How to speed up AzBox slews?

[Flinthill]

I am using an Azbox Premium HD receiver in conjunction with two 1 meter dishes. The nearest dish to the receiver is about 175 feet away and it is a fixed dish. The other dish is approx 225 feet away from the receiver and mounted on Disequc H-H mount, DG380. The coax cable from the farthest dish joins the cable from the nearer dish at a Diseq switch that is attached to the mast of the closer dish. Only one cable then goes to the receiver. All coax cable is RJ6.

Now the problem: From inside the house the DG380 motor slews very slowly when asked to move from one sat to the next. If I relocate the AzBox receiver to the base of the mast, near the motor, then it moves a little faster but still, in my opinion, very slowly.

Question is this: Is there any type of power insertion utility that can be placed in line that will boost the current to a higher lever and cause the motor to move faster?

Other than replacing the RG6 cable with RG11 I can't think of any other way to manage the DC fall off due to the long cable length. I am interested in your suggestions on how to remedy this condition. If using a power inserter is the only "easy fix" is there any one brand that you would recommend?

Many thanks,

Ron

 

[Babadem]

Chose a Horizontal (18V) polarity instead of a Vertical (13V) Polarity when moving the dish, it will go faster.

 

[Flinthill]

Chose a Horizontal (18V) polarity instead of a Vertical (13V) Polarity when moving the dish, it will go faster.

Thanks for the idea. Guess I'll need to keep a little better track of which is horizontal and and which is vertical.

It looks like my idea about using some type of power inserter is not a good one based on the lack of any confirmations.

Ron

 

[Cham]

I think you can use a splitter at the dish end that it feeds the receiver LNB voltage directly to the LNBF, and you can run a power inserter on the non-DC-pass side of the splitter to the motor. Terminate the "to LNB" side of the motor with a 75 ohm load. Voltage for the power inserter supply should be around 18VDC, that way you always have full power to the motor.

There might be another way to do this by modifying the motor but the way I explain above requires no mods to your equipment. A wall wart with 18VDC at 200mA, splitter with DC pass on one port, and a power inserter are all that's required (and some extra connectors for your RG6). If you don't have power available at the dish site you can add the parts inside your house but then you need another run of feedline for either the motor or the LNBF. It won't be quite as affective due to the voltage drop in the feedline.

The RG-11 will help too rather than adding the various parts, voltage drop would be much less. Also some RG6 has lower quality copper alloy instead of pure copper or copperweld (steel inside, few mills of copper outside) as the center conductor. Some alloys will have more voltage drop/100ft. Best to stay away from those. Beldon, Commscope, and Channel Master have good cable and the best bet. There are other good cable names too but I am not as familiar. The stuff professional installers use is usually good cable. Don't use RG59 other than for patch cables, it's center conductor is too small and therefor too much loss especially with a DC load.

 

[Flinthill]

Cham, I appreciate your reply.

Even though I don't have any experience in doing this type of project it sounds like this is what's necessary to speed up the dish slews.

I have a question about polarity and voltage: If the polarity is controlled by the voltage level (18V=H and 13V=V) then if I insert only 18V how does the lnb know to switch polarity when needed?

Do you have any particular favorite supplier that sells the parts you recommend for this project?

Many thanks,

Ron

 

[Cham]

You would run the LNB on receiver voltage on the "DC pass" part of the splitter. The other port is DC blocked that connects to the "receiver" port on the motor, but has a power inserter in line to add the 18vDC to run the motor. The diseqc commands would (in theory) pass though the splitter to both the LNB line (in case you have a diseqc switch in that line) and to the motor, the latter minus the DC power from the receiver that was removed in the splitter.
This way the LNBF gets the 14V/18V polarity signal from the receiver.
Hope that makes sense.... I've never been that good at explaining this stuff...
Source would be the forum sponsor at the top of the page. Sadoun and Skyvision are also good places to look, as well as many others.
Things you need:
-2-way 75 ohm splitter with DC blocking on one port,
-power inserter (may or not include the power supply)
-power supply, 18vDC recommended at at least 300mA. Used laptop supply/charger might work fine, just be careful if you have to wire up a connector, that the polarity is correct!!!

As I said, I have never done this. Wish someone with experience doing this mod would chime in to verify this is the way to go.

-C.