this motor is driving me nuts!

[skyscanner4ever]

I know I have asked alot of questions but I am having this issue!

Today I come home and moved the dish over to 91, well I thought 91*. I scanned and noticed I was getting CCTV and was like what the?

Somehow my motor moved like 3.5 degrees! I dont know how! weirdest thing I have ever seen with this motor! My dish didnt move!


I have tightened my motor slack adjustments and cant tighten them any more! I have tightened down the motor clamp to the mount, the dish bracket to the motor,ect.

I still notice when I swing out to 125 and go back it throws my sats off a few degrees every time! I am just about to breaking point!


If I cant get it going I am just gonna buy a new motor! Does it look like I am missing something here? I tightened the slack all the way, the motor clamp and dish bracket to motor are all really tight! I dont know what is going on! It didnt start doing this until a week or so ago!

 

[turbosat]

Have you tried another receiver already, with this motor? Sorry if you have been asked already, I've slept since then lol. Also, how's the motor-to pole brackets looking? Didn't bend, did they?

 

[primestar31]

Are you SURE your dish isn't moving from side to side? The reason I say so, is because that one carriage bolt that bolts through the dish mount and through the bent pipe coming off of the motor usually is smaller than it should be. So, the dish can flop over a bit, and that could easily be enough to explain 3~ degrees. To fix it, you remove the screw, drill the hole out a little larger, and use a larger bolt that fits TIGHT and allows no slack.

 

[skyscanner4ever]

the pole is fine and the motor to dish bracket are very tight, I dont think too tight on the motor to dish bracket would cause it to not move all the way.

What it is doing now is when i move to say 72 to 95 it is doing fine and back to 72, but when i go say from 72 to 113 it doesnt go all the way to 113, it might stop .4 degrees or so short of the sat. I went back and fine tuned all the sats and tried it out and that is what it is doing, it isnt passing the sats, it is stopping just a hair before it gets to them. their is no to little wind outside.


now when i go out to 125 and then swing back to 91 it stops a half degree or more before it gets to 91, then i have to fine tune all my sats again!

if it is a slack problem wouldnt i have problems going from 72 to 99 and back and forth in and between? the slack adjustment is very tight, I tightened them up enough to where the dish wouldnt even move then loosened them until the dish can move and thats where it is now, it is moving slower than before. I dont see how loosening them more would make the dish drive farther.

 

[SatelliteAV]

Using USALS or DiSEqC 1.2?

 

[Mikey11]

sounds like the motor has moved on the pole, doesnt matter how tight you do up those bolts, a very heavy wind can cause the motor to rotate on the pole

 

[chaskuchar]

what is the motor? an actuator on a polar mount or a usals with dish attatched? if it is a polar mount i had to go through a lot of ideas before i got my dish and motor spot on. charlie

 

[KE4EST]

I think in another post he said he was using a DG280.

Edit: Yep it is in his sig.

 

[Blindowl1234]

Thinking same thing Brian just mentioned Usals or Diseqc 1.2 I use Diseqc since I've never had much luck with Usals and keeping things lined up. Spent hours one day trying it too...finally gave up

 

[skyscanner4ever]

yes sorry guys for late response. I am using a dg280. I am using diseqc and not usals as I have better luck with diseqc.


Here is the latest on it. I went through today and realigned and changed my motor positions since I never had a good order! lol, started with 72 Amc 6 bird and went to 125* sat.


Ok I aligned each sat, 23 in all and on the way back from 125* when i hit 113* Satmex, the dish didnt go far enough, I had a 75 pct signal before and when I went back there from the 125* sat I was at 71 pct, I had to click it east 11-12 times to get back to full 75 pct quality, then at Amc 15 at 105* I was showing a 65 pct instead of 71 pct as I originally had. So again 10-12 clicks east to get back to where I need to be, same thing for Amc 1, and Amc 3, Then strangely enough the rest of my sats came in dead on as before! I even was hitting 72* Amc 6 at 76 pct which was my max peak!

So now I am wondering, how could I be off on a few sats coming back east from the 125* sat and not off on the other ones? very strange!

I guess for now I can live with it as I really dont use the sats 123 and 125 much, I suppose it wont be too much a pain to have to slightly re adjust the sats each time I swing out there.

 

[turbosat]

I think that would get under my skin too! I would probably change the coax, all the connectors, waterproof 'em good, and then if it didn't work I would look for another motor. I don't think that brand new Micro is screwing up the motor positions.

 

[SatelliteAV]

When a motor is controlled via DiSEqC 1.2, the position information is stored and recalled in the motors memory. A satellite receiver only stores and recalls the assigned position memory number. The motor is solely responsible for the positioning associated with the assigned number.

Try erasing the motor with a reset at the motor, reset the receiver motor positions to zero then "RECALCULATE". This should erase all motor position assignments and stored motor positions.

 

[skyscanner4ever]

yeah it is just those certain sats I have really having the problems with. I am gonna get a dg380 soon, I heard they have automatic slack adjustment so I could never have to worry about them messing up. I mean it isnt bad really because before they said a dg280 could push this dish I have as it is a steel 1.2 meter dish.

 

[turbosat]

I just saw that "steel 1.2m" dish and the weight thing hit me. How much does the dish/mount weigh? The DG380 had a weight limit , seems around 28-30lbs but I don't recall where I read it.
You might just have too much metal to move correctly with that 280. I weighed my primestar dish before I put it on the 380 I have, to be sure it wasn't going to be too heavy, and I took off the old steel mount and made my own.

 

[rv1pop]

Sorry for this post, But you said driving you nuts --- And my wonderful kids responded when I said they were driving me nuts, " No POP, we can not drive you nuts. You are closer to nuts than to the car. It is just a short walk!"

Again, sorry.,. But then -- maybe I have reached the destination...

 

[primestar31]

Did you ever hear the joke about:

A pirate walks into a bar with a ships wheel attached to the front of his trousers. The bartender asks, "What the heck is that ships wheel for?". The pirate says, "I don't know, but it's drivin' me nuts, Arrrrr!" lol

 

[skyscanner4ever]

lol funny jokes! Anyhow the dish is quite heavy, and with the dg280 I dont know, all i can think is it is straining a bit to lift back up from 125* to 113, my due south sat is 93* so I am 32 degrees out to the west at 125. Once I get back to the 113 and 105 range areas the rest of the sats come in just fine. I would say the dish is quite a bit heavier than a primestar, it doesnt have a big mount on it though, just a clamp.

 

[turbosat]

I'll bet that is the problem. If you take it down again, stand on the scales with it in your hands, then weigh again without it and see how much weight its putting on the motor..a big steel 1.2 like that is what I need for my polar-mount rig-the big dish actuator and mount would move that easily.

 

[Cham]

Would be nice if these positioner assemblies were a bit beefier design and use a 1-2 amp motor with an external (12v?) power supply. They would move way faster and handle heavier dish assemblies, maybe up to 6'. Of course you can make your own polar mount and use a linear actuator for smaller dishes too... was thinking along those lines for my 1.2m dish myself...

 

[RPB]

You old-timers/experienced guys will get a laugh out of me wasting a day but ...

What would be nice is if
The manual for the HH90 had had in the directions for setting up *dish* elevation when setting up USALs which they omitted, but included in the section for setting up DiSEqC1.2

The motor was easy, I found my Latitude, made sure post was level/plumb, made sure motor bracket and motor were level ...nothing to it.

BUT dish elevation bracket ...

In USALS section (and many online videos and explanations) it says (after motor Latitude step)(referring to on back of dish, not the motor, obviously latitude doesn't change)
"Align the dish elevation and tighten fixing screws.

(no explanation how to get what the dish elevation angle needs to be)


ok, so I went to Dishpointer, my Longitude is 98, I think "true South/True South Satellite is highest in the arc ...so I find Satellites at 97W and 99W, my elevation for both of those is 54.1 so I set elevation on back of dish to 54.1 WRONG

DiSEqC1.2 section of same instruction book ... same step (after motor Latitude step)

"How to find the elevation value of the dish"
"With the same latitude angle, calculate the elevation angle of the dish according to the formula (the "45 number" in the formula below varies by motor model/brand and has to do with the bend angle in the motor's arm)

Dish elevation to highest point of arc sat if it was a stationary dish
54.1 in my case
minus
(45 minus your latitude) (my lat is 30.76)

so
54.1-(45-30.76)=x
54.1- 14.24=x
x=39.86

so my dish elevation should have been 39.86 instead of 54.1

Seemed like I should have just been able to take an inclineometer to 54 degrees on the face of the dish, and that formula needed checking hard to believe they'd leave it out in the first instructions

SO I went back to Dishpointer, and saw ....
"All Satellites | Motorized Systems | Multi-LNB Setups:"
and I thought ... hmmm cool
so I had my address in there already and had dragged to the spot in my yard where the dish is and
dropped down and picked the motor I have HH90
and

it said
Dish Setup Data
Motor Latitude: 30.8°
Declination Angle: 5.1°
Dish Elevation: 40°
Azimuth (true): 180.0°
Azimuth (magn.): 175.3°

So 40 is close to x=39.86 (dish elevation I took 20 hours finding out how to calculate
and 30.8 for my latitude on the motor is already set

11:00 pm I go lower the dish elevation from 54 to 40 and do a usals scan and there's a bunch of stuff on satellites
I need to correct the left-right azimuth a bit due to my brand new compass dial from the satellite finder kit melted in the heat.

If they had had the formula they had in the DiSEqC1.2 section back in the USALS section ... (or better instructions to go to dishpointer, look for motorized instead of looking up your true south satellite, and select which motor you have) I'd have saved a day... and a melted compass


I would have never found the formula under DiSEqC1.2 for elevation, since I was using USALs I didn't feel I needed to read the DiSEqC1.2 directioss .... except for this sentence in this post

HH Motor Install, Frustration and Recommendations?
SatelliteAV
http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads...commendations?highlight=microhd+usals+gave+up

We abandoned USALS and I programmed 8 or so satellites using DiSEqC1.2.

LOL I read the directions for DiSEqC1.2 and there was the formula for elevation (matched Dishpointer motorized ...)
so I installed using USALS and the formula they didn't tell me in the USALS directions ...