PegasusAstro and Viking Out of Service announcement

Voyager Equipment Setup & Compatibility
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Due to the differences introduced to the official ASCOM drivers used by Viking for the management of the PegasusAstro I / O cards, they will no longer be compatible if you update the drivers to the new unified version called “Unity”.

In fact, many of the necessary sources of information that Viking used to access status and commands have been removed. Despite our grievances it is not possible to change the situation, we respect the manufacturer’s decision and apologize but it does not depend on our will.

The PegasusAstro cards will thus be compatible only using the old drivers that are still downloadable on the manufacturer’s pages.

All the best
Leonardo

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Thanks for the warning Leonardo. A friend of mine very recently bought both Voyager and Viking, Viking specifically to give control over a Pegasus UPB. I will have to warn him not to “Upgrade” to the new Unity version of drivers.

I was actually looking at buying a Pegasus box myself, so I had better download and store the older drivers now, just in case they are removed from the Pegasus downloads section in future. or perhaps I will just buy a Dragonfly instead. It seems a big backwards step to make the powerboxes harder to control in an an automated environment.

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I prefer not to comment on Paul, I just say that it is hard to go on but the passion and dedication on my part is infinite and that I respect the choices of others.

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What? I own 4 pegasus power boxes and I bought them because they work with Viking.

I don’t know the details about what features are removed from the newer Pegasus ASCOM driver but I will like to send a message to Pegasus asking them to keep compatibility, they might listen.

Cheers,

José

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I have contacted Pegasus Astro, If you own a UPB I encourage you to do the same and complain about breaking compatibility with Viking.

Cheers,

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Jose, you did well - as many of us are on the same boat !

Will send them a message too.

Cheers,
Aygen

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I also contacted Pegasus astro.

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I just sent an email to support@pegasusastro.com encouraging them to maintain support with Viking. I told them that compatibility with Viking is why I chose their products in the first place.

Tim.

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I got a reply from Evans at Pegasus Astro:

“There are lots of people who reaches me for the same reason. To be honest we cannot do much about it. Any other software (sgpro,nina,maximdl) is fully compatible with the driver. We have already contacted Leo from Viking and provided all the instructions on how to comply with the new driver.”

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As already written, the new driver provides for the loss of a lot of information making it incompatible with Viking. The other programs just give you a list of what’s available and don’t bother to check what’s available or not.

However, giving an answer of this kind really leaves us embittered.

Embittered because we really saw another story: we asked 3 times how to extract and obtain the missing information that makes things incompatible. After confirming the lack of previous data, no one answered us again.

Rather than giving a limited version than before, we will be removing support for PegasusAstro products from the next Viking release.

Leonardo Orazi voyagerastro@gmail.com Mon, Apr 11, 3:25 PM (6 days ago)

to Evans, Information, stathis

Hi Evans,

this is what make not more compatible your product with Viking:

'[USCITA 11] => 13 - Auto Dew - Automatic Control of Dew Heater Channels - 0 - 1

'[ANA 1] => 14 - Temperature - Ambient Temperature - 0 - 1
'[ANA 2] => 15 - Humidity - Relative Humidity % - 0 - 1
'[ANA 3] => 16 - Dew Point - Dew Point - 0 - 1
'[ANA 4] => 17 - Voltage - Input DC Voltage - 0 - 1
'[ANA 5] => 18 - Current - Total Current in Amps - 0 - 1
'[ANA 6] => 19 - Power - Power in Watts - 0 - 1

'20 - Model - Ultimate Powerbox - 0 - 1

Some questions ?

Can I connect observing conditions and switch at same time to get the temperature, humidity,dew point ?

How can I get this information (see below) and send commands from/to switch or observing conditions to have compatibility ?

'[USCITA 11] => 13 - Auto Dew - Automatic Control of Dew Heater Channels - 0 - 1

'[ANA 4] => 17 - Voltage - Input DC Voltage - 0 - 1
'[ANA 5] => 18 - Current - Total Current in Amps - 0 - 1
'[ANA 6] => 19 - Power - Power in Watts - 0 - 1
'20 - Model - Ultimate Powerbox - 0 - 1

Thank you so much in advance for your answer.

All the best

Leonardo Orazi

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