24" or 36" actuator?

[northgeorgia]

I have a question about actuator size on a 10-foot mesh dish in the eastern U.S.

What is the difference? I'm assuming the 36" would technically cover more of the arc, but at some point you have to worry about flop. So, I was curious about the "true" coverage between the two sizes, plus any other differences I hadn't considered.

I have no experience in that yet, but fingers crossed for a good sized dish and going motorized this year, so trying to find out more! Thanks...

 

[RimaNTSS]

Coverage of 24' and 36' will be exactly the same. Size of arc mostly depends on the construction of the mount. With 36' you will get better wind resistance, but slower moving between the ends. In both cases it is important to properly attach actuator to the mount. For 10-footer I would choose 36' actuator.

 

[wvman]

I have a question about actuator size on a 10-foot mesh dish in the eastern U.S.

What is the difference? I'm assuming the 36" would technically cover more of the arc, but at some point you have to worry about flop. So, I was curious about the "true" coverage between the two sizes, plus any other differences I hadn't considered.

I have no experience in that yet, but fingers crossed for a good sized dish and going motorized this year, so trying to find out more! Thanks...

I sold 24 inch actuators with all my home systems for 30 years and never ran into an issue with it not covering the entire arc. On some commercial systems, we did use a 36 inch on them. If you're running a 10 foot mesh dish, you should be fine with a 24 inch. If you locate the lowest bird you can see and set the actuator to where the lowest satellite in just above the lower limit, you should easily reach all the other birds and still be able to set the upper limit to keep it well away from pole in the event the actuator control lost track of where it's at.

 

[Brct203]

I have a 10 foot dish and a 24" actuator and can see from 22 W to 135W, and am not using the entire range of the actuator. In other words, a 36" actuator would not make any difference (but an 18" was a bit too short).

But the main determining factor is trigonometry... How far the mounting points are from the polar axis can vary between dish models and brands and how it's mounted. The further those distances, the longer the actuator range needed for the same coverage angle, with improved accuracy and lower angular speed, and probably a chance at improved coverage range (provided the actuator range is sufficient). So it might be worth doing a bit of diagrams and maths to determine what you need.

 

[Lone Gunman]

I'm in the central part of Virginia and all three of my systems have 24" Von Weise actuators on'em and I'm seeing 139 to 37.4w on the two I have on a permanent post in the ground.

The Raydx dish, which is still mounted on the "travel post" mounted on my car trailer will see 139w and I "think" I could probably get back east to 30w if I tweaked on it a bit. The polar mount on that dish is made much different from the other two and I do think that one has a wider range because of that.

With all three systems though there are trees in the east direction so it wouldn't be worth it to try to get more range out of them.

Your mileage may vary!

 

[Arion]

My 10' package came with the 36" but it's definitely overkill. A 24" would be more than enough and probably draw less current from the v-box.

 

[Titanium]

The less the jack needs to be extended, the stronger the actuator. If the arm is near full extension to hit the end of the arc, the arm is at it's weakest point just when the operation requires the most from the actuator.

 

[northgeorgia]

Thanks! I've learned a lot from your comments today.