Titanium Satellite ASC1 Well it did it again!

[arlo]

I guess the juice flickered again last night.
Woke up to check the morning news and no signal. Went to another sat and no signal.
Crap...."It did it again".
The mio and ASC1 are on an APC.
Receiver is set to just stay powered down after a loss of pixies.
Ran the dish to west limit (before coffee). Then commanded it to 131W.
Slapped on the Nike's to peek around the corner. Dish is pointed to 101W-ish. A bit high in the sky.
&*$#*......and coffee.

Go to 127W. Hit the NASA channels. No signal!
Boots on. Coat. 9/16" open end, Vice Grips from my famous flat blade, duct tape, Channel Locks, hammer....and condoms box.

Run out (11f out this morning). Unbolt the motor. Don't lose the roll pin. Clamp the actuator shaft with the "dick-snitchers" as they called them on the flight line. Smart phone app tuned to NASA.
Crank crank crank until signal peaks on NASA. Unsnap the 'grips. Bolt the motor on. Done.

Come on Britney. It did it again! For chrissakes.
Even with a battery backup.

Come on, Lord. I've been getting my daily dose of shortwave Jesus on the Icom.

...my life.

 

[arlo]

The Saga Continues.
News on the telescope on NASA was good. Decided to surf up to 101W to watch some Hemi 'Cuda and the fashion police.
errrrt...."Reach W/E Limit! Limit Switch? Sensor? Motor Blocked?
Took a peek outside. Way short of 101. ASC1 counter not even approaching where it's stored in memory.

Fire up Virtual Hub on the router. Start the client on my laptop. Open the ASC1 Loader application and read my settings.
If you want to know about that, Ax me!
Run 'er back to 127W. Got signal and the counter is cool. Remote down to my West limit.
Way wayyy short. Soft limit.
Cleared that. Run the dish down to it's mechanical motor stall/physical limit.
Counter reads 995.
The actuator tube is cranked out 5 turns from mechanical dish limit. That's where the limit switch is set. Then Soft Limit is set 75 pulses out (East) of that.

Unbolt the motor. Vice grip the shaft to mechanical stop. Crank out 5 turns. Go inside. Run the disconnected motor down to its limit switch. Reset the sats. Everything is at Zero, Zed, Zilch now.
Go out and find 127W. Phone app the motor to where 127 is. It runs, it stops. Couple it back up and bolt it on.

Run back inside. Write the settings back into the ASC1.
Check for soft limit. Outside again. It's good.
Check for sig on 131W. Check. 127W. Check. 101W. Check.
Run it out to 40E. Cool. A little further out. Soft limit.
Pop the motor lid. Limit switch trip point is right past that.

Lastly. One more pop. A bottle of Sammy Adams Lager.

At this point me thinks a simple, but never done before, ASC1 power down at night is in order.
She just freaks out.
But only when the power flickers. Less not that it and the receiver is on an uninterruptible power supply.
But still.
Do ya' think flinging out a few hard earned dollars and cents out to 15,770 AM WRMI would help?
Can I get a witness!!

(all levity intended)

 

[Comptech]

Yep.mine dos it once in awhile, Still a good mover, but radomly loses it's mind at times.

 

[Titanium]

Most STBs automatically begin a callout of switching commands when a signal is lost to reestablish a signal path. If the STB reboots to a different satellite, it will not see a valid signal and begin issuing 22KHz / DiSEqC commands. If this occurs, while the ASC1 is still booting, a current position conflict may occur.

Count offsets occur when a DiSEqC command is sent by an STB during the ASC1 logic boot cycle. Positioner memories are simply saved counts referenced from position 0000. When the logic board is booting, the memory table and current position offset is loaded a milisecond before the counting logic is activated. If a new memory position (different from the prior memory used before the reboot) is called up during this state, the ASC1 count may be incorrectly referenced.

A few suggestions... i live in an area with frequent brownouts and have found it best to set STBs to reboot to last tuned channel if that is an option. This is not possible on some STBs as they often recover from an unexpected reboot to return to the top activated satellite. If your UPC does not provide continuous power, it might be best practice to only keep the STB or the ASC1 on the ups, but not both. It might be best practice to power of either the STB or the ASC1 master power switch when not in use.

While these problems can be frustrating, we know the cause. Hope this helps.

 

[arlo]

It helps Brian. First thing I did do while going through the "wtf" troubleshooting scheme is to simply tell the mio to just-stay-shut-down after a power failure. That was before the ups. Which should have cured the issue. Right?
No go-to glitch from the receiver to the mover, no problem. You would think.
I left it the same when a ups was added. Perhaps it just doesn't switch fast enough. At any rate if power loss of the mio occurs, it should not reboot. And it doesn't. But the ASC1 has a mind of its own.
Strange.

Since I've gone through this scenario a few times. Obviously! It's a little frustrating. A few trips in and out of the house.
The Virtual Hub software on my router and client on my laptop lets me use the ftdi cable as a virtual com port on LAN instead of the usual way of cabling it.
If there were telnet commands to move the actuator and save trips in and out when this happens. Day at the beach!

But to absorb the scenario. The ASC1 is supposed to keep positional counts. Yes?
On a power flash. Never after time without it and it's restored.
The dish will run west until it stops at limit switch.
It loses its mechanical reference. Like an external encoder were being triggered separate of the motor.
So. As the dish stops at...errr.....just past 40W. The ASC1 display shows....101W with saved positional counts for it.
Running it back west will hit soft limit way high of where....131W.....is.
And west soft limit is way east of where the west limit switch position is in the motor.
So I reach west soft limit. Reset it to 0. Which is currently 75 pulses from where the limit switch is set.
Which should be very close to 0 pulses and the actuator 5 turns out from mechanical limit.
Cool? Got it?
The motor will run negaitive.....990....pulses until the west limit it triggered.
So thats where re establishing the base reference and writing positions back and all of that crap begins.
Crazy stuff.

This is really just an fyi for anyone who has the same thing happen and would tend to start all over. Save positions, find the next sat, etc.

 

[Magic Static]

I approach this problem a little differently. The issue I call "Sleep Walking" where you find the dish is no longer pointed where it shows on the display by a short or long distance and often until it hits the limits on the dish. So you need to bring the dish back to the position shown on the ASC1 or sync the ASC1 to the dish. I use orthos and multi-switches to connect to the receiver(s). I also have my meter available and connected. So using the meter I manually move the dish with the un-synced ASC1 until I lock on a satellite and identify it. Now I disconnect the ASC1 and connect a test motor I have. It has no arm, just a motor and position sensor. I then move the ASC1 to the position the dish is at and reconnect it. No running out to the dish and changing the actuator.

 

[Titanium]

A simple way is recalibrate the ASC1 is to perform a Global Resync using the ASC1's "Reset Position" function. Should only take a minute or two to do a Global Resync. No mechanical adjustments or 2nd actuator is needed.

If you know that the 0000 reference position is 75 pulses from the mechanical limit, manually drive the ASC1 to the mechanical limit then drive back 75 counts. You may need to Reset the Soft Limit if the mechanical or 0000 reference is beyond the saved soft limit. Perform a "Position Reset" function. This resets the reference 0000 position at the correct offset count. All satellite positions will once again be in sync.

or

If one does not know the 0000 reference position offset from the mechanical stop: Manually drive the dish East or West until the satellite signal locks on the connected STB. You may need to Reset the Soft Limit if the 0000 reference is beyond the saved soft limit. Determine the +/- number of counts that the position count is off from the previously saved position. Manually drive to the 0000 position, plus or minus the number of counts that it is off. Perform a "Position Reset" function. This resets the reference 0000 position at the correct offset. All satellite positions will once again be in sync.

 

[Brct203]

A simple way is recalibrate the ASC1 is to perform a Global Resync using the ASC1's "Reset Position" function. Should only take a minute or two to do a Global Resync. No mechanical adjustments or 2nd actuator is needed.

If you know that the 0000 reference position is 75 pulses from the mechanical limit, manually drive the ASC1 to the mechanical limit then drive back 75 counts. You may need to Reset the Soft Limit if the mechanical or 0000 reference is beyond the saved soft limit. Perform a "Position Reset" function. This resets the reference 0000 position at the correct offset count. All satellite positions will once again be in sync.

or

If one does not know the 0000 reference position offset from the mechanical stop: Manually drive the dish East or West until the satellite signal locks on the connected STB. You may need to Reset the Soft Limit if the 0000 reference is beyond the saved soft limit. Determine the +/- number of counts that the position count is off from the previously saved position. Manually drive to the 0000 position, plus or minus the number of counts that it is off. Perform a "Position Reset" function. This resets the reference 0000 position at the correct offset. All satellite positions will once again be in sync.

exactly what I did when I encountered the same glitch! No need to disconnect anything.

 

[arlo]

This is where dyslexia sets in. Help me to understand you methodology.

If you know that the 0000 reference position is 75 pulses from the mechanical limit, manually drive the ASC1 to the mechanical limit then drive back 75 counts.
Are you suggesting my soft limit reference should be 0000 instead of the 75 where I set mine at? In other words.
I manually run the dish down until the polar mount is lightly bottomed. aka: gravity.
I turn the actuator out 5 turns for a safety factor. Then set the lower limit switch to just click open. Safety factor.
My 0 reference is set there. Then I run it out 75 pulses with the ASC1 and that is where the soft limit is set.
Should soft limit be an actual 0000 and therefore limit switch would be -75?

You may need to Reset the Soft Limit if the mechanical or 0000 reference is beyond the saved soft limit. Perform a "Position Reset" function. This resets the reference 0000 position at the correct offset count. All satellite positions will once again be in sync.
Right. I do have to reset the limit. The dish stops way in the air and the lower limit switch still will stop the dish before it binds. The counter decrements way below 0000 at that point.
Fuzzy here. Mechanical reference is? Limit switch or soft limit?

Once I can grasp this. Using the ASC1 loader program and a calculator will be a breeze. It's getting a bit chilly out to be doing this. Right now feeling as if I've been doing thing bass-ackwards.
Thanks!

 

[Titanium]

Does your system have East and West mechanical limit switches that de-energize the motor prior to the end of travel or binding? If so, experiment and not set East or West Soft Limits in the ASC1. In a properly configured system, there is no need for soft limits to be set. I think that it is just a point of confusion. Revisit soft limits in the future if you wish to incorporate.

First let me say that I never set software limits. Why not? I use actuators with mechanical limit switches and can't remember a time that a hardware limit switch failed in the closed position. Most actuators or AJAK type HH assemblies have mechanical limit switches. If it does not, I would install an actuator with hardware limit switches or retrofit the HH assembly to include hardware limit switches. I am confident that the mechanical limit switches will work as designed and de-energize the motor if engaged. If you decide that you want the extra protection that a software limit setting MIGHT provide, it really doesn't matter where you set it, as long as it is outside the range of programmed satellites or past a point that you wish to manually drive. You should be able to drive to 0000 before being stopped by a software of hardware limit. I would certainly set the 0000 reference count inside the software limits.

The ASC1 0000 reference count position is where ever you want to program it to be located. Some users place it xx counts away from an East or West mechanical limit. Other users place the 0000 reference at the center or top of the arc and count positive on one side of the arc and negative on the other side. Other users chose to set the 0000 reference on a specific satellite. If the need to Global Resync, they just drive and optimize for that satellite then perform a "Position Reset". It does not matter where you chose to place this 0000 reference as long as it is easy for you to locate.

 

[primestar31]

Other users place the 0000 reference at the center or top of the arc and count positive on one side of the arc and negative on the other side

THIS is what I do, and it makes and keeps things so SIMPLE! I also never set soft limits.

 

[arlo]

Oh. I use the soft limit because one time a parallel switch diode shorted, defeated the switch function, and let the dish flop. The actuator tube became very unhappy.
Mike, Brian. Ahh I get it now. Use a known satellite as my 0000 ref. and run the dish + and - of that.
I'll give it a shot.