Question meridian flip and pier side problem

Hello,

Since my last upgrade to the latest firmware i have some problem with my Avalon Linear mount.
I notice a lot of bad behavior:

1) when i issue a park command my control software (voyager astronomy) immediatly receive a stopped signal (the mount is slewing to the park position)
2) when i issue a goto to a target, from time to time i have trailing stars send to the plate solver, which is indicate that the mount report slew end to early.

3) the most annoying and more problematic is the erractic reporting of the pier side to the orchestrator (voyager astronomy) when using ascom command to get the pier side.
the software take too much time to change the pier side after a meridian flip (more than 10 seconds) and report the wrong side of pier to the orchestrator before switching from west to east or vice versa.
I write to Leonardo (author of voyager astronomy) about this behavior and he told me to contact you as the mount report the wrong side of pier.

So i did write to Stephano for support at <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>  but my email was certainly lost as i did not receive any reply.
Here is what i sent:

Hello Stephano,

I contact you because my linear fast reverse mount did not report correctly the side of pier after a meridian flip.
The avalon ascom driver take a very long delay (more than 5s) before reporting the change of the side of pier, and my sequencing software ‘voyager astronomy’ activate a meridian flip watchdog and stop the mount

Here is a screenshot after that the problem...

 

This is now a consistent and repeatable error.
The time of the PC is synchronized to an atomic clock and the bios battery is not depleted.

As you can see in this screenshot, the ascom mount has finally switched to Pier Side East but it has done this after a too long delay and when voyager is requesting the mount driver, the side of pier was pierWest (Reload Pier Flip Status After Slew) which is wrong according to the position of the scope !

How can we dig together to solve this problematic behavior ?

Thank you for your help in advance.
 --
HoxCa  

I'm pretty sure i reload the linear mount profile after the firmware upgrade.
But i will do another load and test it again.

I could also certainly confirm lag on the pier side change juts using a goto with CDC.

Thank you for your prompt anwser, i will let you know ASAP, since the weather switch to clouds, i will test this inhouse.

Hello Stephano,

This night between cloud i manage to do the test.

1) Reload the mount profile "Linear"
2) Switch from Roma to my location entering my coordinates
3) Resync home position
4) Park the mount

Unplug the mount (usb and power) then replug

1) Unpark the mount
2) Issue a first goto to GamCas (which was very far away from the target: attached screenshot of CDC actual versus expected)
 
3) PlateSolve the actual position and then re-issue a goto GamCas (which was ok after the first sync)
4) From there issue a goto to Athebyne (other side of the pier)
5) Same Error than before (attached screenshot)
 
6) Slew the mount to home position then Park (screenshot of mount Parked)
 
----

I shutdown all software and unplug the stargo

1) Reconnect starGo and notice the alignment does not maintained (screenshot)
 
2) Connect CDC
3) Issue a goto to GamCas (way off again, but i did not do anything as i have no camera connected this time to do the platesolve)
4) issue a meridian flip with a goto to a target on the other side of the sky
5) Mount slew and StarGo take about 12 seconds before switching the status "side of pier" 

For the record i was using Voyager with older starGo firmware without any problem using "ascom normal" settings, and i can confirm that the problem did not came from the voyager astronomy orchestrator.
Since my stargo firmware update i notice a bunch of bad behavior of the mount and many crash of the stargo (Mainly when issuing the parking procedure, or updating the location and sync home position) 
I did not encounter this kind of problem with the old starGo software which also provided a lists of different locations

 
 
 

Hello Stephano,

1) Yep you are right, i forget to told you but i did set the park position before initiate the park position.
2) no i did not upgrade to ascom 7 platform

In last ressort i've try to re-uploaded the firmware to my avalon linear mount and reset all previous configuration. I did all the procedure to set the location and park position again.
Re-tested the meridian flip, and same problem occur
My mount take to long before updating the pier side and my orchestrator get the wrong side of pier via ascom (ascom normal) command.

I have to wait about 15 seconds before re-initiate the slew to the same target to get the real side of pier. 
 
As a work around this year, i have switch the configuration to "from scope position" to automate the merdidian flip in my sequence.
I cannot understand why the ascom driver take so long to update the side of pier (the CPU on my control PC is about 10% max, so it is definitly not a performance issue of the PC) when using "ASCOM Normal" configuration

For the record here is the mount configuration i'm talking about:

 

and the documentation here: wiki.starkeeper.it/index.php/Mount_Setup

• ASCOM Pier Mode: Select how Voyager should determine the orientation of your mount relative to the meridian (East or West). Options are:
  • From Scope Position: Determine if the mount is on the East of West side of the pier based on the current telescope RA and DEC relative to the meridian. Use this option if you control your mount via planetarium software such as TheSkyX. If you control your mount using planetarium software such as TheSkyX or TheSky6, please use the ASCOM Pier Mode "From Scope Position" and absolutely don't use the planetarium software to move the mount during a Sequence or execution of a DragScript. If you do this, you may lose the meridian flip feature in Voyager with possible damage to your setup.
  • ASCOM Normal: The mount is connected via ASCOM and correctly reports East or West orientation
  • ASCOM Inverted: The mount is connected via ASCOM and Voyager should invert the reported orientation - i.e., use East if the ASCOM driver reports West, and West if the driver reports East