[Kstars-devel] FLI CCD indi control panel

[Gaetano Vocca]

Hi,
notes about questions are interlaced.

On Saturday 19 February 2005 01:24, Jasem Mutlaq wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Gaetano Vocca" <yagvoc-web at yahoo.it>
> To: "KStars Development Mailing List" <kstars-devel at kde.org>
> Sent: Saturday, February 19, 2005 3:03 AM
> Subject: Re: [Kstars-devel] FLI CCD indi control panel
>
> >I have just tested the FLI CCD driver a little bit after upgrading the cvs
> > and:
> > 1) In the Expose tab both the temperature slider and the edit box are now
> > independent from the current temperature of the camera, it's ok to me
> > (thank
> > you Jasem).
> > 2) Still in the Expose tab about the Duration fields. When the INDI
> > Control
> > panel is run the first time, the label (fourth control from left) shows
> > 1.00.
> > If I take a picture without filling the text box aside, the frame is 1
> > sec long and in the log window the message is "Taking a 1 seconds frame".
> > At this
> > point the label changes to 0.00.
> > If I take a second frame still without filling the text field, in the log
> > window the message is "Taking a 0 seconds frame" while the exposure is
> > still
> > 1 second long.
>
> Hmmmm, okay, I'll check this problem out.
>
> > 3) The driver needs, as supposed, to be run as root to properly connect
> > to the
> > camera due to the privileges of the usb device of the camera itself
> >
> > A very minor little note: as far as I know, for a Bias type of exposure
> > the
> > duration is unuseful because this should be anyway the shortest exposure
> > possible for the given sensor.
>
> True. But from the FLI manual, the shortest possible exposure is 50 ms, so
> it's specified as that.
You are right so, actually, the content of the Duration field is not so 
significant. Would it be possible to disable the Duration when Bias exposure 
is selected? I don't know the impact on the code, if it's too high don't 
worry. 
>
> > If you have any suggestion for any test I can perform, don't hesitate to
> > tell
> > me, I will try.
>
> Yes. Were you able to capture frames without problems? Was the frame sent
> to KStars and displayed properly? What happens when you run the driver as a
> user? what's the error messages you get?

Yas, I am able to take light frames without problem and they are correctly 
displayed in the FITS viewer. They are not so nice because the camera is not 
currently plugged to a telescope but everything seems to work flawlessly.
About the "user mode". Here the issue is that the library from FLI needs to 
open the USB devices to check for the presence of the camera and to talk to 
it. When not run as root it is impossible for the library to open the device, 
here follow some lines from /var/log/messages

...
Feb 19 12:29:17 numenor fliccd: Entering FLIOpen()
Feb 19 12:29:17 numenor fliccd: Trying to open file </proc/bus/usb/001/001> in 
domain 258.
Feb 19 12:29:17 numenor fliccd: Got device index 0
Feb 19 12:29:17 numenor fliccd: Domain: 0x0002
Feb 19 12:29:17 numenor fliccd:   Type: 0x0100
Feb 19 12:29:17 numenor fliccd: fli_connect() error -13 [Permission denied]
...

So the indi driver cannot do anything but returning "Error: no cameras were 
detected." in the log window.
Actually I am having some troubles with the FLI library related to the USB 
handling that I worked around with some tricks. I didn't write about them 
thinking that  it is a little bit off-topic in this list but if you are 
interested I'll be happy to tell you.
 
>
> Thanks a lot for testing this driver Gaetano :-)
>
> Good luck,
> Jasem
>

It is nothing if compared to the work that all of you have done with kstars.

Cheers,
Gaetano

PS: What about thinking a little bit to supporting the filter wheel? It 
shouldn't be too hard and, if I can help, I'm ready :-)
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