A peir side Mini PC

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Jockinireland Ireland
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A peir side Mini PC

#1

Post by Jockinireland »


With my new Todmorden style pier meaning that I have less concerns about cable snags and a forthcoming autofocus system planned (as soon as the ZWO EAF is back in stock anywhere) I decided to look at having a small pier side mini-pc which would be quick and easy to set up and could be controlled remotely. I did not want to spend too much on this and felt that since it will be purely for imaging it did not need a particularly high spec. But I wanted reasonable RAM to ensure that all the components of an imaging session (Stellarium, APT, PHD2, Sharpcap and the remote system I use Anydesk and Chrome Remote Desktop) could work together without issue. I also wanted plenty memory as a full nights imaging with the ASI 2600mc, including flats/dark flats in the morning can take up a fair bit of memory space.

So rooting around on amazon I found what seemed to be a good deal;



This link includes the option I took of 8Gb RAM /256Gb ROM

Now one point, when I ordered this the price I got (including vat at Irish rate of 23%) was £162 - I ordered a couple of weeks ago. The price seems to have gone up now to over £200 which seems strange but that's Amazon I guess.

Anyway. Ordered Thursday delivered Monday.

Initial impressions

Packaging is very good with a high quality feel and excellent protection. The unit itself seems to be of a good build quality, sturdy enough with a nice finish. There is a removable lid which allows access to an expansion slot where you can add an additional ssd - but I cant see that I'll need that. The lid fits well and removes/replaces easily with a good solid spring connection

This unit has plenty connectivity options with Bluetooth and WiFI, 2 X USB2, 2 x USB3, 2 X HDMI ports, an ethernet port and a Micro-SD slot.

There is amounting plate which is intended to be placed on the back of a PC monitor and which will hold the mini-pc in place but allow it to be removed without the need for tools. I think I will attach this to the pier and hang the PC from it. I dont intend to leave the PC out so this should work fine.

Set Up and Performance

Initial start up and windows set up (Windows 10 Pro) was quick and easy. A note on the website says that one should get windows fully up and running before connecting to internet and thats what I did. There appears to be no bloat-ware on the system so only around 25Gb of the memory used at that point. Installing all the necessary programmes (Stellarium, APT, PHD2, EQMod, Ascom platform Sharpcap, Anydesk) was without issue.

Performance wise it seems much much better than I had anticipated. Edge starts up only slightly slower than on my good spec, main laptop. Streaming videos from YouTube etc works seamlessly with no visible jumps or lags. Stellarium runs without jumps or lag also. I had APT, PHD2 and Stellarium all running at the same time and talking to each other as normal without any problem. Platesolving in APT with ASTAP is a bit slower than on my current laptop but it will still blind-solve in 10-15 seconds and near solve in 2-4s.

So I ran a full dummy imaging session - daylight and cloudy but.... needs must as they say. I had already transferred all setting from my current imaging PC (for EQmod, PHD2 and APT) and confirmed that was all good.

The only problem I hit was I could not connect anything to the cameras (ASI120mm and ASI2600mc) 10 minutes faffing around then I realised that while there are drivers in APT you still need to install the ZWO drivers (I'm really not much of a PC whizz!) Once they were on everything went as normal. I slewed around using goto's, took locations from both the Objects menu and from stellarium, platesloved to images from last real session and passed those to stellarium for "framing check" and ran an imaging sequence within APT. I connected both PHD2 saved new darks and connected it all up. No stars so no guiding but short of that everything seemed good. The mini PC was well capable of having all those running together without any lags or stutters and everything was playing together nicely. RESULT!

On my first actually imaging session the Mini-PC worked great. I have some minor issues with calibration and backlash but these are down to needing to tweak settings in PHD2 which apparently were not transferred as cleanly as I thought.

Overall, for what I paid for this unit I think it is an excellent buy and will definitely do the job. It seems to have no issue with running the programmes and I feel it would probably be capable of doing more but imaging is all I need it for. I would highly recommend this mini-pc particularly at the price break I got, but even at the higher £194 it is still great value.

David
Scope: Skywatcher Evostar 80ED (SW 0.85 FR/FF) on a SW NEQ6Pro
Guiding; SW Evoguide 50ED, ASI 120mm mini
Meade 8" LX200 GPS on wedge (Guided with a cheapo 50mm guidescope and a ZWO ASI 120mm mini)
Sharpstar 61EDPH II (with dedicated 0.8 reducer) with wiliam Optics 32mm uniguide
Camera: ASI2600MC pro. QHY 163M with ZWO 7nm NB filters, Canon EOS700D astro mod
Secondary mount: Skywatcher StarAdventurer

My Astrobin https://www.astrobin.com/users/mackiedlm/
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Gordon United States of America
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Re: A peir side Mini PC

#2

Post by Gordon »


I've been using this: https://www.amazon.com/N33-Celeron-Fanl ... op?ie=UTF8

for a few years now. I use an SD card to send the image files to then remove the SD card and download it to my computer. It seems to go pretty fast.

I use desktop remote (Windows) .

This setup has been pretty reliable for me.
Gordon
Scopes: Explore Scientific ED80CF, Skywatcher 200 Quattro Imaging Newt, SeeStar S50 for EAA.
Mounts: Orion Atlas EQ-g mount & Skywatcher EQ5 Pro.
ZWO mini guider.
Image cameras: ZWO ASI1600 MM Cool, ZWO ASI533mc-Pro, ZWO ASI174mm-C (for use with my Quark chromosphere), ZWO ASI120MC
Filters: LRGB, Ha 7nm, O-III 7nm, S-II 7nm
Eyepieces: a few.
Primary software: Cartes du Ciel, N.I.N.A, StarTools V1.4.

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Benjamin Australia
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Re: A peir side Mini PC

#3

Post by Benjamin »


Interesting read. Just setup a MeLE Fanless Mini PC Quieter3Q N5105 Windows 11 Pro Micro Computer (8GB DDR4 256GB ROM) and, after replacing an old router, all works well. Great to have a little 7” touch screen to connect to the mini-pc to help diagnose the issues as they arise (did this a lot to work through network issues).
Scopes:Skywatcher f5 12" Dob, f4 8” Quattro, Esprit 100
Mounts:Skywatcher EQ6-R (EQMod)
Cameras:ZWO ASI2600MM-Pro, Astronomik 2” filters
Apps:PHD2, Sequence Generator Pro, PixInsight
Eyepieces:Explore Scientific, Pentax XW, TeleVue Panoptic, Delos, Ethos
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Re: A peir side Mini PC

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Post by Jockinireland »


Benjamin wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 12:59 pm Interesting read. Just setup a MeLE Fanless Mini PC Quieter3Q N5105 Windows 11 Pro Micro Computer (8GB DDR4 256GB ROM) and, after replacing an old router, all works well. Great to have a little 7” touch screen to connect to the mini-pc to help diagnose the issues as they arise (did this a lot to work through network issues).
Can you share details of the touch screen and how you connect it to the Mini-pc. I was looking for something like that but could not work out how to do it. So I use a tablet connecting through Anydesk through my wifi but that has a bit of lag making it not optimum.

thanks

David.
Scope: Skywatcher Evostar 80ED (SW 0.85 FR/FF) on a SW NEQ6Pro
Guiding; SW Evoguide 50ED, ASI 120mm mini
Meade 8" LX200 GPS on wedge (Guided with a cheapo 50mm guidescope and a ZWO ASI 120mm mini)
Sharpstar 61EDPH II (with dedicated 0.8 reducer) with wiliam Optics 32mm uniguide
Camera: ASI2600MC pro. QHY 163M with ZWO 7nm NB filters, Canon EOS700D astro mod
Secondary mount: Skywatcher StarAdventurer

My Astrobin https://www.astrobin.com/users/mackiedlm/
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Re: A peir side Mini PC

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Post by Benjamin »


This is the Amazon listing. I’m in Australia so the store is slightly different but the link is this Waveshare 7 Inch Capacitive Touch Screen LCD(C) 1024 X 600 Resolution HDMI Interface Display Panel Supports Raspberry Pi 4B/3B+/Zero etc./PC Windows 11/10/8.1/7/Various Systems https://amzn.asia/d/7Jynweu

It’s not the neatest looking option but it plugs in and powers up via HDMI and USB (you need both ports). You could add a Bluetooth keyboard to help type things in but I’ve found it okay just to add a virtual keyboard to the task bar and type that way. You could possibly leave it attached to the mini-pc and Velcro the screen onto the mount but really I only ever use it to troubleshoot on start up so prefer to ditch the tiny bit of extra weight and keep it out of the weather/dew.

I did buy a cheap plastic frame for it as well which makes it feel a little less ‘exposed’ but it is pretty basic and I never use the stand part of it. Waveshare Bicolor Case Cover for Waveshare 7inch HDMI LCD (B)/(C) Combines 7inch LCD and Pi to an All-in-one Device https://amzn.asia/d/afyAH2d
Scopes:Skywatcher f5 12" Dob, f4 8” Quattro, Esprit 100
Mounts:Skywatcher EQ6-R (EQMod)
Cameras:ZWO ASI2600MM-Pro, Astronomik 2” filters
Apps:PHD2, Sequence Generator Pro, PixInsight
Eyepieces:Explore Scientific, Pentax XW, TeleVue Panoptic, Delos, Ethos
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Re: A peir side Mini PC

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Post by Jockinireland »


Benjamin wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 4:41 pm This is the Amazon listing. I’m in Australia so the store is slightly different but the link is this Waveshare 7 Inch Capacitive Touch Screen LCD(C) 1024 X 600 Resolution HDMI Interface Display Panel Supports Raspberry Pi 4B/3B+/Zero etc./PC Windows 11/10/8.1/7/Various Systems https://amzn.asia/d/7Jynweu

It’s not the neatest looking option but it plugs in and powers up via HDMI and USB (you need both ports). You could add a Bluetooth keyboard to help type things in but I’ve found it okay just to add a virtual keyboard to the task bar and type that way. You could possibly leave it attached to the mini-pc and Velcro the screen onto the mount but really I only ever use it to troubleshoot on start up so prefer to ditch the tiny bit of extra weight and keep it out of the weather/dew.

I did buy a cheap plastic frame for it as well which makes it feel a little less ‘exposed’ but it is pretty basic and I never use the stand part of it. Waveshare Bicolor Case Cover for Waveshare 7inch HDMI LCD (B)/(C) Combines 7inch LCD and Pi to an All-in-one Device https://amzn.asia/d/afyAH2d
Thanks for that. Yes they have it on my amazon so I may look at getting one. Like you its only for trouble shooting out at the scope so hopefully will not get that much use.
Scope: Skywatcher Evostar 80ED (SW 0.85 FR/FF) on a SW NEQ6Pro
Guiding; SW Evoguide 50ED, ASI 120mm mini
Meade 8" LX200 GPS on wedge (Guided with a cheapo 50mm guidescope and a ZWO ASI 120mm mini)
Sharpstar 61EDPH II (with dedicated 0.8 reducer) with wiliam Optics 32mm uniguide
Camera: ASI2600MC pro. QHY 163M with ZWO 7nm NB filters, Canon EOS700D astro mod
Secondary mount: Skywatcher StarAdventurer

My Astrobin https://www.astrobin.com/users/mackiedlm/
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Benjamin Australia
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Re: A peir side Mini PC

#7

Post by Benjamin »


Saved me much anxiety!
Scopes:Skywatcher f5 12" Dob, f4 8” Quattro, Esprit 100
Mounts:Skywatcher EQ6-R (EQMod)
Cameras:ZWO ASI2600MM-Pro, Astronomik 2” filters
Apps:PHD2, Sequence Generator Pro, PixInsight
Eyepieces:Explore Scientific, Pentax XW, TeleVue Panoptic, Delos, Ethos
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AstroBee United States of America
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Re: A peir side Mini PC

#8

Post by AstroBee »


I have an i3 NUC on my pier that I use. It has a USBc port on it that I plug an external SSD drive into. When I'm done at night and packing up, I just take that SSD and bring it in to transfer to my desktop for processing. USBc is very fast. Not really necessary for acquisition but great for the desktop transfer.
Greg M.~ "Ad Astra per Aspera"
Scopes: Celestron EdgeHD14", Explore Scientific ED152CF & ED127 APO's, StellarVue SV70T, Classic Orange-Tube C-8, Lunt 80mm Ha double-stack solar scope.
Mounts: Astro-Physics Mach One, iOptron CEM70EC Mount, iOptron ZEQ25 Mount.
Cameras: ZWO ASI2600mm Pro, ZWO 2600MC Pro, ZWO ASI1600mm
Filters: 36mm Chroma LRGB & 3nm Ha, OIII, SII, L-Pro, L-eXtreme
Eyepieces: 27mm TeleVue Panoptic, 4mm TeleVue Radian, Explore Scientific 82° 30mm, 6.7mm , Baader 13mm Hyperion, Explore Scientific 70° 10mm, 15mm, 20mm, Meade 8.8mm UWA
Software: N.I.N.A., SharpCapPro, PixInsight, PhotoShop CC, Phd2, Stellarium
https://www.nevadadesertskies.com
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