Best 4x1 diseqc switch?

[comfortably_numb]

Is the Chieta still considered the best? We've blown through 2 of these Pansat weather-covered outdoor switches in the past 6 months.

Amazon.com

 

[primestar31]

Is the Chieta still considered the best? We've blown through 2 of these Pansat weather-covered outdoor switches in the past 6 months.

WSD-2041 HEAVY DUTY CHIETA DISEqC MULTI SWITCH 4X1 SATELLITE FTA LNB FREE TO AIR | eBay

BEST DISEqC 4X1 SWITCH EVER BUILT. WORKS WITH ALL FTA RECEIVER. HEAVY DUTY. - Frequency range: 900 to 2400 MHz.

www.ebay.com

Chieta's have been good historically. But whatever one you can still buy, market is getting thin.

Just remember, do not EVER switch a cable on one of these that has power. Don't add it, and don't remove it in that case. It's guaranteed to blow them.

 

[Keith Brannen]

Just to add to primestar31's warning (though I am sure most of us know this), unless your receiver has a rocker on/off switch (such as my AZBox), you must unplug the receiver to kill the power completely (such as my Amiko), as standby/off does not ensure all power to the LNB is off.

 

[cyberham]

...unless your receiver has a rocker on/off switch (such as my AZBox), you must unplug the receiver to kill the power completely (such as my Amiko), as standby/off does not ensure all power to the LNB is off.

This is true for my Edision. For this reason, I have disconnected the coaxial cable in my house (with power on) rather than powering down the Edision in order to cut power to a diseqc switch. But I wouldn't recommend doing it that way. Do what I say, not what I do. But nowadays I have no diseqc switches in line anymore.

From memory, I think my GT Media V9 and V7S5X receivers do cut power to the LNB once you power the units down, even without switching off the LNB voltage in their menu options.

 

[a33]

For this reason, I have disconnected the coaxial cable in my house (with power on) rather than powering down the Edision in order to cut power to a diseqc switch.

That is a sensible thing to do.
Remember, when connecting/disconnecting a cable, if a shortcircuit happens accidentally at the receiver side of the switch, the receiver usually has an overcurrent protection mode, so that the receiver isn't harmed.
(Some receivers can restart themselves, after the shortcircuit has finished; others need a switch-off switch-on procedure.)

A diseqc switch doesn't usually have such a protection circuit (at least: I've never seen it). So connecting/disconnecting a cable at the LNB side of a switch with power still supplied, is the dangerous thing.

But indeed the advice is: better be safe than sorry! Disconnect mains when connecting/disconnecting cables!

Greetz,
A33

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[iBoston]

Is the Chieta still considered the best? We've blown through 2 of these Pansat weather-covered outdoor switches in the past 6 months.

Amazon.com

Every single one of the Chieta i blew out. I ended up buying the cheapest i could buy in a bulk of ten at a time, where i think i paid like 1.50 for each one. Yes, im sure some of the blow outs were my fault, but i have not seen any less reliability on the cheaper ones that i bought. I have actually only replaced 1 1x8 diseqc switch in the last couple years. I have so many of them. Between 1.0 (1x4) and 1.1 (1x8) - A quick count in my head, i think I am running 12 of em.

 

[arlo]

Hi guys. You might have already seen my cabinet in the past. The Chieta 4X1 in the left panel only lasted a half year or so. But everyone said it was the one to get. And I did. The left pane was when everything was being finalized.
The right pane is how it is today after you made me go out in the cold to snap the pic.
Anyway. Ignore the terminators on the Chieta 4X1.
At first, coming from a Geosatpro 8X1 that got fried and cooked a lot of stuff here. Took me a bit to find out the Chieta was a diseqc 1.0. And after getting everything playing nice inside. It was slow. I mean slow.
Switching between my ku lnbf to the ortho setup. Sometimes several seconds lapsed.

Suggestion was to add terminators to the unused floating ports. I got jumped all over by folks because of the possibility of activating the unused ports and causing a 13/18 Volt short. But the switch was "a touch" faster. Fine.
A call to Satellite Dish tech support. Good dudes BTW really. Suggested after making a call to a commercial customer. To try using DC blocks before the terminators. And it stayed that way. Worked good.
Until one day something went South. I couldn't get any channels on C or ku. The Chieta 4X1 died.

In the right pane there is the Geosatpro 4X1 that I got from Ricks. I actually bought two. One for a backup.
It was a little slow. Same diseqc 1.0 protocol. When I added the DC blocks and terminators it got snappy-fast.
So there you have it.

The only thing drawing current off of my osmio4k are the 4X1, multiswitch, and Geosatpro ku lnbf.
The Norsat's are powered through the bias-tee (Tru-Spec) over coax and that gets juice from a 18 Volt laptop power supply. The mio runs warm. Not hot-ish like before.

I've opened up the Chieta to see if there was a fix. Because that's what I like to do. The Geosatpro 8X1 got opened up too. Not pretty. It was cooked. But the internal components are similar. So. Who is better? Don't know. It's all chinesuim with no-name manufacturer internal components that actually are probably stockpiled.
Just don't know. Ground it, bond it, pray. When a storm brews. Unhook it all. Lightning is a red head. And red hairs don't care.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Hi guys. You might have already seen my cabinet in the past. The Chieta 4X1 in the left panel only lasted a half year or so. But everyone said it was the one to get. And I did. The left pane was when everything was being finalized.
The right pane is how it is today after you made me go out in the cold to snap the pic.
Anyway. Ignore the terminators on the Chieta 4X1.
At first, coming from a Geosatpro 8X1 that got fried and cooked a lot of stuff here. Took me a bit to find out the Chieta was a diseqc 1.0. And after getting everything playing nice inside. It was slow. I mean slow.
Switching between my ku lnbf to the ortho setup. Sometimes several seconds lapsed.

Suggestion was to add terminators to the unused floating ports. I got jumped all over by folks because of the possibility of activation the unused ports and causing a 13/18 Volt short. But the switch was "a touch" faster. Fine.
A call to Satellite Dish tech support. Good dudes BTW really. Suggested after making a call to a commercial customer. To try using DC blocks before the terminators. And it stayed that way. Worked good.
Until one day something went South. I couldn't get any cnannels on C or ku. The Chieta 4X1 died.

In the right pane there is the Geosatpro 4X1 that I got from Ricks. I actually bought two. One for a backup.
It was a little slow. Same diseqc 1.0 protocol. When I added the DC blocks and terminators it got snappy-fast.
So there you have it.

The only thing drawing current off of my osmio4k are the 4X1, multiswitch, and Geosatpro ku lnbf.
The Norsat's are powered through the bias-tee (Tru-Spec) over coax and that gets juice from a 18 Volt laptop power supply. The mio runs warm. Not hot-ish like before.

I've opened up the Chieta to see if there was a fix. Because that's what I like to do. The Geosatpro 8X1 got opened up to. Not pretty. It was cooked. But the internal components are similar. So. Who is better? Don't know. It's all chinesuim with no-name manufacturer internal components that actually are probably stockpiled.
Don't know. Ground it, bond it, pray. When a storm brews. Unhook it all. Lightning is a red head. And redhairs don't care.

Are those switch containers indoors or outdoors?

 

[arlo]

Are those switch containers indoors or outdoors?

All outdoors in a weatherproof Amazon cabinet. Sealed it up with weather stripping to keep the bugs and rain spatter out. All the coax is in cable glands. Haha. Buy once, cry once. Until a switch fries again. Fingers crossed.