[Solved]D5100 and Serial Shutter Bulb Control

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[Solved]D5100 and Serial Shutter Bulb Control was created by Vignesh Murugan

Im having an issue with making this camera work in bulb mode with Ekos and Indi-Gphoto. So from what I had read, I built a serial cable to control the shutter for the camera, and that works in windows with no issues with DSLR Shutter (Stark-labs). I can make multiple long exposures with the cable.

My issue is when i try and use it with gphoto in ekos. When i plug in the device in the Ekos VM and load up the USB device, a new port shows up as /dev/ttyUSB0. So i put that as the shutter release port. And then when I try and take any kind of exposure, a few different things have happened. Ive done the same procedure about a 100 times now and everytime the same results:
  • The driver starts taking an exposure and starts counting down but the shutter release cable never gets triggered. - Alot to most of the time
  • The driver throws an error that it failed to open serial port - The only times i can find any errors in the log.
  • The exposure light just turns yellow and becomes unresponsive and i have to disconnect the camera and restart indi to be able to do anything at all. - Alot of the time

Do you have any idea about how to make this work in Ekos? Ive got tons of experience coding C++ but im a newcomer into linux, and from what ive seem going through gphoto_driver.cpp in the code repository the shutter trigger seems pretty straightforward, just not sure what im doing wrong.
Last edit: 7 years 5 months ago by Vignesh Murugan.
7 years 5 months ago #15978

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Replied by nMAC on topic D5100 and Serial Shutter Bulb Control

Normally these issues are related with user permissions to the comm port, in you case /dev/ttyUSB0.
You have to check if your username is in the dialout group, ekos does this on install from ppa but something could be wrong.

Do an ls -al /dev/ttyUSB*
and see it it's like this: crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 0 Dec 01 00:00 /dev/ttyUSB0
That should give permission to the dialout group where your username should be.

If it's not in the group you can use:
sudo adduser {username} dialout

log out, log in, your username should have access to /dev/ttyUSB0.

Wich hardware did you use for interfacing the shutter cable?
Oh and a Log file would be usefull too. Please send one if you can.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Jasem Mutlaq
Last edit: 7 years 5 months ago by nMAC.
7 years 5 months ago #15979

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Replied by Vignesh Murugan on topic D5100 and Serial Shutter Bulb Control


Rendering Error in layout Message/Item: array_keys(): Argument #1 ($array) must be of type array, null given. Please enable debug mode for more information.

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Replied by nMAC on topic D5100 and Serial Shutter Bulb Control

The permissions look ok.
if it works on windows it maybe be a connection misconfiguration.

Made a simple search and it seems there are others reports on the forum:

indilib.org/forum/general/354-nikon-bulb-cable-solved.html
www.indilib.org/forum/ccds-dslrs/220-nikon-d7000.html#415
The following user(s) said Thank You: Jasem Mutlaq
7 years 5 months ago #15981

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[Solved]D5100 and Serial Shutter Bulb Control - INDI Forum

Replied by Jasem Mutlaq on topic D5100 and Serial Shutter Bulb Control


Rendering Error in layout Message/Item: array_keys(): Argument #1 ($array) must be of type array, null given. Please enable debug mode for more information.

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Replied by Vignesh Murugan on topic D5100 and Serial Shutter Bulb Control


Rendering Error in layout Message/Item: array_keys(): Argument #1 ($array) must be of type array, null given. Please enable debug mode for more information.

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Replied by Jasem Mutlaq on topic D5100 and Serial Shutter Bulb Control

You can see it is setting capturetarget to memory card. This is actually hard-coded in the driver as capturetarget: 0 (RAM) never worked for Nikon before. Can you capture an image using GPhoto2 form the console? You can also editing the driver to capture from RAM and see if that works for you, but it never worked for Nikon users before.
7 years 5 months ago #15994

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Replied by Vignesh Murugan on topic D5100 and Serial Shutter Bulb Control

Ive done a bit more testing and ive noticed something really peculiar. Gphoto2 is able to control my camera without any issues for anything below bulb exposures.

The interesting bit is I checked my shutter cable with DSLR Shutter on Windows, it works fine. Then checked on the same computer, on Ekos Vm whether it will trigger the camera but nothing.

Then I plugged the shutter cable into my Macbook and tried DSLR Shutter there, camera does NOT get triggered on my Mac. Then I loaded up an XP Virtual Machine, and then tested DSLR Shutter in there and it works.

I think theres something stopping software from triggering the cable from MacOs as well as Linux. Have i missed something in configuring the system?
7 years 5 months ago #15999

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Replied by Jasem Mutlaq on topic D5100 and Serial Shutter Bulb Control

I don't know how the shutter cable exactly operates. From the code I see it simply opens the device for read/writing and that's it. Is this what's happening on Windows too?
7 years 5 months ago #16002

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Replied by Vignesh Murugan on topic D5100 and Serial Shutter Bulb Control


Rendering Error in layout Message/Item: array_keys(): Argument #1 ($array) must be of type array, null given. Please enable debug mode for more information.

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Replied by nMAC on topic D5100 and Serial Shutter Bulb Control

After some searching it seems FTDI chips have a lot of issues with linux kernel and RTS Line.
There are a lot of complaints about this. FTDI has specific drivers for linux on their support page, maybe installing them will solve it.
I remember having an hard time when I tried to connect my HEQ5 with an FTDI cable (5v one). I had to switch to another solution.

forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=50829.0
stackoverflow.com/questions/17385272/how...pins-values-on-linux
www.ftdichip.com/Support/FAQs.htm
hackaday.com/2009/09/22/introduction-to-ftdi-bitbang-mode
Last edit: 7 years 5 months ago by nMAC.
7 years 5 months ago #16014

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Replied by Vignesh Murugan on topic D5100 and Serial Shutter Bulb Control

UPDATE:

I managed to get Python in Ubuntu working and starting the shutter, I'm not sure what i did tbh, but I reflashed the EEPROM on the FTDI chip and something seems to have done something and opening the port and then running the ser.setRTS(1) and ser.setRTS(0) works!

No clue why it started working all of a sudden but I'm not complaining. Quick test with the indidriver doesnt seem to show any difference in starting the shutter, so ill try and edit the indi_gphoto driver to include RTS high and low.

Im just not sure how and where to begin compiling stuff for this OS, being super new to it and all...
7 years 5 months ago #16015

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