JMI PCFC focuser not supported?

Hi. I’m still in the evaluation period, trying to get everything to play, and my focuser does not. SGP says that relative focusers is not supported. I may be doing something wrong, but if not

  1. will relative focusers ever be supported
  2. On JMI’s home page it is explained that (and how) the focuser can be set up as an absolute focuser. But I can’t find that set up screen. Does any of you guys know how to do this? (I know, I should ask JMI, but since I’m here already.)

No. We have no plans to support relative focusers.

I know this can be done. We don’t have one of those focusers… I thought it was just an option in the ASCOM setup dialog, but somebody that actually has one would be better to validate this.

Thanks Ken.
I eventually found that setup screen.

Have you tried testing the PCFC with sgp?
Thanks
Wayne

Sorry, not yet. Weather has not been favourable and in those few moments of clear sky I have had to sort out some other issues.
I’ll report back here of the result if you’re interested. But don’t hold your breath. Clouds have been forecasted this and all of next week.

Helge

I will be really interested in how it works. We have endless clouds as well.

I promised to post my results when I had some and yesterday we had a clear evening for some hours. This was my first field test of SGP and first test of new ASI camera. A bit too much to bite, probably.

The focusing setup works! But I had some issues. That could be me, the focuser or SGP. I don’t know.

I had calculated in advance that focus should be at 85500. That was very close and I found (approximate) focus at 85110.
I fist used a Bathinow mask to get at close as I could using 4x4 binning and 1 sec. exposures. I used the PCFC for that adjustment.
I started the autofocusing routine and SGP did it’s trick and calculated HFR to about 2,3. Is that a reasonable number?
Some time later in the evening I put the Bathinow back in place, just out of curiosity, and the cross was not perfect. I wanted to manually adjust that, so I started taking continuous frames with “Frame and focus” while adjusting the focuser in the “Focus control”. That did not work very well. The focuser refused to move no matter what I did.
I don’t know why not, but I thought it was supposed to.
At this point I was too cold for further investigations. I packed up and went inside. I will continue this investigation on next occasion.

What type of ASI camera and what f-ratio were you using?

ASI 1600 MC 840mm.