Technomate 2600 Motor Problem
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Grrr! It never rains, but it pours!! >:(
Continuing on from this thread, I now have another issue... I've corrected the dish arm droop by temporarily sticking a couple of 1p pieces at the back of the LNB arm and retightened the wingnut. This seems to have stabled things, and upped the signal.
However - it now appears that my motor has packed in! It won't move to any satellite, and I'm just getting a short cllick every time I attempt to move it. I've tried a couple of different receivers, and tried the reset method as described in another forum. Pressing the reset button does nothing (and the LED goes back to green), but if I try to manually move it East or West with the button, it flashed orange.
Any suggestions? Surely the extra weight of two 1p coins can't have killed it? It's literally been used for less than 48 hours.
Continuing on from this thread, I now have another issue... I've corrected the dish arm droop by temporarily sticking a couple of 1p pieces at the back of the LNB arm and retightened the wingnut. This seems to have stabled things, and upped the signal.
However - it now appears that my motor has packed in! It won't move to any satellite, and I'm just getting a short cllick every time I attempt to move it. I've tried a couple of different receivers, and tried the reset method as described in another forum. Pressing the reset button does nothing (and the LED goes back to green), but if I try to manually move it East or West with the button, it flashed orange.
Any suggestions? Surely the extra weight of two 1p coins can't have killed it? It's literally been used for less than 48 hours.
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Seriously, I also find my motorised 1.1m can stick: Assuming the motor isn't actually goosed, then the first thing to do is to check the integrity of the cable connection between motor and receiver - If it is flimsy, it'll pass LNB current and signal, but will not pass sufficient motor current.
Also, I find that choosing a target Channel of H polarity helps (18v, so a little more oomph).
The TD110 is a heavy dish, so even though the motor is specified for up to 1.2m, it is working hard.
Mine is in a sheltered spot to reduce wind-loading, and has survived five years with just the occasional reluctance to shift when asked.
Everything is fine with th motor again now!!
Bizarrely, it seemed to be a coax problem between the LNB and motor. When I disconnected it, it started working again. I've redone the F-connectors, and all is well again!
...back up those ladders I go to fine tune! ;-)
H-H Motors have a propensity for causing the LNB to Motor cable to come loose at the motor end: You can see exactly why this happens if you watch the cable carefully when the dish pans back and forth.
Going one way, the cable is dragged, so is prone to coming adrift.
Going the other way, it doesn't fully re-tighten (Akin to trying to push string).
The answer is to shift the pivot from the cable connection at the motor end of the cable by strapping the cable to the mount a few inches from the connection. A large cable tie should suffice.
Everything was fine yesterday afternoon. Turned it back on this morning, and the sodding thing won't move again. Just tried messing with the cables again, and it still won't budge.
I'm now wondering if it's something a bit more serious. Never really thought about it until now, but overnight the signal seems to degrade compared to how it is when I fine tune it. This morning and yesterday morning when it briefly worked, the signals seemed to lower a bit (although nothing appears to have moved/loosened on the dish) before completely stopping.
On the first afternoon that I installed the dish/motor - when I was fine tuning, the signal completely dropped off. I initially assumed that it was a reciever error as it wouldn't pick up any frequency on any satellite (even the huge signals on Hotbird etc), but now I'm wondering if it's actually something to do with the motor.
Getting very annoyed with all of this now!
Think I've sussed out what the problem was. Think it turns out to be my stupidity (no surprise there...)
After I lost signal and movement again (for about the 4th time), I got back up the ladder and noticed that this time a piece of coax was hanging down beside the motor. It appears that the bolts of the dish had dragged the coax cable out of the motor. That would explain as to why I was gradually losing signal overnight (and eventually movement), due to the dish blind scanning the arc whist tugging away on the cable.
Previously, it wasn't as noticible - but must have just pulled the coax out enough to knacker the voltage and signal.
I've taped everything out of the way now, so fingers crossed the problem has been resolved!
I know, I know. My bad!
I'd initialy discounted that option, as I knew I'd taped everything up securely. Both on the arm and on the pole. What I didn't realise was that the cable my the motor was sticking out a bit too much... ;-)
Anyway, well done for persevering and enjoy your new toy