Mount and Camera Problems in the Field

I've been trying to finish my Pleiades shots that I started last winter.   The plan has been to combine a bunch of 10 min exposures and 3 min exposures shot through the 80mm f/6 refractor.  A few nights ago, I started getting disconnect messages from the camera AND the mount.   While trying to troubleshoot, I even got a Blue Screen error.   When the camera disconnected, I was able to reconnect by powering it off/on.   When the mount disconnected, I couldn't get the USB to Serial adapter to reconnect unless I restarted the computer. 

It got to a point where even restarting wouldn't reconnect the darn USB to Serial adapter.  Almost like clockwork, I would get the message in the pic above during the initialization of PHD2 or after I started an imaging run in BackyardEOS.   I began to wonder if the adapter had gone bad.   But disconnecting and reconnecting sometimes fixed it.   Not always.

The first night these issues popped up, it was around midnight.   So, I assumed it was temperature related.   But I didn't know where in the chain the issue was happening.   Was it in the USB hub?   Was it a cable?     Was it a loose connection?    Was it the USB port in the laptop?

On that first night, during my troubleshooting, I noticed the USB plug into my laptop was cock-eyed and barely making a connection.   I plugged it back in, restarted the computer, and everything seemed fine.   But I was only able to use the rig for maybe 20 minutes before the moon came up.

I'm using a Star Tech USB hub.   Though the hub has a power connector, I've never felt the need to use it.   I've connected the Canon camera, the QHY autoguider, and the USB to Serial adapter for over 20+ sessions without any noteworthy issues.

So I took one of my small 12 volt 7 amp batteries and made a power supply for the hub.   I had a chance to use it a couple nights ago while doing a make-up session for a student at the Basis Astrophotography Workshop.   It didn't make a difference.   While trying to start an actual imaging session, the USB adapter started throwing up error messages AGAIN.   Luckily, after several restarts, I was able to coax the adapter back to life.   But we wasted more than half the session troubleshooting.

I decided I needed to make a few changes.   I remembered that I recently updated the AP V2 driver about a week ago.   Also, I switched to a different AC inverter for the deep-cycle battery.   So, I uninstalled the latest AP driver and reinstalled an older one (5.09.07).   I also went back to my old noisy AC inverter.   AND I tried a newer, shorter cable for the serial connection between the mount and USB adapter.    So, last night, under really good skies, it all worked fine!!!