Mercury II question.

[c_perrone]

Hey folks,

It's been a while since I have posted a problem and one just cropped up today. I have been using my Pansat 9200HD as my only receiver for about 1 year now without any problems at all. Since hockey season is over I'm sending the panny back to have the PVR mod done. I packed it all up and put my old Merc II in its place. The darn Merc II just won't move the dg280 motor all the time. It will from time to time, but for the most part...no go. I tried the motor reset, that I saw from other threads after swapping receivers, but it just seems to have problems under USALS or Diseqc. So, is it possible that the Merc is a bit more finicky than the Pansat? Am I missing something? I know I have a rather long cable run....over 250ft of RG11, but the Pansat never missed a beat...

Clint

 

[updatelee]

got the latest firmware on it ? check fortecstar.com for latest firmware.

 

[c_perrone]

got the latest firmware on it ? check fortecstar.com for latest firmware.

Yep. Checked that earlier. It's the latest version from their site.

Clint

 

[brentb636]

Make sure you select a Horizontal TP on the sat you want to go to, and see if that makes a difference. That might indicate that you have a low voltage problem coming out of the Merc .
If you do find you can move it to an H tp but not a V tp, then maybe a power supply modification might help.

 

[Othea]

Merc II

I see that the previous responses come from people with SG2100 and Stab motors. I have a Stab and like it. But I also have a DG380 hooked up with the Merc II and have not been impressed with the Merc II in general. Mine is working fine with the DG380, but it was not a joy to set it up.
Please take my recommendation with a grain of salt (as I suspect that not everyone will agree with me), but I think I understand your difficulties. My cable run is probably about 100ft and my setup displayed similar symptoms. I recommend:
(a) Do the motor reset several times (to make sure that it clears the chart) -- repeat until successful
(b) try not to mix USALS with Disecq 1.2 until you have USALS tracking the arc. Then you can add any Disecq 1.2 settings that you may need by using the buttons on the motor to move the dish, then save the position (my Merc would NOT move the dish left & right to locate a satellite w/ Disecq 1.2, so I had to use the motor's buttons!!).

You may have to reset the motor several times, but it should work with the Merc -- eventually.
I had firmware 1.45 until a couple of days ago -- but then I got tired of the EPG crashing/rebooting the receiver!!!! Firmware 1.53 corrected that for me (-- or it may just have been the fact that I reloaded the firmware, who knows?)

Someone may ask -- why do I need the EPG? Well, that's the only practical way to go from one station to the next, because just scrolling through the list of stations in EPG does not activate the motor until you select a program. If you use the select button to display a list of programs and then scroll through them, the motor will run from one satellite to the next one even though you haven't actually selected a program to view. Too many quirks with the Merc for my taste.

I have no expertise in electronics, so I shouldn't comment on the suggestion that a power supply modification might be in order. But it seems to me that a good receiver should not need anything of the kind.

 

[turbosat]

When I use my merc 2 it seems to work ok. I use the Sat button to select the sat, pick a channel on whatever sat I select, and then the motor moves (380 also). I have noticed at times I accidentally hit a channel on another satellite (by scrolling thru the channel list) it will take off to another sat, which gets aggravating, but it does work better than some I have.

 

[c_perrone]

I recommend:
(a) Do the motor reset several times (to make sure that it clears the chart) -- repeat until successful

Othea,

This seems to be the problem that I keep running into.. Is there a way to know if the reset was successful? Is it just a wild ass guess if it worked or not? Also in the manual for the DG280 there appears to be 3 different ways to reset the satellite table in the motor:

A) Hardware reset by receiver:

1. Execute the command: Go To Reference (Go To “0”).
2. Cut off the power by disconnecting the coaxial cable.
3. Reconnect the coaxial cable.
4. Execute the command: Shift “0”.
5. Then, its memory erased, the receiver rewrites the satellite table to initial one and corrects the “0”

I have read that the Shift "0" command is just hitting "go to 0 " twice..I have never found a "definitive answer" in regard to "shift 0"

B) HARDWARE RESET BY DiSEqC MOTOR

1. Cut off the power by disconnecting the coaxial cable.
2. Press and hold both EAST / WEST buttons for 5 seconds.
3. Reconnect the coaxial cable.
4. LED1 and LED2 blink for 5 seconds.
5. Then, its memory erased, the receiver rewrites the satellite table to initial one and corrects the “0”

Pretty simple and when executed I indeed get the flash.

C) BUILT-IN SATELLITE TABLE RESET
1. Press and hold both EAST / WEST buttons for 5 seconds.
2. LED1 and LED2 blink for 5 seconds.
3. Then, its memory erased and rewrites the built-in Satellite table to initial one.

Again, simple and I get the flashes.

This was the original problem I was having last year, but somehow after the Pansat was finally working, I have had no problems for almost a year... I sure hope this does not start all over again...

Thanks for all the responses.

Clint

 

[Othea]

Clint -- I'm sorry, but I could not discover any sure-fire steps to do it once and get it right. I had to delete the satellite table many times before everything just fell into place. Judging from what you wrote about your Pansat, that's what you've already gone through once.
Don't forget to reflash the Merc II factory firmware, just in case. That didn't seem to be the problem on my side, but I did do that once or twice. Does the receiver's software produce it's own satellite table that somehow conflicts with the motor's table? I don't know; but a fresh flash should clear that out. You can save your channel info in the Merc II, so that shouldn't deter you. (Ya gotta LOVE that feature in the Merc!)
As for disconnecting the coax cable -- I never did that. I just turned the receiver off.
Oh, I forgot: also beware of adding satellites to your personal list. That can put a wrench in things. I did that once after everything was working fine and had to go back in and delete that addition to make things fall back into place. I assume that a motor reset would have worked, but I wasn't up for that project.

Good luck -- I'm betting that things will work out after a few more resets.

 

[c_perrone]

I may have figured this out....

Hoping that this is not a jinx.....I think I have finally figured this motor reset out. The manual called for a reset by holding the east and west buttons at the same time until the lights flash. I must have done that 100 times with no luck at all. Each time I would hit the switches the motor would either continue moving east or west, depending on which button I would hit first, but I could never hit them without the dish moving one way or the other, but the lights still flashed. Without anyway of knowing if the motor table was reset, I continued to do some research. I found a post at the Sadoun forum that said "hit the east and west buttons, but make sure the dish is not moving". Well needless to say I tried that about 20 time until I finally came across something interesting. If I would hit one of the buttons first..either east or west, then hit the other button, the dish would stop dead in its tracks....the lights flashed and the darn thing has been running flawless for the last 50 moves or so.....I think that's the key on how to reset the dg280 motor. Make sure the dish is not moving while the 2 buttons are held, wait for the flashes...motor table is reset.

Clint

 

[mikelib]

Guys, If the Merc II receiver is like the the Fortec Dynamic, you can get better control of the listings by hitting the sat button twice. In the channel page you should get a sat left and right arrow at the top of the channel page. I found that by accident on the Dynamic.
Mike Lib

 

[turbosat]

Thanks for that tip Mike Lib that is another one I never knew about.

 

[TRG]

Hey folks,

It's been a while since I have posted a problem and one just cropped up today. I have been using my Pansat 9200HD as my only receiver for about 1 year now without any problems at all. Since hockey season is over I'm sending the panny back to have the PVR mod done. I packed it all up and put my old Merc II in its place. The darn Merc II just won't move the dg280 motor all the time. It will from time to time, but for the most part...no go. I tried the motor reset, that I saw from other threads after swapping receivers, but it just seems to have problems under USALS or Diseqc. So, is it possible that the Merc is a bit more finicky than the Pansat? Am I missing something? I know I have a rather long cable run....over 250ft of RG11, but the Pansat never missed a beat...

Clint

I had a similar problem although I have a different motor. My problem turned out to be heat related. My receiver was sitting on top of a CRT type TV that generated a fair amount of heat. When the receiver got hot the motor drive would stop working. Once I moved the receiver into a well ventilated area the problem stopped. I don't know if you have the same problem but I figured I'd put it out there.

 

[c_perrone]

Guys, If the Merc II receiver is like the the Fortec Dynamic, you can get better control of the listings by hitting the sat button twice. In the channel page you should get a sat left and right arrow at the top of the channel page. I found that by accident on the Dynamic.
Mike Lib

Mikelib,

Great find. I just tried that and it does work on my MercII. Thanks a bunch and also since I was finally reset the satellite table on the DG280 motor, per my previous post...The MercII is working perfectly!! Go figure, it only took me about a year to figure out how to reset the motor....

Clint

 

[brentb636]

Guys, If the Merc II receiver is like the the Fortec Dynamic, you can get better control of the listings by hitting the sat button twice. In the channel page you should get a sat left and right arrow at the top of the channel page. I found that by accident on the Dynamic.
Mike Lib

Holy Mackerel,
3 years with the Merc and now somebody tells me about the easy way ! Thanks .

 

[Sadoun]

Another cool feature.