Invacom L/C LNB + SG-2100 + SV-4000 Issues

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asmodee

Active SatelliteGuys Member
Original poster
Dec 1, 2007
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Being that I'm new to motorized Ku-band dishes, I decided to have a preofessional installer install the dish and set everything up, unfortunately they seem to not be so good and I'm left with some problems.

Equipment:

DMS International SG-2100 motor
85cm dish
Invacom Quad output (2 linear + 2 circular) LNB
Sonicview SV-4000 receiver

I bought everything but the receiver as a package. The receiver came with a 4x1 DiSEqC switch. What the installers found is that when you connect the switch between the receiver and the motor, the motor gets no power. The receiver must be connected directly to the motor in order to make it function, but since the receiver has only one IF input, I can't use both the L and C outputs of the LNB.

The manual for the SV-4000 has no mention of how to connect it to a motor, even though it has motor control functionality in the menu. The motor's manual also doesn't show the case with a dual output LNB. And the LNB manual also doesn't have a diagram for my specific case.

What I'm wondering is what is the proper way to connect this? The installers connected as follows:

1. Circular output of LNB to motor
2. Linear output of LNB to switch
3. Motor to switch
4. Switch to receiver

Is this a valid configuration? As I said, the motor doesn't seem to get power when the switch is in the way. They also tried connecting the motor on different ports of the switch. I seem to think there may be an issue with the receiver setup, but I'm new, so what do I know?

My other thought was to rewire this as follows:

1. Linear output of LNB to switch
2. Circular output of LNB to switch
3. Switch to motor
4. Motor to receiver

Would this work? Which is the preferred way? I think the problem is that these professional installers have basically no experience with motorized dish setups, they even said they mainly do fixed dishes.

Manually pressing the east/west buttons on the motor do show that it is (seemingly) properly tracking, but having to manually move cables around to run the motor is annoying.

Any pointers to information or advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
 
WRONG:

What I'm wondering is what is the proper way to connect this? The installers connected as follows:

1. Circular output of LNB to motor
2. Linear output of LNB to switch
3. Motor to switch
4. Switch to receiver

This will work:

My other thought was to rewire this as follows:

1. Linear output of LNB to switch
2. Circular output of LNB to switch
3. Switch to motor
4. Motor to receiver

The installers wiring will not move the motor if you use your linear lnb.

Your right, the installer is wrong :(
 
Receiver to motor input, motor output to the switch input, port one of the switch is circular and use port 4 for linear.
Then in SV Dish settings for circular: lnb type single, LNB freq is 11250, lnb power on, 22khz off, diseqc port 1, motor enable,
for linear lnb single, lnb freq is 10750, 22 khz off, lnb power on, port 4, motor enable.
I would ask for my money back.
 
Thanks for the quick replies guys. I shall try rewiring it tomorrow.

I would ask for my money back.

Well they did install a pole, cement it in, align the dish and setup the motor angles. They also ran wire into my house and gave me plenty of extra wire to connect another receiver in the future. $218 was the total. A bit more than I was hoping, but I still think it's worth it, assuming everything will actually work properly after I rewire.

So just to make sure, motor should be connected directly to the receiver and the switch goes between the LNB and the motor? I don't want to fry anything.
 
I think I should also mention that for testing purposes, I removed the switch and connected the motor directly to the receiver. I had the receiver moving the dish and all of a sudden the signal went to 0 no matter where I told the receiver to point the dish. I went outside and found that the wire that connected the LNB to the motor ripped off of the connector. Apparently they didn't leave enough slack.

I'm a bit pissed, but not much I can do I guess. I needed to rewire it anyway...
 
These guys were Dish Notwork or DirecTV installers, right? They obviously had no experience whatsoever with any motorized setup. But yeah...

Receiver -> Motor -> Switch -> LNBF.

On Invacom LNBF, one output of each (C and L) to the switch (doesn't matter which number port on the switch, I'd put (L)inear on port 1 and (C)ircular on port 2. Again, doesn't matter. Just remember what port each cable is connected to, so when you setup linear sats you can tell the receiver to switch to that port. Same with circular sats.
 
I've rewired my system and it is driving the motor, but things don't seem to be operating correctly.

When I select a sattelite from my receivers menu, say AMC6, then I go into the motor settings and keep driving east/west until I find a sattelite, it shows NIMIQ1,3 in the upper right of the screen, but still AMC6 in my sattelite menu. So I thought I need to tell the receiver that we're pointing at NIMIQ and not AMC6. When I select NIMIQ1,3 from the sat menu, the receiver automagically drives the motor to some (seemingly) random location. I think this is because I need to tell the receiver where the positions of each sattelite is?

I thought this USALS was supposed to allow me to specify my lat/long and some reference sat and it should do the rest? The manual is severely lacking in the motor menu section (there is none). There's also no section describing USALS.

I did find a thread on here talking about problems with the SV-4000 USALS, but I've tried using the "motor" (not USALS) menu as well, without sucess.
 
Did a little bit of driving the motor and found another sattelite, this one I recognized (I have dish network service), it was EchoStar 110. So I looked up what NIMIQ 1,3 was and it is also a circular polarity sat, so I'm thinking maybe my linear isn't working, which is really what I wanted this whole setup for in the first place. Only services like directv/dishnetwork use circular right?

Another thing to mention is that I get signal around 60 no matter where the dish is pointing, but the quality is almost always 0, except on NIMIQ 1,3 and EchoStar 7 I get 99 Q. Also I only get Q when I have my DiSeqC set to off or port 4. I have the linear LNB output connected to port 1, but seems no quality (but signal) there.

EDIT:

After more searching I found yet another circular sat. So in total I've found 92, 110, and 119, but that is all. No linear sats even though I'm specifying port 1. The wife tells me that the guys were connecting/disconnecting wires (when I wasn't in the room) without turning the receiver off/on. Is it possible they fried just the linear part of the LNB and not the circular? The circular was connected through the motor, so voltage spikes may have been supressed by it. The linear was connected directly to the receiver.
 
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No motor expert here, but as for the switch, I think I would switch the linear in to port 1, and circular to 2 or 3. See if that makes any difference to your switch/receiver. I've done that before when I had a problem, don't know for a fact but some of these diseqc act like it does matter which lnb goes where.
Won't'hurt to try it.
 
I shall try different ports. I only used port 1 and 4 because someone earlier in the thread recommended that. I'm just worried those installers fried my LNB... Although I don't know enough about the design of that LNB to determine if it is even possible to fry just the linear (and not the circular).
 
It is possible to just fry the linear section, also the posts on the disecq could be fried so it could work by switching the ports.
 
In the thousands of posts I've read, I don't hardly ever recall seeing anyone say they broke an LNB.
However, damaging diseqc switches does seem a common theme.
The $5 cheapies are not as robust as something like Dish or DirecTV Multiswitches.


But, in addition to the diseqc switching being bad, at least on one port, you should also consider this -
The FSS (linear) satellites are much weaker, and will require far more care in aiming.
So, the lack of signals from the regular FTA satellites shouldn't be of concern.

Pick a bird near your true south, and follow the procedures to get a signal
- take out the switch, to remove it as a variable
- set the receiver for a strong transponder on the satellite you want
- fine adjust the dish

I'll bet you'll find it.
Happy hunting! :cool:
 
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As I'm scanning (manually driving the motor east/west) I see the signal going up and down, it always seems to be in the 40 - 70 range, but the Q is always 0 when I have the DiSeqC set to the linear port. Tomorrow I'm going to swap the circular and linear ports and see what happens. Should help to diagnose if the switch is in fact the problem.

In total I've managed to only get Q from 4 sats, 82, 91, 110, and 119, which are all circular and not what I'm interested in. I want feeeeeeds!

When I do get Q from those 4 sats it's very easy to get it to 98-99 steady on all 4, so I seem to think the dish is probably aligned properly, but again, I'm new to this, so I don't really have a feel for the difference in sensitivity on the linear.
 
Because the DSS satellites put out about 10 times more power than the linear sats. I think you'll have better luck when you swap out those ports, or get a new diseqc switch. If you're hitting all those high-powered sats across the arc, you have to be fairly close to tracking the arc properly.
Try the port switch, maybe even leave the circ off the switch until you get the others going.
 
Sounds like a fried switch. It is VERY easy to fry these cheap DiSEqC switches by forgetting to completely power off the receiver (by switch on back or unplugging) before swapping cables. Factor in the inexperienced installers who attempted to set it up, and its almost a sure thing that they fried the switch. Try taking the switch completely out of the equation for now, just connect a linear output from the LNBF to the motor, set DiSEqC switch to "off" or "none", and see if you can hit a linear bird.
 
I've swapped the linear and circular LNB ports on the switch between 1/4. The circular works on 82, 91, 110, and 119 on both ports (1 and 4), but the linear didn't work on either. I then proceeded to try the other linear output from the LNB (it has 2 linear and 2 circular outputs). On the other linear output I managed to pick up AMC 4 at 101.0W, but that's the only one I've found so far. Is this a particularly high powered bird? If not then I think this confirms my alignment is correct.

I was actually senta very small linear only LNB when I ordered my dish+motor+invacom package. I guess I could try swapping the LNBs to verify that my other wasn't fried. I had completely forgot about that other LNB. My only concern is lining up the LNB at the focal length properly as the LNB slides a little in/out of the LNB holder.


EDIT: Q on AMC 4 is 98-99.
 
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