hey everybody I've had a couple of
viewers requests over time how I use my
Intel compute stick specifically how do
I have it set up that allows me to
remote into it how does it power on when
I apply power to it and various other
questions I'm gonna cover all of those
in this video so stay tuned I've got my
TeamViewer application up and running
and I've got the IP address of the Intel
compute stick plugged in by clicking
connect and now I have the desktop of
the Intel compute stick if you would
like to learn how to make amateur
astronomy as easy and accessible as
possible why don't you go ahead and
click subscribe and while you're at it
hit the little bell notification next to
that you'll show me some love and I will
make you new videos so when the Intel
compute stick first gets power applied
to it from the field battery it just
boots up I don't have to worry about
pressing any buttons or anything like
that if you're in a remote observatory
and you've got the ability to remotely
toggle your power that could be a way
that you get the Intel compute stick to
power on unfortunately the Intel compute
stick does not have an rj45 or an
Ethernet port in it so wake-on-lan
commands as far as I know aren't going
to work the first thing that I want to
get out of the way is you need to have
some sort of wireless networking
connection already created to do this
you would just plug the Intel compute
stick into the back of an HDMI monitor
plug a wireless keyboard and mouse into
it and use it like it was a normal
computer I use a little USB hub to also
connect the wireless card that I'm going
to be using if you right-click on your
little wireless network icon down here
and go to open network and sharing
Center
the first thing that you'll see is your
basic Windows 10 networking
configuration we don't really need this
window at this step instead we're gonna
go to change adapter settings as you can
see I've got several Wi-Fi connections
I've got an integrated Wi-Fi which I
renamed to integrated Wi-Fi by
right-clicking choosing rename and
giving it that name
that's the wireless connection that was
built into the Intel compute stick and
as my telescope slews around sometimes
the Intel compute stick gets the mount
between it and my home router and it
will drop connection this Wi-Fi
connection is the wireless connection to
the Paramount you don't need this if you
don't have a paramount or any other
telescope mount that does not use a
wireless connection if you're connecting
via USB straight into it just ignore
this part and keep using your USB what
we're focused on is the ICS Wi-Fi which
I renamed again by right-clicking
choosing rename and typing in ICS Wi-Fi
once you've picked a name that you want
to use and feel free to use ICS Wi-Fi if
you want the next thing we do is go back
one level to network in Internet and
then we click network sharing center the
next step that we want to do inside of
here is set up a new connection or
network you're going to manually connect
to a wireless network you'll click Next
we want to use the ICS Wi-Fi or whatever
name you used click Next then we want to
enter a network name in this case I used
the name that came on the card for the
nano router for the security type choose
the appropriate security type for
whatever device you picked and enter the
security key you don't need to worry
about having start this connection
automatically but I do anyway if you
forget this step or it becomes unchecked
later don't sweat it
we're gonna solve that in
next process do not connect even if the
network is not broadcasting so now that
we've got our wireless network profile
created we can use a PowerShell script
to ensure that we always connect to this
network the first command in our
PowerShell script is the netsh
command this command is going to use
WLAN to connect to an SSID called
TP-Link_84DD9_5g which is
this right over here
so whatever yours is you would type that
here the name of the profile is the same
as the wireless network it doesn't have
to be I do it for consistency the name
is this value up here the interface is
the ICS Wi-Fi make sure you get the
capitalisation correct on all of this
when this command runs it will force ICS
Wi-Fi to seek out tp-link and connect to
it I give it a 10 second pause to allow
that connection to take effect and then
I create a variable called
$conn and I assign the value of this
variable to the result of the interface
ICS Wi-Fi what that means is I'm taking
all of the values of ICS Wi-Fi as a
physical adapter and I'm storing all of
those parameters into this variable
called $conn I then test that
variable to see if the connection state
is equal to disconnected basically
connect to my tp-link nano router and if
you fail go to this next step which is
the netsh command all over again
but this time I connect to my home
wireless network
Raven3 is the 5g network inside of my
house for consistency's sake the name of
the profile is also Raven3 and I'm
still using the ICS Wi-Fi I give this
another 10 seconds for the connection to
take effect and I reassign the values of
that interface to conn if both of these
connection attempts fail and my laptop
is connected to one of those networks
then I know that I probably just need to
move the router or the telescope into a
better position that the antenna can't
see the network it always works in this
order every single time there's no rhyme
or reason why I'm trying to connect to
the field router first and then the home
Wi-Fi second I could very easily switch
those around and make it work
in fact for the purposes of this video
I'm connected to my home Wi-Fi right now
but it clearly did try to connect to the
tp-link nano router initially the next
thing that I want to show you to get
this thing all up and running
automatically for you is the startup
folder as somebody who's worked a lot in
IT having scripts that start up
automatically to backup certain files is
very nice so I used this a lot and it
was the first place I thought to stick
these scripts when I decided that I was
going to try and automate the startup
process of the intel compute stick and
it's been working great you can see that
i've got four things that load at
startup the first thing that I wanted
our attention to is the TeamViewer host
every time my computer starts up it
launches the TeamViewer host and it
waits for me to connect into it the next
thing that runs is this RunPS.bat
if we edit this which is an old-school
dos program it's actually fairly simple
it calls to PowerShell scripts in series
the first one
runs is what I call the power management
ps1 script and then the second script it
runs is what we just looked at this
power management script I'm actually
quite proud of a lot of times we have
USB devices in Windows 10 that like to
go to sleep or go into power saver mode
or whatever and it's this annoying
window setting that for some reason
keeps renaming it self and it can cause
cameras or other equipment to just drop
connection in the middle of an imaging
session so I wrote a PowerShell script
that every time the computer turns on it
disables all of those settings for you
so your USB devices can't go to sleep in
the middle of an imaging session I'm
going to show that script to you also
right now what this PowerShell script is
basically doing is it gets a list of all
of the USB hubs from device manager and
it loops through every single one of
them looking for that suspend this
device to conserve power setting and it
sets the enabled checkmark to false it
effectively unchecks all of those boxes
for you so there you have it those are
the scripts that I use to get my Intel
compute stick to set everything up for
me and be ready for me to connect into
it and go ahead and launch my programs
speaking of programs one viewer has
asked if the Intel copied stick that I
use which is the mobile 3 version has
enough power to run all the programs we
need for astrophotography well let me go
ahead and give you a demonstration of
that we're going to go ahead and load up
TheSkyX professional I need to use
TheSkyX to control my paramount
connect to the telescope real quick
clutches are disengaged go ahead and
home it so the Intel compute stick is
currently homing my mount will go ahead
and minimize this but it'll still be
running in the background
and let's go ahead and open up PhD
guiding two because I know a lot of us
like to use PhD
we're going to connect to my asi
camera we're going to connect to the
Mount
close that and let's go ahead and begin
looping that's not gonna find any stars
and it's pointed at a pretty white wall
right now with all of this light going
on so yeah it's gonna look like crap
but while that's going let's go ahead
and let's launch sequence generator Pro
while we're at it
so we've got sequence generator Pro
loaded up we have PhD that's doing some
sort of PhD guiding on a wall and we've
got TheSkyX up and running and as you
can see there's a little bit of latency
getting the map to move which is
typically the case on this Intel compute
stick everything is working if we
look at task manager you can see that
I'm using about half the CPU and a
little more than half the memory which
still leaves plenty of overhead to be
doing things like taking an image with
another camera and downloading it when
we're taking an image every 60 seconds
five minutes or whatever there's 60
seconds or five minutes of idle time on
that camera that you're not needing the
computer for and downloading it saving
it to a hard drive is a little more than
just a file transfer it doesn't require
a ton of resources either so yes
the Intel compute stick clearly has the
resources to run TheSkyX sequence
generator pro PhD guiding and I bet you
could use some other imaging and maybe
have something else running on it as
well so there you have it that's my
Intel compute stick setup I turn it on
by just giving it power I've got a bunch
of scripts that set up all of my
networking connect to the network for
the mount they get TeamViewer started up
for me in the startup folder and the
Intel compute stick has the resources
adequate enough to run TheSkyX
sequence generator pro and PhD guiding so
I hope you found this video really
informative and if you were thinking
about buying any small computer for your
telescope the Intel compute stick is a
good choice but if you can afford a
better computer or a different
computer that has more resources than my
Intel compute stick by all means go for
it there's no reason why you have to use
the Intel compute stick I simply chose
it for its small form factor and the
fact that I could run it off of a car
charger for a cell phone
No comments:
Post a Comment