WandererAstro WandererCover V3 User manual

WandererAstro
Motorized Flat Panel
Manual

WandererAstro
Contents
Introduction 1
Installation 2
Firmware update 7
FAQs 9

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1.Introduction
WandererCover V3 is a motorized flat panel specially designed for remote and
backyard astrophotography. It can help to shoot flats as well as open and close the
cover. The WandererCover V3 provides six models : 80mm, 100mm, 125mm, 150mm,
190mm and 225mm in luminous diameter, they can meet the needs of telescopes of
different diameters.
Feature 1: WandererCover V3 is 100% made of aluminum alloy + carbon fiber,
which ensures rigidity and minimizes weight. The total weight of the 80mm luminous
diameter model is only 183g, and the total weight of the 225mm luminous diameter
model is only 440g. With such a lightweight design, the motorized flat panel does not
burden the dew shield or equatorial mount.
Feature 2: WandererCover V3 only needs a USB cable to connect to the PC, no
additional DC power cable is required (the USB port needs to be able to provide 1A
current, it is recommended to use the WandererBox series or other powered USB
hub). This makes cable management easier.
Feature 3: WandererCover V3 can set the opening and closing positions to adapt
to the installation of different telescopes.
Feature 4: WandererCover V3 provides 255 levels of brightness with no banding.
The maximum brightness is close to 1000 nits so it only takes a fraction of a second
to a few seconds to shoot a 3nm narrow-band flat, and the minimum brightness is
also dim enough. The flat panel uses two layers of diffuser to ensure the uniformity
of flats.

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2.Installation
Pass the included nylon cable ties through the two slots of the WandererCover
V3 and tighten them, and fix the WandererCover V3 on the telescope tube or dew
shield. If the length of the cable tie is not enough, connect two cable ties together.
If the current angle of the flat panel is not suitable for installation, please follow the
steps below to install the WandererConsole and temporarily open the flat panel to
the middle position before installing. Connect WandererCover V3 to the computer
with the included USB2.0 cable (the USB port needs to be able to provide about 1A
current), and everything is ready.
2.1 Control via WandererConsole
Visit the www.wandererastro.com to download the latest version of the
WandererConsole compressed file, and double-click setup.exe to install it after
extraction.
After the installation is complete, start WandererConsole and find the Flat Panel
interface. Find and select the COM port of WandererCover V3 in the drop-down bar
on the left, check “V3” below, and then click Connect. (figure1)

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Figure 1
After the connection is successful, (1) Click "Start Setup!" to set the opening
position of the cover. (2) Move the cover to desired open position by clicking the
“+1°”，“+10°” and “+50°” control button. (3) Click "Set current position to open" to
confirm. (4) Click the “-1°”，“-10°” and “-50°” control button to move the cover to
desired closed position. (5) Click "Set current position to off" to confirm. (Figure 2)

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Figure2
After completing the settings, you can click Open and Close to control the cover
and set the brightness of the flat panel.
Pay attention:
1. Stalling is strictly prohibited. During the setup process, be sure to control the
movement of the cover by small amounts. There is a small probability that the motor
gearbox will be damaged if the rotor stalls for many times.
2. After installing the WandererCover V3 on a new telescope, be sure to reset the
open and closed positions.
3. If WandererCover V3 is powered off accidentally during the movement, the open
and closed positions must be reset.

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2.2 Control via ASCOM
WandererCover V3 is ASCOM compatible and can be controlled by software such
as N.I.N.A, S.G.P., etc. Take N.I.N.A as an example below.
First download the ASCOM driver of WandererCoverV3 from
www.wandererastro.com and install it. (Figure 3)
Figure 3
After the installation is complete, open N.I.N.A. then you can see the driver of
WandererCover V3. After selecting it, click to connect directly, and the driver will
automatically search for the COM port. (Figure 4)
Figure4
When using it for the first time, a message box of "Please configure the
WandererCover V3 in WandererConsole first!" will pop up, please follow the steps in
2.2 to complete the setup. After the setup is complete, open N.I.N.A. to connect.

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Once connected, you can open , close or adjust the brightness. (Please note that
WandererConsole and ASCOM are completely independent, please disconnect in
N.I.N.A. when connecting WandererConsole, and vice versa, otherwise it cannot be
connected.)

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3.Firmware update
If the message box "Please upgrade the firmware" appears when connecting, it
means that the current firmware is out of date and the latest firmware needs to be
upgraded.
First, download the firmware upgrade tool (Figure 5) and the firmware file
(Figure 6) with a .hex suffix from www.wandererastro.com.
Figure5
Figure6
After extracting the compressed file, click Xloader.exe to open the firmware
upgrade tool (Figure 7).
Figure7

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Select the downloaded firmware file with the suffix .hex, select the product
model and the correct COM port, and then click Upload (Figure 8).
Figure8
When you see "xxxx bytes uploaded", it means the upload was successful. If
stuck in the Uploading process, try to upload again after reconnecting the USB.