VBox vs GBox

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Dishman Dan

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Jun 22, 2008
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How does the VBox X compare to the GBox positioner??? :confused:

The VBox X is affordable (About $30 shipped) and the GBox is more expensive and it seems nearly impossible to find! Is the VBox X much better than its predecessors???
 
Thanks!

I never have any luck doing searches on this site! :(

Is the GBox still being made???

Is it a Sadoun exclusive or sold elsewhere as well???

They seem to be on eternal backorder on his site! :eek:
 
I believe they're Sadoun only.

With demand for BUD movers being what I suspect it is, that is to say low demand, they probably wait for a minimum number of orders before they bring some in. Otherwise they sit on stock instead of money.

I'd just call them and ask what the deal is and make a decision on ordering based on that info.

I'm very happy with my G-Box myself. I've never used a V-Box.
 
On the other side of the coin, I've got Vbox X movers and love them. I've never had a Gbox because of the cost, ie, you can buy two Vboxes for what you pay for ONE Gbox. I've got one connected to my SAMI dish and it works great other than the blind scan East limit deal which the Gbox also has problems with when connected to an AZBox. I've got two more Vbox X movers that I bought, one of which will wind up replacing my GI920 receiver in the very near future. I liked the first one so much I bought two more. Have a 12 ft Conifer dish I'm going to mount later this summer and that one will be driven by that 3rd Vbox X.

You can spend twice the money and buy a Gbox but from what I've read in reviews on here, it's not twice as good as the Vbox X.
 
One major thing going for the GBox is the pulse count. I am not sure if the VBox X is like the earlier versions or if the specs have changed. After I read the reviews on the link that comfrey posted I am not to sure if the pulse count does come into play or not. One of the posters stated that the count is going to determined by the actuators sensors. Hmmm. :coffee

It was Christmas day 2009 and Sadoun had GBoxes on Ebay in the open auction format along with free shipping. I missed the boat that day! I thought that I did the right thing and did not go back on Ebay until late after all the festivities were done. Boy was I wrong. They all ended up selling for in the $25 range! :facepalm
 
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You can spend twice the money and buy a Gbox but from what I've read in reviews on here, it's not twice as good as the Vbox X.

I checked and the GBox is back on Sadouns website for $70 plus shipping which works out for me to $75. On Ebay the VBox X can be bought for $29.99 with free shipping!

Apples and oranges??? :confused:
 
I have seven GBoxes and one VBox (oink-oink). Operationally all have been reliable. As was pointed out, the VBox costs less.

The chief difference between them is in how they count the signals coming back from the positioners. All the HH motors and actuators I own send back a reasonably symmetric square wave. In other words, the "on" pulse lasts about as long as the "off" pulse. A VBox counts one cycle (one "on" plus one "off"), whereas the GBox counts edges (each pulse, whether "on" or "off"). Thus for the same dish movement, a GBox will show twice as many counts. For a symmetric square wave, this effectively improves the resolution of the positioner by a factor of two (ie. provides smaller steps). If you happen to have a positioner with a highly asymmetric return signal, there would be little improvement.

I used the term resolution instead of accuracy, because they are rarely the same. More resolution should never hurt, but it may not always help. If you have a very large dish for the intended band (C or Ku), a better resolution can provide a better peak position, particularly with positioners that have large step sizes. But if the steps are already small, it may not make much difference. There are other issues that come into play if the dish has mechanical slop, or if the positioner has backlash. In those cases the dish positioning may not be repeatable even when the controller indicates the same count. Still, you can manually tweak if you're willing.

GBoxes feature four-digit counts, while the VBoxes have only three. That could make a difference if you have high-count positioners. But all of my positioners would work with either, partly because the VBox counts at half the rate.

I've had to open several GBoxes after receiving them because they were poorly packed and/or abused during shipping. The internal construction did not impress me. In two of the cases, the rather heavy transformers had broken off their mounts and were bouncing around inside. In one of these cases, this split two of the circuit boards, breaking a number of the traces. I fixed this because I hate arguing over returns. I have not opened my VBox, although it "feels" better when I give it a "shake test", compared to a GBox. Both have pathetically flimsy contact posts in the back, although the VBox looks like it would last longer.
 
I can't comment on the GBox, but I second pendragon's observation on the poor quality spring clips on the back of the VBox X. With mine, the spring clip connections are too weak to make a good connection and fall apart too easily. I tried finding a replacement at Radioshack, but no luck. So in order to get a reliable connection I ended up permanently soldering wires to the spring clip traces on the circuit board, running them out the back of the unit, and using wire nuts to connect the Vbox to the wiring run out to the dish. Prior to doing so I regularly got error messages due to the poor contact, none since.
 
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