Conifer buttonhook?

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. Raine

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Does anyone have a picture of the mount at the end of a 12' Conifer buttonhook (the part the scalar and LNBF attaches to) that they could post up for me? The one on mine is a real pain and I don't think it's right, looks like someone just welded a old muffler clamp on to hold the LNBF.

I'm going to cut it off and fabricate something better, the way it is now makes it real tough to fine tune. Right now the 12' Conifer only slightly outperforms my 9' RS dish, but the 9' has a C2WPLL on it and the Conifer has a old C/Ku feed I threw on it.

I just put the Conifer back up and replaced the original super heavy mount with a polar mount from a destroyed 10' dish I recently picked up, now the dish is much easier to work with and adjust, except for that buttohook mount!
 
Might be time to fab up a 4-legged support for it. I'm rebuilding a 10' unk brand mesh that I had, and that's what I'll have to do with it because the original buttonhook got lost, broken, or scrapped over the years it lay in pieces lol.
 
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Might be time to fab up a 4-legged support for it. I'm rebuilding a 10' unk brand mesh that I had, and that's what I'll have to do with it because the original buttonhook got lost, broken, or scrapped over the years it lay in pieces lol.

I like that idea, that's the way I'm gonna go. Doing that will go right along with all the other work I've done to the dish, too.

The petals of the dish are aluminum and real light weight, so I mounted them onto a polar mount from a 10' dish I picked up that the panels were destroyed on. I did this because the original mount was so heavy and lately my legs haven't been all that good, last week they gave out and I banged myself up real bad, little twitches in my hands now and then too now, so I'm setting this dish up so I can manage it from the ground and making it light as possible. If I had to lift the original mount off the pole from a chair, there's just no way I'd been able to do it.

The way I have it now, I can remove four bolts and remove the reflector, then loosen three bolts and lift the mount off the pole without much trouble.

The buttonhook weighs about thirty pounds by itself, so replacing it with a setup like you suggest is perfect, it'll be even lighter then.

Thanks, Turbosat!
 
Might be time to fab up a 4-legged support for it........
Not all that hard to do. I made four for my winegard out of conduit because the button hook was so rusted it was not worth much. Connection to the dish below.
Winegard-4.JPG
 
Thanks, Rt-Cat!

I was thinking of drilling holes through the frame of some of the petals to connect to, but I like the way you have it in your picture better. That's the way I'll go with it, connecting to the steel support arms with a bracket rather than to the aluminum dish frame, it should be sttonger and more secure.
 
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Not all that hard to do. I made four for my winegard out of conduit because the button hook was so rusted it was not worth much. Connection to the dish below.
View attachment 120625
Very nice work RT!!!

I have never owned a button hook, but I always figured if I came across one I wanted to restore, I would also go with four arms and ditch the button hook.
 
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Rt I don't exactly follow what your picture shows, it looks like that's from the backside of the dish. I'd like to see how you made the arms themselves, not much with metal fabbing myself. I was thinking conduit also, but how do you get the ends flat to attach them-hammer, or a good vise?
 
Rt I don't exactly follow what your picture shows, it looks like that's from the backside of the dish. I'd like to see how you made the arms themselves, not much with metal fabbing myself. I was thinking conduit also, but how do you get the ends flat to attach them-hammer, or a good vise?
That picture is from the back side of the dish. Just to show the connection to the solid frame. The arms are 1/2" conduit and yes a big vise and a hammer. Drilled holes in each end and had to bend them at a slight angle. Also cut out the steel from the hole to the end on four ends. This gave a little adjustment to get the scalar ring in the correct position. If it is not raining on Sunday, I can get some pictures of them.
 
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Great job RT, I see why you mounted them that way now. I have a 7.5 winegard and the supports on it go all the way to the edge of the dish and bend over it, with a bolt through the rim of the dish. I think yours is the way to go, and on my project-dish I can drill right through the rib of the dish petal-it doesn't have that plastic ribbing to hold the mesh in. I'll use my 10' sami to go by and copy that.
 
My Orbitron that I just put back has that plastic ribbing for the mesh.
Just keep in mind on the length of the rods. They have to be right to make sure the scalar ring is in the correct place.
Have fun.
 
Does anyone have a picture of the mount at the end of a 12' Conifer buttonhook (the part the scalar and LNBF attaches to) that they could post up for me? The one on mine is a real pain and I don't think it's right, looks like someone just welded a old muffler clamp on to hold the LNBF.

I have a 12' Conifer and if I remember right that's how mine's made.

I haven't had the nosecone off for a while.
 
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I have a 12' Conifer and if I remember right that's how mine's made.

I haven't had the nosecone off for a while.

So the clamp on mine is probably original, thanks!

I'm going to do what TurboSat and Rt-Cat suggested doing, replacing the buttonhook with a four leg support, think I'll probably be able to tune it in near perfect doing that.

Just curious, what color is your Conifer dish? Mine is green and I thought someone had painted it green because the paint on the mount looked sloppy, but the paint on the reflector doesn't, it looks like it might be original.

It's flaking off here and there though, so I'm painting it flat black. I'll post up some pictures, though the dish looks a bit funny right now, the mount is painted flat black and the reflector is green.
 
That's the way my buttonhook is made. But the main dish mount on mine is a little different.

I think mine might be an earlier model.
 
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Thanks for confirming the button hook clamp as being original. :)

That's not the original mount in those pictures, I changed it because the original mount was so heavy and hard for me to manage. I'm trying to make it so all my dishes are easier to manage. I'd set the dish up before and it was tough with the original mount, it was a real pita. With this mount, I can pull four bolts and the reflector assembly comes off, three more and the mount comes off, both are light enough to manage, unlike the original setup.

That mount came off of a 10' dish I picked up that the reflector was destroyed on. I had two mounts like that, but I gave one to a friend for a solar panel project, I don't know what brand they are.

Where I have the dish setup now is a temporary location, once I'm done working on it, I'm going to tear it down and put it up in it's permanent location. The only thing I've got to do before that is to replace the buttonhook with a four pole LNBF mount setup. I have in mind to use the original Conifer mount for a fixed solar panel array.
 
The motor on this dish worked ok but was making an intermittent grinding noise, so I pulled it and took it apart.

Previously, I'd used a Superjack actuator on this dish, this actuator looked heavier duty, so decided to use it, didn' t open it up, just hooked to the wires hanging from it, seeing as how the dish isn't staying where it is now. I'm not sure what it is, it has Saginaw stamped on it.

Motor is a mess and one magnet has broken loose in the motor housing, which explains the noise, time for a rebuild.
 

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