Safety Monitors

This guide describes the steps needed to setup a system wide Ascom Alpaca device driver to monitor the building roof status.

Adding Ascom Alpaca Device

Making the Ascom Alpaca device available system wide allows any program that works with the ASCOM platform available to use this device (eg. NINA & Voyager).

1. Open the Ascom Driver Connect Application (either 64 or 32 bit version). This can be found at:

   "C:\Program Files (x86)\ASCOM\Platform\Tools\DriverConnect64\ASCOM.DriverConnect.exe"

2. Select SafetyMonitor as the device type:

   

3. Click choose - A new Ascom device driver will pop up:

   

4. Select the “Alpaca” Menu at the top of the new window and then select “Create Alpaca Driver” menu option:

   

5. A new window will pop up asking you to name the device, enter SFRO Building 1 for example or another building you are setting up. This name will show up in NINA as a selectable device.

   

6. Click ok and then click accept on windows admin prompt

   

7. Back in Ascom driver mini window click Properties (be sure the new device is selected), a new configuration window will pop up for this driver.

   

8. Enter these details precisely:

   Input	Value
   HTTP Service Type	https
   Host Name or IP	alpaca-api.tx.starfront.space
   Alpaca Port	443
   Remote Device number	<pick_from_table_below> (eg, 4)
   Enable rediscovery	unchecked
   Connect / Disconnect Options	Managed connect / disconnect locally

   All the other options can remain at their default values.

   You will need a device number when configuring the Alpaca device. Please refer to this table:

   Building	Device Number
   Building 1	1
   Building 2	2
   Building 3	3
   Building 4	4
   Building 5	5
   Building 6	6
   Building 7	7
   Building 8	8
   Building 9	9
   Building 10	10
   Building 18	18
   Building 19	19
   Building 20	20

9. Click “OK” to accept the configuration.

10. Now back in the Ascom mini window again click ok to close this.

    

11. Now back in the window you first opened it’s time to test the driver. Click “Connect” and check the result.

    If you configured everything successfully you should see a result that looks similar to this:

    

    Note

    If you encounter an issue then please see troubleshooting steps below before proceeding to your capture software (eg. Nina or Voyager)

How to use in NINA

1. Open Nina and go to the equipment tab, select safety monitor device. Refresh the available devices and you should see the newly created device (named what you entered in step 6).

   

2. Select the new device and connect to it! Congrats you now have an Alpaca based safety monitor to StarFront setup that should be a LOT more reliable than previous file monitors.

   

YouTube Walkthrough

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Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues with setting up the device you can try to check the settings you configured or remove the device and try everything again.

Confirm Settings

In NINA you can select the device and click the gear icon. This will bring up the same configuration window that you setup in step 7 & 8 of the initial instructions. Any changes will be saved when you press OK to close.

How to remove an Ascom Alpaca device

1. Open the Ascom Remote Configuration Application. This can be found at:

   "C:\Program Files (x86)\ASCOM\Platform\Tools\AlpacaDynamicClientManager\ASCOM.AlpacaDynamicClientManager.exe"

2. Accept windows admin prompt

   

3. Select the device to delete by checking its checkbox, then hit delete. It should remove from the list. You can now close the window and reconfigure the device if needed.