Article (Equipment and Software):
Upgrading QSI 660i to 660wsg-8
This article is an upgrade log for my QSI 660i CCD camera, upgraded to a 660wsg-8, to include the 8 position filter wheel for 1.25" filters and the autoguider port. My thanks goes to Ian King from Ian King Imaging for the support and in sending me the components. I received three boxes with all the necessary components:
Since the QSI 660i is a shutter-less camera, the first component is the mechanical shutter, plus the motor to move the filter wheel. The second component is the obvious 8 position filter carousel for 1.25" filters. The third components are just the large camera enclosure.
Below is my original QSI 660i, a very small camera having no internal filter wheel or autoguider port:
Below is my original QSI 660i, a very small camera having no internal filter wheel or autoguider port:
The first step involved removing the eight short screws from around the casing, to separate it from the camera's internal electronics:
One can already see where the mechanical shutter board fits as there are two large, round notches for the motors. In order to fit the mechanical shutter board however, one needs to remove the nut and spacers from a screw coming out of the camera's left:
A set a pliers can help in unscrewing the tiny nut that is fastened to this screw. Technically there are two other screws on the camera - one on the bottom and the other to the right. QSI's instructions indicate these should be removed too but in my case, my mechanical shutter board only had one spacer (the one on the left), so I did not have to bother with these other two screws. Removing the included metallic spacer from the mechanical shutter board allowed me to screw it tightly into the camera's exposed screw:
At this point the camera was ready for me to drop in the mechanical shutter board, aligning the motors to the notches and the spacer to the screw hole on the top of the board:
It is at this stage as well that you physically connect the mechanical shutter board to the camera, electronically. The 10-pin connector provides both power to the motors and data to control the shutter and the selected filter. Just below the top of the mechanical shutter board is a tiny switch you can move left or right, to tell the camera what filter carousel you are using - 5 position or 8 position. Once the board was settled well, with the 10-pin connector securely connected and the 8 position filter carousel switch active, I fastened the screw to the spacer:
Now that the mechanical shutter system was installed, it was time to install the large camera back-plate, which is used to fasten the larger enclosure:
Four of the same short screws that kept my original QSI 660i closed were used to fasten this back-plate, set in the indicated locations. With the back-plate in place, the filter carousel could now be mounted:
A large screw with a very thin washer are included with the filter carousel. Since this is the 8 position filter carousel, it needs to be fastened to the mechanical shutter board in the indicated location, rather than the smaller hole to the top-right of it (located in the exact centre of the board):
With the filter carousel in place, with its O-ring pushing against the indicated motor, one can test if the placement is secure by moving the motor slightly with one finger (to check if the filter wheel spins). Having done this, it was time to install my filters into the filter carousel:
Now that all the filters are in place, it is time to close the camera with the large enclosure:
Two extra-long screws provided go through the indicated positions. These are the same length as another set provided but they have longer threads. The other set of long screws provided (with a shorter thread) go through the rest on the top of the enclosure:
Finally, two further screws provided (about half the length of the long ones) go through two positions along the top of the camera:
This completes the hardware upgrade to the camera from 660i to 660wsg-8:
A final step to note is that though the camera is now basically a 660wsg-8 and the electronics are all connected properly, that the firmware side of the camera still thinks it is a 660i (shutter-less and with no filter wheel). Thankfully this has an easy fix. Connecting the camera's power and USB first yielded no noise from the filter wheel (meaning that indeed the firmware was still unaware of its presence). I then ran QSI's Camera Updater program:
This program can be used to update the firmware on the camera. However, this is not something I needed to do. What I needed to do was tell the firmware that there was now a shutter and a filter wheel. This is done through the Advanced Configuration button:
One only need to check to enable Filter Wheel and Shutter. On clicking Next, the program tells you to cycle the camera's power. Indeed on doing so, the filter wheel started spinning as a camera initialisation. The camera's own diagnostic beeping and LED indicated that everything was fine. I further tested the camera by connecting it to my astrophotography laptop, running Sequence Generator Pro, changing my equipment profile to use the QSI Internal Filter Wheel and testing out changing filters. Everything was perfect - the upgrade was then 100% complete and the QSI 660wsg-8 CCD camera was ready for action.
Comment Box is loading comments...