Jesus. You all jumped in and got this guy conflusterated in the first place.
I AM the cook here. If it weren't for me a lot of folks would be told that they need to go and buy a new actuator and dish mover.
#1 I suggested that he removed the motor to check for actuator balkiness.
#2 I asked if he could check for possible motor/geartrain failure and testing uncoupled from the ball screw actuator with no-load applied.
#3 The battery idea was good. Prior to hauling a battery out to the dish and splicing wires, the motor off the actuator and having somebody hit E-W would at least prove it was operable and that the ball screw wasn't hindering it.
#4 In this day and age a little mechanical/electrical expertise is needed in this "Hobby". The day of an installation and satellite dish guy around the corner is slim. So you have to have a little intuition. Pull the motor, make sure your actuator shaft isn't frozen or binding so much it's not capable of pushing the dish up in the air and the motor isn't over torqued.
#5 Now we have a situation where the motor when controlled by the boat anchor will only respond to one button press.
Next is to hook it up directly to a known, unswitched DC power source and reverse the motor leads to see if it's capable of going in both directions.
Sorry guys. Once the basics were taken care of, the ASC-1, motor, ball screw could be isolated for issues.
My suggestion for a meter. Get an analog (needle) meter from Lowes or H-D. Don't confuse the guy trying to watch digital pulses when the controller times out from a no-pulse detect.
Later. Good luck!
