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Hi, The original Gemini was criticized by many as difficult to use, requiring more button pushes than competing GOTO's to accomplish common tasks. Has this been addressed with Gemini 2? I plan on ordering a G11 with the Gemini 2 today, any idea how long that waitlist is? Thanks, Gale

Tom, I was thinking that there might be some usefulness to having some links to some of the utilities developed for Gemini I still applicable to Gemini II. For example, the Bright Star catalog for TS6 or the Gemini Model Saver utility. I don't know whether you want to duplicate storage space in the Files section or just have a link to the files in Gemini I. The user would still have to be a member of that group to get access to the files though. Keith

Thanks for the welcome Tom. Looks like an impressive start to the forum with the wealth of information like the manuals and the web interface pages. Keith

PS This message re-posted to fix misspellings. I would like to welcome everyone to this new users group. René and I are co-owners, and Dave (goes by twobones) is the moderator. Dave is also the moderator of the Gemini Users group. I am sure that this group will be as much an success as the Gemini users group is. Why 2 Groups? Well the memory space of user groups are limited. There are still many Gemini 1 units in the field and working. We do not want to use up the Gemini User Groups space, and also feel that this Gemini 2 is such a new development that it deserves it's own user group. I hope you all agree. This controller is a completely new design, with a totally new graphical interface. It has a very fast ARM 32 bit processors in both the main unit and the hand controller. There are now 2 serial ports for connecting the unit up. The feature port also contains 2 more serial ports, but an adapter will have to be used to bring the voltage levels of these ports to the RS232 standard level. There are 2 USB ports also, one of which can now be used and the other for future expansion. The unit also supports a Web interface, that can be used to set all setting, and Modes, upload firmware and catalogs. This Web interface also supports virtual serial port for connecting with programs like Starry Night,CCDWare, TheSky6/X and MaximDL, using the new Gemini.Net ASCOM driver. There are also mobile web interface pages in development so that you can control the Gemini 2 with an Android or iPhone smart phone. Please see the Gemini 2 Quick Start Guide in the files section under Documentation and Manuals. I want to personally thank René, Scott, and the Beta testers for all there hard work in bringing the Gemini 2 into a fully functional controller. René has put many, many hours into programming this controller. Robert has helped with the Web hand controller and Mobile Web Hand controller interface, and Paul modified the ASCOM driver to work with the Gemini 2 Web Interface and USB port. Benoit Robert has provide the Catalogs translated into Fench. Jim McKay is providing some new catalogs also. You can make your own custom catalogs and upload them to work in either the Hand Controller, Web interface or both. The rest of the beta tester made suggestions and tested fixes. The 4 tactical push buttons on the back of the hand controller was a suggestion by the beta testers. Dave wrote the Quick Start guide, with a very small bit of help from yours truly. I hope that everyone enjoys using the Gemini 2 and this group. Sincerely Thomas Hilton

Hi Everyone, Just wanted to say thank you for allowing me to join the group. At present I have two Gemini I systems up and running on two mounts and thinking about buying one of the new Gemini II for another mount after Scott gets caught up on warranty work and back orders. Wanted to get in on the ground floor of this group to be able to monitor and learn as much as I can about the new Gemini II to make the change a little easier. Thanks, John G.

Hi all, I already posted this but somehow it got buried the way that I did it. Here it is again. ________________________________________________________________________ Hi All I work directly for Scott Losmandy so maybe I can help you out with this. The new Gemini w/ Servos is priced at $1595, w/ Maxons at $1795. If you wish to order, please call me direct 530-346-6738 or you can call the Losmandy office number and it will still get to me. I will put the order in for you. The lead time for new orders, last I had heard, is April. They are currently working on backorders. Karen Myers Losmandy Products 530-346-6738

Is the new Gemini 2 going to be happy with lower voltages than the old Gemini 1? Anyone know anything about this? Thanks, Jerry . . . . . . . . . . .

John Also the Base Gemini 2 without motors is $1095 USD if you already have either type of servo motors (not Stepper motors) Tom Hilton Hi John, I work directly for Scott Losmandy so maybe I can help you out with this. The new Gemini w/ Servos is priced at $1595, w/ Maxons at $1795. If you wish to order, please call me direct 530-346-6738 or you can call the Losmandy office number and it will still get to me. I will put the order in for you. The lead time for new orders, last I had heard is around end of March. They are currently working on backorders. Karen Myers, Losmandy Products 530-346-6738

I have a 2001 model year Gemini with the RJ45 motor connectors. Where do I get the adapter cables for those motors for use with the G2? Thanks Chris N Cedar MN

Thank You for approving my membership. 1st question: Will the firmware in future for Gemini I also be updated in the same way as for the Gemini II or is from now on the Gemini I a buried dead system ? I have the possibility to burn my own EPROMs. I have 4 Gemini I units and honestly for the moment they are all working with no problems and an investment for updating to Gemini II is a No No at the moment. That would be maybe US $ 4,000.00 or even more ... Thanks and regards Rainer

Hello , i have the Gemini I and would like to upgrade to Gemini II do you think it is better wait a little bit before to change it ? Maybe there are some more test to do ? Thanks a lot Franco

So, here's a question... As we may all recall, until we knew of the existence of GII, there was much talk of options. One of the obvious candidates was of course the SiTech system. I presume such talk is probably currently much reduced now, as the feature set of the GII is really pretty lavish. There is however one feature of the SiTech I'm wondering if we may see come the GII way. That is the tick management feature used with high-resolution external encoders. Using tick-management they are basically able to eliminate PE (on Losmandy mounts as well). That would certainly be a killer feature for GII I think, especially, as a GII needn't be bound to a PC like the SiTech software. Latest talk on the SiTech group seems to be headed in the direction of Heidenhain absolute precision encoders with 33M tics for < $500. Is this a feature that may be in GII's future? Thanks, -esy Erik Sigurd Young "My punctuality is well known. When The Revolution takes place, I'll be late, and I'll be shot as a traitor."

You can download the ASCOM driver for Gemini 2 here. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Gemini-II/files/Driver_and_System_files/The%20ASCOM%20Gemini%20Driver/ Note that is does support the web interface as one of the connection methods. However you will probably have to manually change the IP address from 192.168.0.100 to 192.168.0.111 for it to work. Tom Hilton

Hi everyone According to Scott today on the phone this morning, all the motors (we are not talking about the Maxim motors) shipped in the last 2 years have the heat conductive tape added to the interior of the motors. If you remove the outer cover, and don't see this heat conductive tape around the motor winding, then you have an older motor. The heat conductive tape really helps keep the motors from getting so hot that it would melt the solder of the winding, causing the failures. I think the normal charge for a rebuild motor is $40.00, but please do not try and hold Losmandy to that, as I said before, I am not a representative of Losmandy, and really should not be quoting prices. Tom Hilton On 2/2/2011 7:24 PM, tom@... wrote: Dave I don't think they were the rebuilt motors. They were the stock motors that Losmandy supplied him as far a I know. Tom

Hi, I talked to some folks today with some knowledge of the MI-250 and the Gemini II system (Hmm...wonder who that might be). I thought I would share my tid bits as I was a bit confused reading various posts as well. They were very helpful as usual. If you have one of the newer MI-250 mounts (last couple years - the white mounts - I did not specifically inquire about the grey mounts but they did question which mount I had and if it was one of the latest production runs so it makes me think it might matter) you can just plug the Gemini II system right into your existing motors and order the GII system without the motors. Of course, you can replace your old motors with new servo motors (which are the same quality and grade as the motors on your MI-250 mount) or you can upgrade to the Maxon motors as well. I was told the only reason I would want to upgrade my motors to MAXON motors (if my regular servo motors were still in good working order) was if I was pushing the limits of the weight capacity (i.e., using a C14 with imaging gear, etc on it, which I am ... so I am thinking about doing this). If you do upgrade your motors, KEEP YOUR GEARBOXES. They are made for the 250 worms. I was told the switch from the servo motors to the Maxon motors was an easy switch ...no drilling holes or other complicated adjustments. Hope that clears some things up on the MI-250 electronics "upgrades." Maybe you all got this from earlier posts and if so I am sorry to be repetitive but I was having some difficulty interpreting some of the posts and answers. Carpe Noctem, Steve S. Virginia

I have added Web interface sample pages to the files menu. Please note these are from my Gemini 2 after I completely upgraded the firmware. No modeling is done. All of them are subject to change as firmware is updated. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Gemini-II/files/Documentation_and_Manuals/Web_Interface_samples/ Tom Hilton

Hello group, Can you confirm the GEMINI convention used to set the latitude and longitude coordinates ? Here is what it is written into the Gemini 2 Quick Start Guide : - Longitude: positive values for West longitude, negative values for East longitude. - Latitude : positive for North latitudes, negative values for East latitudes. I would like a confirmation because the convention for the longitude is exactly the opposite convention used everywhere which said positive value for East longitude (after the Greenwich meridian) et negative for West longitude. Thank you. Marc Deldem

René, can you indicate what is done with the last official version (from January 31) ? Thank you. Marc De : Rene Goerlich ? : Gemini-II@... Envoyé le : Ven 4 février 2011, 8h 49min 37s Objet : Re: [Gemini-II] Confirmation about the GEMINI convention for latitude and longitude coordinates Hello Marc Can you confirm the GEMINI convention used to set the latitude and longitude coordinates ? Here is what it is written into the Gemini 2 Quick Start Guide : - Longitude: positive values for West longitude, negative values for East longitude. - Latitude : positive for North latitudes, negative values for East latitudes. I would like a confirmation because the convention for the longitude is exactly the opposite convention used everywhere which said positive value for East longitude (after the Greenwich meridian) et negative for West longitude. No, I've changed it. Eastern longitudes are positive, Western negative. Also. I'm just changing the timezone settings the same way: west (behind UTC) negative. We have to change this in the Quickstart guide. René

Does the new Gemini 2 or will it in the future support satellite tracking? Thanks Brian

Below is a message that René posted to the beta group about the new firmware he posted over there and I moved to this group. Please remember that these firmware has only been tested by René at this time. Upgrades and Fixes are still in progress as you see. If any of you do test it and find a major problem, please let us know. If anyone runs into a problem, I keep all uploaded files and can supply a copy, of previous versions. Tom Hilton Message re-posted for René below Hi group, I've uploaded new software for main board and HC. For both, after having changed the longitude signs before, I did the same for the timezone, as Tom and Dave suggested. This required quite a lot of internal changes, so please give it a good test. The HC now supports the complete Greek character set. Thanks, Benoit! At the main board, I corrected a bug that showed up with the lots of catalogs available now, and the additional information... I had to split the information internally because of buffer size limitations. DHCP is supported. Tom, can you please try it again? It worked for me and Scott with the last version, maybe I have to wait longer (currently 4 seconds), or maybe you have MAC filtering enabled? Benoit and Jim contributed a lot of nice catalogs. Jim, if you don't mind, I put your catalogs into the SD card's Catalogs directory. Benoit, could you please upload your catalogs to the New Catalogs folder of the group? If you don't want to take the SD card out, please upload at least SMP.cgi and network.cgi into your languages' folder, and the catalogs you like. Best, René