motor recommendations for 1.2?

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B.J.

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Oct 15, 2008
2,029
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Western Maine
I just mounted a new pole on my fairly new garage, and was intending to re-locate my 90cm Fortec/SG2100 up there. However within the last couple weeks, my SG2100 has been going beserk. It's been losing it's reference position on almost a daily basis, sometimes more frequently, and it's been forgetting all it's diseqC-1.2 sat positions. Up until today, it's at least still worked fairly well on USALS, but today that stopped working too, so that on almost every sat I have to send it to the sat via USALS, then fine tune by several degrees.

Anyway, I don't want to put a motor/dish up on a roof if I'm going to have to reset the reference position once or twice a day. So I've been thinking about picking up a 1.2M dish, and a new motor. So I'm looking for recommendations for a motor that's capable of moving a 1.2M dish. Also looking for recommendations for a source of a high quality 1.2M dish from a dealer that doesn't charge more for shipping than for the dish (which is the case for a couple of the popular dealers).
Thanks in advance for recommendations.
 
1.2 M dish

Don't know if you've been looking at fleabay but here's a dish I spotted: Item number:270627542980. It's due to end this AM. Shipping is very reasonable but the current price is too high for me.
Good luck.:)
 
Don't know if you've been looking at fleabay but here's a dish I spotted: Item number:270627542980. It's due to end this AM. Shipping is very reasonable but the current price is too high for me.
Good luck.:)

I would be leery of that auction for a couple of reasons. The seller has a very low feedback rating and also, I don't think they can ship that dish for the price they have listed. Also, while it's a very nice dish, that's a lot of money and it's a heavy dish that would have to be adapted to make it work on the typical DiSEqC motor

Not saying they wouldn't honor the shipping price but I had an auction go bad when the seller wouldn't honor an unrealistic shipping price. Of course they said they couldn't ship the dish because they "damaged it when they were packaging it." :rolleyes:

I think a dish (or any package) that large is considered "oversized" by UPS and FedEx, and they charge accordingly.

As far as a motor goes I know people have swung motors on some of the other models but I would recommend the DG-380 or STAB HH120...or breeding a 1.2m to a BUD polar or H-H mount.
 
I would be leery of that auction for a couple of reasons. The seller has a very low feedback rating and also, I don't think they can ship that dish for the price they have listed. Also, while it's a very nice dish, that's a lot of money and it's a heavy dish that would have to be adapted to make it work on the typical DiSEqC motor

Not saying they wouldn't honor the shipping price but I had an auction go bad when the seller wouldn't honor an unrealistic shipping price. Of course they said they couldn't ship the dish because they "damaged it when they were packaging it." :rolleyes:

I think a dish (or any package) that large is considered "oversized" by UPS and FedEx, and they charge accordingly.

As far as a motor goes I know people have swung motors on some of the other models but I would recommend the DG-380 or STAB HH120...or breeding a 1.2m to a BUD polar or H-H mount.
I left it to B.J.'s discretion to make that call about the seller, the actual shipping costs & the low feedback rating. I'm certain B.J. could discern these things quite well.
But it would be worthwhile to contact the seller before the auction end if things did go sour just in case other arrangements could be made after the auction. ;)
 
I left it to B.J.'s discretion to make that call about the seller, the actual shipping costs & the low feedback rating. I'm certain B.J. could discern these things quite well.
But it would be worthwhile to contact the seller before the auction end if things did go sour just in case other arrangements could be made after the auction. ;)

Of course, understood.

I just wanted to rant about the auction where I got screwed. :D
 
Thanks both. I got to ebay too late anyway. I've heard good things about the Andrew dish, so I might have gone for that, but I would have been a bit nervous about the low feedback number.

Was late reading responses because I have been fighting with the old SG2100 all morning. Did a hard reset about 5 times. Finally gave up and just changed MY longitude when it would change. This thing has gone from needing a hard reset every couple months to weeks, to days, to hours, to now when it won't hold for minutes. I'm suspecting that my Diamond 9000 may be contributing to the issue by sending bogus diseqC commands, so I took it off the Diamond for a while, switched to a PC card receiver and saved a position, went off position, then sent it back to the position, over and over, and each time it came back to a slightly different position. The actual "reference" position on a goto zero command has ranged from about +10 thru -2 deg in the various times I checked it today.

Another strange thing is that when connected to my Diamond, I have a hard time using the buttons on the SG2100. Most of the time I can't get it to move with the buttons. And if I watch the little green light, it is almost constantly flickering, which I'm 99% certain is because the Diamond is sending DiseqC commands (switch) since I don't have a lock on anything when at true south. When I hook the dish up to my Twinhan 1020a, the buttons on the SG2100 work perfectly, however it still comes back to different positions every time I send it off sat and back to the sat. So part of the motor's problems may well be the Diamond, but not all.

Thanks .
 
I have both DG 380 and SG 9120B motors here, so far running well. Time will tell if they last longer than the still working SG 2100 from many years ago.
 
You can get replacement parts for some brands of sg2100. Might be able to replace the controller board.
 
If I had a 1.2 dish to try - I wouldn't hesitate to put it on my 380 motor, it has been going fine without problems for about 16months now. Of course now that I said it, lightning will hit it tomorrow lol.
 
I have a 1.2M dish SG9120 from WSI which work well together. I'm fortunate that I could pick them up locally as I was grappling with the expense of shipping as well. When I last checked, the cost of shipping the 1.2 dish was approaching the same price as the dish itself as unfortunately oversized items are costly to ship. Unless you can find one locally, I don't know how you can save on shipping. I like the 9120 motor with the exception of the location of the RG6 connectors.
 
I've had a DG-380 running my Fortec 1.2M for over a year, and it does a good job. I also have a backup Stab hh120 ( in case the DG-380 couldn't handle it), but the STAB motor is still unused.
Finding another 1.2M dish locally might solve THAT problem, though.
:)
 
I have a sg9120 with a 1.2 meter dish that i bougth from galaxy-marketing in marietta ga and bouth work pretty well.
 
I actually use an sg2100 for my 1.2m digiwave, I weighed the dish and it was 21lbs.
The maximum for the sg2100 is <27lbs and max 1.2m. I know it sounds like sacrilege but I swapped out my 90cm for the 1.2m dish and really didn't want to purchase another motor. Don't get me wrong, I would have preferred a stab 120 HH but finances got in the way.
 
Thanks for the responses. My head is spinning.
Can I assume that none of these little motors are able to handle a 1.2M fiberglass dish? It's hard to find specs with weights of the dishes, but it seems like a fiberglass dish would weigh more than the max weights listed for the motors.
 
i use a stab hh120 for moving my fortec star modded 1.2m dish - been working great for years now. I believe the weight limit for the hh120 motor is 35 pounds, IIRC, and I think the specs for the fortec star 1.2m is about 30 pounds.

yes, I think most of these motors mentioned are probably max weight around 35-40 pounds and I bet a fiberglass 1.2m would weigh more than that.

if you were to give me a fiberglass 1.2m dish and it is indeed too heavy for the dg380 or hh120 motors, I probably would try to design a homebrew "polar mount" type thing for it and use an actuator to drive it since I don't know off the top of my head if there is a HH motor for heavier 1-2m range dishes.
 
if you were to give me a fiberglass 1.2m dish and it is indeed too heavy for the dg380 or hh120 motors, I probably would try to design a homebrew "polar mount" type thing for it and use an actuator to drive it since I don't know off the top of my head if there is a HH motor for heavier 1-2m range dishes.

the mythical HH160
 
i have an SG9120 and it seems like a very solid and very strong motor....

it does not struggle at all with my 1.2m....moves it no problem even uphill....

my only beef with this motor is the cable connectors coming out of the motor are on a bad angle....i needed to use 90 degree connectors so the cables would not hit the dish while it moved....
 
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