Carole's SC3 Webcam

[The Thing]

My two pence worth...

Make sure the serial port is not being powered down by Windoze when it thinks it's not being used. Now I use a 12v Tranquil(tm) PC with two real serial ports I found this to be a pain until I fixed it in Device Manager. Likewise the parallel port. Also turn off power saving in the BIOS if possible.

[MarkS]

Duncan,

Thanks for your comment - it's not something I've come across before.

But in this particular case, the problem is not that the serial port goes to sleep - I can see the relevant LX signals appearing on the output pins.  But, for one reason or another, the webcam fails to respond to those signals.

I've just got myself an old Toshiba portege laptop off eBay for £100.  Like yours, it also runs quite happily directly off 12v and it consumes a measley 1.25amps when the display is dimmed (as it will be at night when imaging).

Mark

[Mac]

Mark have a look at the cable that goes into the web cam.

I had that thing working for a couple of hours on long exposure with no problems.

I only managed to get it to fail once when the cable was wiggled ( near the web cam end)

but i could only get it to fail once, by doing that.

the other original problems were to do with the parallel port not being set up correctly, plus the drivers were not fully installed

it had only managed half an install.

If its not working i'd look at the cable first.

~Mac.

[MarkS]

Mark have a look at the cable that goes into the web cam.

The cable didn't appear to have any effect ...