I OFTEN have to reboot the computer or SGP. When closing the app I want to keep the camera cool so it’s ready upon
the reboot to shoot. I asks me. “disconnect equipment?” “Shut off camera cooler”? I say NO.
SGP closes and… It does. Shuts off camera cooler. DOH?
We should this message to read “Attempt to keep the cooler on?” The problem is that SGPro will not explicitly kill the camera cooler on disconnect, but if your driver does this anyhow there is nothing to be done (it seems like that is what is happening for you).
I’ve got the same problem. It would be nice to keep the camera cooler ON when disconnecting the camera at any time.
We try…but it’s ultimately up to the driver. We disconnect from the camera, leaving the cooler on vs. turning it off…many drivers will then turn off the cooler as part of the disconnect. SGP has no control over this.
Thank you,
Jared
I understand that. However, I also observed the following:
When I terminate one sequence and load another one, the cooler is switched off as well. So it looks like SGP disconnects the camera when I change to a different sequence. I find this behavior really annoying. Is there a chance to alter it (i.e. hold the connection when changing to a another sequence)? Or am I doing something wrong?
Bernd
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To Jared’s point, when you terminate and load another one, is the equipment disconnecting and then reconnecting? If it is, then, again the driver may shut off the cooling with an ASCOM disconnect.
The equipment should still be connected in that case. However it’s possible that the Cool Down logic for the TEC is getting triggered. See if disabling the Cool Down in the new sequence takes care of it. Or setting a time of 0 minutes in the cool down section and then loading that sequence.
Thanks,
Jared
Jared,
the situation was: the camera was cooling down to -5 °C in 15 minutes, the set temperature was not yet reached. When I chose File / Open Sequence, the message
“The camera cooler is currently cooling. Continuing to open a new sequence will abort the camera cooler operation. Are you sure you want to continue?”
is displayed. When I wait till the set temperature is reached and try again to load another sequence, it is working fine.
OK, that’s no problem, and I have learned something new. 
Thank you for the feedback!
Bernd
Thanks Jared - understood it’s not SGPro’s fault but that of the ASCOM driver!
This doesn’t look like the driver turnng cooling off because it has disconnected, more that SGP is turning the cooler off as part of the open a new sequence process. The driver could be doing exactly what SGP is asking it to do.
A camera driver log might resolve this.
That’s a “feature” I’ve run into regularly with SGP that it would be nice to see solved. I’m not sure why the cooldown and overall driver control is so heavily tied to a sequence, but presumably that’s because you could load another sequence with a different equipment configuration. That said, you might want to take a look at my “bug”/unintended feature report and feature request thread where I’m asking for an option to load the last sequence at startup rather than always creating a blank one so that this problem will be less likely to occur.
Beo
It’s probably some of both. The " new sequence/cool down" problem is certainly ours to fix. But many camera drivers do turn off the TEC on disconnect as well. I know QHY does (some (all?) QHYs won’t even cool if we don’t ask the driver for the temp)
Thanks,
Jared
It’s not unreasonable for the driver to cooling off when disconnected. Disconnecting says that you don’t want to use the camera and quite probably the next thing is to turn the power off. That will definitely turn cooling off. It could be good pratice to give the camera as much opportunity to get warmed up progressively before the power is removed.
The driver is unlikely to be able to foresee that the user is only closing SGP for a short time and will then restart without cycling the power to the camera.
I don’t disagree…just stating that’s out of our control in some cases. When loading a new sequence the camera should stay connected. But it’s likely entering the cool down loop…which we’ll have to address.
Thanks,
Jared