10 foot BUD slowly drifting West??

[gsatnewb]

Hello Everyone,

I've run into a problem the last few weeks with my 10 foot mesh BUD. I'm not sure why, but each day I have to re-set the position settings on my Openbox S10. The Openbox seems to work fine, and the VBox positioner I use seems to work OK also, but its as if the dish itself is gradually drifting a few notches to the west each day. I've gone out to the dish to try and push it back and forth, and it seems to be holding itself steady without any excessive movement. I had an "Er2" error message show up on the display of the VBox positioner 2 weeks ago, so I reset the VBox by holding the power button while plugging the box in. That didn't seem to stop the drift. I can still get all of my usual channels, but i have to bump the dish 3 or 4 clicks to the east each day to re-program their positions.

Does anyone have an idea what might be going on here? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[turbosat]

Sensor on your actuator may be going bad, or giving faulty feedback. If your dish is along distance from the receiver (say more than 100' of cable), you could be losing some feedback info to the vbox from the actuator sensor. If you have good cable then I'd suspect the reed sensor in the actuator, but sometimes having too small guage of wire from the sensor will do that too, over distance.

 

[FaT Air]

Yep, the V box is keeping counts, but it's not getting all the counts it should be getting. I'd say the sensor is going bad. Since it's just started doing this. If it were from ' the git go' (new install) it could be the wire. I'll put $ on it. Check to make sure the shaft with the magnet isn't moving away from the sensor in one direction, and moving closer in the other direction. Maybe readjusting the 'clearance' there fixes it. (???) I've had that happen in the past. (having to re-calibrate in one direction, not the other)
Er2 = missed expected pulses

 

[stanleyjohn]

My V box will also loose or gain a few counts now and then. Most of the time just moving the dish to the next Position number on the v box and back again will fix the problem.