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Brct203 said:

I'm not particularly familiar with that specific actuator, but there are basicaly 3 main components, and all could have suffered from degradation over time:
- the motor
- the gears
- the acme screw and nut (or equivalent)

Looks like the gears had plenty of grease so might be ok

My suggestion would be to take things apart (after and while taking plenty of pictures so that you know how to put it back together), so that you can isolate those 3 components.
the motor might have suffered from water and rusted. I have seen motors where the housing rusted inside, swelling and pushing the magnets towards the rotor until it squeezes it enough that nothing can turn. it might be possible to remove the magnets, clean things up, treat the metal and glue the magnets back in place. the steel armature of the rotor might have rusted and swollen outward, until it touches the magnets. That's probably easier to cleanup while being careful not to damage the copper windings.
Now the acme screw... since the motor is no longer connected, see if you can turn the gears or the shaft and whether the arm actually moves in/out. If it does, try to see if it's clean and grease if necessary. If nothing moves, the screw is probably damaged by corrosion and it may or may not be salvageable. If you can turn the shaft but the arm does not move, then the nut is probably damaged and would need to be replaced. Not sure if that's an option beside manually fabricating one.

so it would be great if you can somehow make it work, even if it's not working perfectly, but enough to get you started.

Now about C-band in general, depending on where you are located, 5G interference can be a minor, distant problem, or a show-stopper. So before you spend much money on a new actuator, see if you can get reliable reception at all ...

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bombu said:

I'm officially giving up on the old actuator arm. I can now turn the coupler almost 180 degrees with no change in the extension of the arm. If it did move it seems like it would now have so much gear lash that it couldn't be numerically controlled -- plus, the lubricant sprays smell bad and I'm tired of that.

I'm pretty rural; there's one provider that says they have 5g coverage but, hopefully, the filters on the LNBF will do enough for now. Ultimately, it will be everywhere but maybe I'll get $90 worth out of the new LNBF in the meantime.

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bombu said:

Well, I finally picked up my receiver and LNBF. It'll be a few more days before I'm back at the dish.

Yeah, I already look for dishes for sale or free. Except I also want the dish, not just the actuator arm.

I'm thinking of 3d printing a part to mount the LNBF to the old birdview scalar. Pretty much the same thing that pendragon used, that is, a cylindrical sleeve with a flange. I posted a link to a picture, a few posts back, of his canabilized part that he used.

ASA (Acrylonitrile Styrene Acrylate, is apparently the best material to use for weather and UV exposure but I'll have to see if they have that at school where they have a $30k 3d printer.

On the other hand if any of you has a metal part like pendragon used that you could be persuaded to part with then please message me.

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