QHYCCD QHY16803A User manual

All-in-one COLDMOS Astronomy Camera
QHY16803A
User’s Manual Rev. 1.0

QHY16803A
This document is an online document. You may save this PDF file or print it out.
QHYCCD reserves the right to change this user manual without prior notice.
Package Contents
Please confirm that the package contains the following items:
12V power cable
1
12V car power adapter
1
USB cable
1
Grounding cable
1
T-ring(2 inch to M54/0.75)
1
Drying tube
1
Desiccant
1
USB hub bypass board
1
Screw driver for M2 hexagon screw
1
Screw driver for M3 hexagon screw
1
Screws for fixing filter frame and filter
many
Inspection report
1
Waterproof plastic box
1
OHYOAG-M
1
Camera
1
Optional accessories
12V power adaptor (12V 6A)
1
Trigger cable
1
RS232 cable (1.5m)
1
Note that if the user wants to buy 12V power adapter by themselves, its output current is at
least 3.5A, and the polarity must be center positive.

QHY16803A
Table of Contents
01 Software Installation
02 Filter installation
03 Use QHY16803A in EZCAP_QT
04 Use QHY16803A on ASCOM platform
05 Use QHY16803A in FireCapture
06 Peripheral Ports on QHY16803A
07 FAQ
08 Camera Maintenance
09 Specifications
10 Mechanical Dimensions
11 Revision History

QHY16803A
01 Software Installation
1. Download and install ASCOM platform
2. Download and install the Camera Driver
Note that when you run its driver setup program, you will be prompted to install camera driver,
network card driver, and FTDI Serial port driver. Since IC16803A and QHY16803A use the same
system driver and there's no network card in the QHY16803A, the network driver is actually no
use.
3. Download and install the ASCOM Capture Driver
4. Download and install the ASCOM Filters Plug for the built-in filter wheel.
5. QHY16803A camera uses EZCAP_QT as the default capture software. Please download and
install EZCAP_QT.
6. Connect QHY16803A to your PC with USB2.0 cable. Connect your QHY16803A to 12V power
supply (Make sure 12V power supply is always connected when you use QHY16803A). Turn the
switch on. For the first time the system will find a new device and search the driver. You can
keep skipping the online searching by clicking "Skip obtaining driver software from Windows
Update" and the computer will find the drivers. After installation is complete successfully, you
can find the device in the device manager as shown in the picture below.
7. QHYCCD has developed a software named UpdateCheck that can check if the drivers installed
on your computer are the latest versions as well as update the drivers if needed. If the status of
some driver is “Need Update”, you can directly download its update package in this software
freeing you from the inconvenience of looking for and downloading it from our website.
Take QHY183C for example, you can see the drivers we need are the latest versions and don’t
need to be updated as shown in the following picture.

QHY16803A
Note that after you downloading and installing the new drivers by using this software, be sure to
pull the USB cable out and then plug it in to enable the new drivers.

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02 Filter installation
QHY16803A contains a built-in 7-Hole 50mm filter wheel. Please follow the instructions below to
install filters for it.
1. Use the screwdriver included in the box to remove the M3*12 screws on the topside of the
camera.
2. You can see the filter wheel after opening the top cap. You can install 50mm filters and fix
them with screws and washers. Please make sure that filters and screws used for fixing the filters
do not touch the top cap and photoelectric position detector.
3. After you've finished installing the filters, you can turn on the camera and connect the camera
to your PC with USB cable to make sure the filter wheel can work properly. Note that the filter
wheel use photoelectric position detector to determine the position of the filter, so make sure
you are not exposing the filter wheel to strong light when you are testing if it can work properly,
otherwise the strong light may affect the photoelectric position detector.
4. Install the top cap.
Now we have finished installing filters, we are going to introduce how to use QHY16803A in
EZCAP_QT, MAXIMDL, and Sequence Generator Pro.

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03 Use QHY16803A in EZCAP_QT
EZCAP_QT is the software developed by QHYCCD. This software has the basic capture function
for QHYCCD deep sky cameras. You can use this QHY16803A camera with its built-in filter wheel
in this software.
1. Install EZCAP_QT
2. Connect your QHY16803A to 12V power supply. Connect your QHY16803A to your computer
with USB2.0 cable.
3. Run EZCAP_QT. Select "Connect" in Menu->Camera. If the camera is successfully connected.
The title of EZCAP_QT will display the camera firmware version and the camera ID as shown
below.
Before you click "connect", you have to make sure you can see QHY16803A in the device
manager on Windows. Sometimes if you click "connect", you may see the warning shown in the
picture below.

QHY16803A
That doesn't necessarily mean that the camera and your computer are not connected. In this
case, you can just wait for a minute and click 'connect' again, then you can see it will be
connected successfully. This is because it usually takes a while to load its firmware into your
computer.
4. In Menu->Camera Setup, Click "Temp Control" and set the CMOS sensor temperature. You can
enable the "Auto Control" and set the target temperature. For example here we set the
temperature to -10C. The CMOS temperature will come to -10C very fast (in about 2-3minute). If
you want to close the TEC, you can select "TEC OFF". If you just want to set the TEC power but
not the temperature. You can select "Manual" and then set the percent of the TEC power.
5. You can select which filter you are going to use by changing the position of filter wheel as
shown in the following picture.

QHY16803A
6. You can use the preview tab to do preview. And use the focus tools to do focus. Then use the
capture tab to capture image.
7. In EZCAP_QT there is a planner for image tasking. You can capture a series images by using the
table below.

QHY16803A
04 Use QHY16803A on ASCOM platform
You can connect many software that support ASCOM. Currently QHY16803A only supports
normal ASCOM connection and does not support the ASCOM VIDEO connection. Please note that
QHY16803A always transfers maximum bit depth by ASCOM to make the best DSO imaging
performance. The image format is 16bit width and patch zero on low bit.
MaxIM DL
1. First you have to make sure that both ASCOM Platform and ASCOM driver have been installed.
If not, please install it first.
2. Start MAXIMDL
3. Follow the instructions shown below to finish the setup.

QHY16803A
Normally, you can set the gain=1 and offset=10 to start. Keep clicking "Okay" to return to Camera
Control window.
The following instructions are going to show you how to configure the built-in filter wheel in
MAXIMDL.
Click "Setup Filter" in the Camera Control window.

QHY16803A
In the window shown below, you can set up your filter wheel.

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Keep clicking "OK" to return to the Camera Control window. Click "Connect"

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Sequence Generator Pro
Sequence Generator Pro is an extremely powerful image capture suite. It can perform many
complex tasks in order to meet your imaging needs. After you connect your gears and configure
Sequence Generator Pro properly, you can go to sleep and see images in the morning.
To use QHY16803A in Sequence Generator Pro, you can follow the instructions listed below.
Open sequencer by clicking the button in the red rectangle as shown in the picture below.
If you've connected QHY16803A to your PC before click that red button. The red button will turn
to green as shown in the picture below.

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The next step is going to configure the built-in filter wheel. Before you select QHYCCD Filter
wheel as the filter and click the red connect button, you should also make sure you've
downloaded and installed the ASCOM Filters Plug for the built-in filter wheel, you've plugged in
the 12V power supply cable, and the initialization of filter wheel has been finished.

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For example, you can change the filter names to Lum, Red, Green, Blue, and Ha as you installed
them this way. Then you make schedule events to take turns to use these filters as shown in the
following picture.
For detailed and helpful tutorial of this software, please go to its website to check its help
content.

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05 Use QHY16803A in FireCapture
The latest FireCapture supports QHY16803A already. Please go to FireCapture website to
download its v2.5 BETA (32-bit) version.
By default, it will be installed in the "Documents" folder. After it was installed successfully,
navigate to "Document folder", and you will find its installation folder as shown below.
Enter that folder and run "FireCapture.exe", then select QHYCCD camera. And after the loading,
you will see the image on FireCapture like shown below.
For detailed and helpful tutorial of this software, please go to its website to check the tutorial
section at http://www.firecapture.de/

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06 Peripheral Ports on QHY16803A
Serial ports
QHY16803A provides two serial ports, which are connected to the built-in USB hub through FTDI
USB to Serial chip. These two serial ports provide standard RS232 signal level(±10V). You can use
it to connect your camera to electric focuser and even equatorial mount. But note that this signal
level is different from TTL signal level used in EQMOD. If you want to connect your camera to
equatorial mount through EQMOD, A signal level convertor between TTL and RS232 is needed.
After you finished installing the drivers, the serial ports drivers should also be installed. You can
check its COM number in the device manager in the Windows so that you can use it in your
application software.
Serial port cable is optional accessary, and QHYCCD is developing many types of serial port cable.
You can contact QHYCCD to know if there's serial port cable you need.
The pin arrangement is already shown in the picture above.
Trigger ports
There are a trigger-in port (left) and trigger-out port (right). Trigger-in port is a pulse input port.
The camera does not start exposure until it receives a pulse from its trigger-in port. Trigger-out