On Thu, Apr 14, 2022 at 01:22 PM, koal01 wrote:

The wiki is a very good idea 

And I've started on that now.

Do you have the info. on the current sensors you used?  I'd like to add info to the Wiki about them.

A Wiki for this OCS Group has been created.

It's not complete by any means but represents a good start I think.

https://onstep.groups.io/g/onstep-ocs/wiki

On Thu, Apr 14, 2022 at 07:24 AM, Fernando Nino Sr wrote:

Hi Howard, I have a question on which ESP32 Module to use, ESP Wroom32 has 38 pin outs and the ESP32 Dev.Kit v1- DoIt has 36 pin outs, does it matter which one to use, I have both of these modules. I would like to give it a go with the ESP32 version.

I ended up deleting the ESP32 pinmap, not that a new one can't be added and a plain ESP32 should still work.

In its place I added support for the ESP32-S2 SAOLA as in testing the ESP32-S2 appears to work also.  It has enough pins to basically keep the OCS4 hardware layout except without the SPI interface stuff (no great loss there):




I won't build one of these, but I probably will jumper wire my ESP32-S2 into an OCS4 to see that it basically works.

Hi Howard 
So we are now at the version 4 Good job ! My ocs 2 is quite old now LOL but is still working nicely !
Last year i bought some components to build OCS3 but i'm going to consider this new release that seems easier to assemble
The wiki is a very good idea 
Thanks for all
Koal01

Oh yea, even though the Rev4 hardware has more components I think its a bit easier to assemble.  Better layout.

BTW the OCS Hardware Rev4 came to be since I didn't like how the 8-channel ebay relay plugged in nor did I really have room for it in my enclosure.  After thinking about it I realized just one more high current relay was all I really needed and I could fit it on the PCB and even squeeze in one more SSR.  Much more elegant this way.

This lead to not having enough pins for the ebay 8-channel relay board but that didn't plug in nicely with the big ribbon cable anyway, so I changed the header to match a 4-channel one.

Recently when I implemented the Dome control it occurred to me that one might very well need even more I/O to control everything so I added the last two available pins back on an Aux header.

AFAIK OCS4 is done.

You know which I'd use, else Rev4 wouldn't exist, but its up to you.  AFAIK both designs should work fine (see notes below.)

I recently fixed silk screen and component values for some resistors so be sure to look at the latest PCB (both Rev3 and Rev4.)  On Rev3 I just kind of winged it (as the early prototype had bigger problems to worry about) then later built Rev4 to spec and it didn't work quite right, the SSR current limiting resistors were 3.3k and that just didn't quite turn them on (built in optocouplers) so I swapped in 2.2k and all was well.  The holding resistor for "normally closed" was much higher value also and wasn't doing the job so watch the new resistor values around there too.  The latest OCS4 uses the 3.3V rail for this purpose so its resistor has a fairly low value, my prototype Rev4 board uses the 5V rail, so feel free to pick a resistor pair that works for R300 and R301 such that Relay 8 is held closed during a reboot (while not overloading the Teensy pin) if you run into trouble with that.  Probably the spec'd values will work.

Eventually I will build up a Wiki here with assembly instructions to take some of the guess work out of it.  It will cover two designs, the OCS4 and the OCSESP1 (once its tested.)  OCS3 will become obsolete.

I just saw the OCS 4 board.  I have a set of 3 boards(Teensy) that just arrived.  Should I go for the 4 board and scrap the 3?

On Thu, Apr 14, 2022 at 07:24 AM, Fernando Nino Sr wrote:

Hi Howard, I have a question on which ESP32 Module to use, ESP Wroom32 has 38 pin outs and the ESP32 Dev.Kit v1- DoIt has 36 pin outs, does it matter which one to use, I have both of these modules. I would like to give it a go with the ESP32 version.

I doubt it matters.  The ESP32 support isn't really complete (log file changes are still needed) but feel free to test it out.

Naturally ESP32's are tricky to design hardware for so, be sure to read up on the special pin rules.  You might very well need to design a pinmap for your hardware if its much different than my ESP32 test setup (whos pinmap might still change as I see fit.)

On Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 01:17 PM, Howard Dutton wrote:

ESP32

Hi Howard, I have a question on which ESP32 Module to use, ESP Wroom32 has 38 pin outs and the ESP32 Dev.Kit v1- DoIt has 36 pin outs, does it matter which one to use, I have both of these modules. I would like to give it a go with the ESP32 version.
Thanks
Nino

The latest main branch OCS now runs on the ESP32 (using WiFi.)  This requires using Arduino board manager ESP32 libraries version 1.0.4 and a target of 1MB program and 3MB spiff.  The SPIFF part is the file system similar to a very small SD card built into the ESP32.  You must initialize the SPIFF as described here then format and upload the Chart.js file in the Arduino IDE (its already in the /OCS/data directory to help accomplish this.)  Note that the limited storage still needs to be worked on as the OCS weather log file format will have to be changed so its more compact and erases old log files automatically.  I plan to compact the log files to accomplish this... perhaps the most recent 2 or 3 days at higher resolution then hourly logs when older than that (so 1920 bytes per day will allow for about 3 years on a 4MB ESP32.)

Naturally not every feature is tested, but generally it seems to work.

Probably I will release hardware specific to the ESP32, the lack of pins will make this more minimal than the Teensy based OCS hardware version 4 but still a useful option as the ESP32 is cheaper and more widely available. The concept below has 8 relays (3x SSR, 1x MOSFET, and 4x 16A 220V) and 9 inputs (3x 33V analog, 3x TTL analog or digital, and 3x TTL digital) plus one TTL serial port and I2C.  Should be enough for a modest setup:

On Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 05:42 AM, Howard Dutton wrote:

On Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 05:40 AM, Howard Dutton wrote:

The ASCOM Alpaca functionality (google and read up on it) is built into the OCS firmware, all you need to do is ask ASCOM to create an Alpaca driver (for each driver type) and that's it.  ASCOM's defaults work fine except the port is at 10000 instead of 11111 (though I might change that.)

Note that the methods I used are only suitable for IP network connections, there is NO support for serial port ASCOM connections with Alpaca.

Also note that OCS version 3 is a tight fit for the Mega2560 and probably this Alpaca support requires a Teensy, likely it requires using a W5500 for Ethernet too.

To keep things organized I've created a topic here concerning work on the Observatory Control System version 3.

On Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 05:40 AM, Howard Dutton wrote:

The ASCOM Alpaca functionality (google and read up on it) is built into the OCS firmware, all you need to do is ask ASCOM to create an Alpaca driver (for each driver type) and that's it.  ASCOM's defaults work fine except the port is at 10000 instead of 11111 (though I might change that.)

Note that the methods I used are only suitable for IP network connections, there is NO support for serial port ASCOM connections with Alpaca.

On Tue, Apr 12, 2022 at 06:05 AM, Rakios wrote:

Is latest version of ascom drivers compatible with release 2.3?

If it is compatible, could you give me the link to download it?

I sent the ASCOM driver link to you, again, I don't think you understand though...

There are no OCS specific "ascom drivers" associated with this new work shown below, and NONE ARE NEEDED if running OCS 3.03 and later.

The ASCOM Alpaca functionality (google and read up on it) is built into the OCS firmware, all you need to do is ask ASCOM to create an Alpaca driver (for each driver type) and that's it.  ASCOM's defaults work fine except the port is at 10000 instead of 11111 (though I might change that.)

---

All of these have the usual OCS website panels for control also (those additional Power panel options are for simulating roof close/open limit switches:)

And finally, the Dome/Shutter (roof:)

And ObservingConditions:

On Wed, Mar 30, 2022 at 01:11 PM, Howard Dutton wrote:

And now, ASCOM Switch is also supported.