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ZWO ASI1600MM-Cool Image Download Hanging

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I posted the following at CloudyNights and I am re-posting here because I thought it might be useful information:

I have been reading this with great interest so I decided to test it myself with ASI120MC-S which is a color CMOS camera and USB 3.0. I tested with two different computers/laptops. Here is my equipment.

Camera: ASI120MC-S using V1.0.2.5 and V1.0.2.8 ASI ASCOM drivers. I selected "Highest Dynamic Range" preset gain, offset and USB Limit.

Desktop Computer: Home Built. Intel i7 Quad Core, 3.6Ghz, 16GB RAM, Windows 10 64 bit

Laptop: HP Envy, Intel i5 Dual Core, 2.5GHz, 8GB RAM, Windows 10 64 bit.

Using Desktop: Both SGP 2.5.1.15 and Nebulosity 4.1 FAILED. I was taking Bias subs at 0.000 second exposure and collected 20 subs for each SGP sequence. I would repeat SGP sequence at least once or twice before SGP would crash. Nebulosity 4.1 Frame & Focus would cause the download to hang forever after second capture consistently.

Using laptop: Both SGP 2.5.1.15 and Nebulosity 4.1 PASSED. I was taking Bias subs at 0.000 second exposure and collected 20 subs for each SGP sequence. I collected a total of 500 subs without a single crash. Nebulosity 4.1 Frame & Focus passed with flying colors and no download hang.

What does this mean? Different computers behaving differently for same ASI camera, USB 3.0 cable and drivers? I am still leaning to blame on ASI driver for USB 3.0. Note that my laptop is a little wimpier than Desktop but does it mean that wimpier computers/laptops would work better? I don't know.

But both desktop and laptop easily PASSED if using USB 2.0 with SGP 2.5.1.15 and Nebulosity 4.1 with V1.0.2.5 and V1.0.2.8 ASI ASCOM drivers.

No delays were used in between subs for SGP. Some people said that inserting delays in between subs help.

My suggestion when capturing DSOs using SGP or Nebulosity, use USB 2.0 since sub-exposure times are always longer (at least 30 seconds) and there is no hurry for downloading subs at 4 Gigabit per second for USB 3.0.

When capturing videos of planets, use ZWO native driver and FireCapture. Firecapture using USB 3.0 seems to be stable and no crashes or hangs. Note that native driver for ASI120MC-S is not the same as for ASI1600 so I can't say that native driver for ASI1600 is rock solid and stable to use with FireCapture.

I know my camera is not ASI1600 but my tests with ASI120MC-S appear to behave similarly with others using ASI1600 which leads me to believe that ZWO ASCOM driver using USB 3.0 is a little (maybe more than a little) buggy.

I hope this is useful information.

Peter


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