of frames with the panel set at ‘0’. Disconnected - reconnected - panel still illuminated but at a lower setting than before.

I repeated this again and again until I could get the panel to illuminate at level ‘2’. Now, no matter what I do, when I reconnect the panel is illuminated at ‘2’.

I have tried running some flats at Level ‘0’, I have tried cutting the power to the Snapcap unit. But whenever I first connect to the Snapcap, it is illuminated at ‘2’.

I can set the thing back to ‘0’ from within SGP but it is a little irritating having to remember to do this at the start of each session.

I don’t know if this is an ‘SGP-communicating-with-Snapcap’ issue, or if this is a problem with the Snapcap driver (in which case I would contact Gemini).

Any ideas? .

Hi gnomus,

I found something similar but not exactly the same as what your’re describing but yes sometimes my flat panel remains on after my flats are done. I have a DIY panel with an Arduino board I use the Alnitak driver found in SGP. What I found that always works turning the panel off when the flats are done is to follow up the flats with a Bias frame. Doing this always turns my flat panel off.

Not sure if this is the same issue but you might want to try a quick test taking a few flats followed by a bias to see that might turn your panel off and keep it off.

Mark

Hi Mark.

Thanks for replying.

Running a bias frame did switch the flat panel off. However, when I disconnected the panel and reconnected, it came back on again!

Nothing is ever simple, is it?

Steve