mototised set up help!!

trev1978

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Hi all!

I hope someone can help! I have had a motorised sep up installed for over 5 years. It is a darkmotor on a 1.2 metre dish controlled by a spiderbox. I haven't used it for a couple of months but last night (whilst cutting the grass!) i noticed that the dish was turned round to the extreme east to a point where the dish was touching the support structure. It was further east than i have ever put it- must have been 42'e or further east. However when i checked the spiderbox it thought it was still at 16'e (the last sat i had it on). Our electricity was off all day on Monday so i can only assumed something is has been screwed up when it has come back on. I tried moving it to 13'e to see if that corrected the problem but all it did was turn the dish west a bit (the corresponding turn from 16'e to 13'e). I am fairly sure my support structure and the position of the motor are ok and unaltered. Can anyone advise on what is the best way to get the dish and control box synchronised onto the sats again?

Thanks Trev
 

Captain Jack

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Did the dish turn on the motor or did the motor turn around the pole it's attached to? Sounds like the latter... though, if you had some very strong winds maybe something gave way inside?

I am not familiar with the Spiderbox but can you try driving the dish to zero and see if it centres itself? Post a pic if you can.
 

satelliteman

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You could send/motorise the dish to 5W (true South for IRE), the dish face should be upright and straight. If not, it may have moved.
 

trev1978

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Hi all.

I am fairly sure that the motor hasn't turned on the pole and that the dish hasn't turned on the motor arm. To my way of looking at it the motor seems to have turned west (without direction from the receiver) and the receiver thinks it is still locked onto 16'e whilst in actual fact it is much further west. Not sure if this makes sense!! I can only assume something happened when the electric was switched back on again.

Trev
 

Captain Jack

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Very weird. Maybe some setting in Spiderbox went south? If you're using USALS then double check your coordinates there.
 

Terryl

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I have had this happen to several customers and to myself as well.

Usually after a main electrical service outage, something like a spike got through to the receiver, and when it comes back online sometimes it thinks it's fresh out of the box, or one of the unused satellites to the East of you has had the motor settings enabled, this causes the motor (if one is connected) to go to 180E, or full East depending on the glitch, this is OK if you live in the far East.

How to fix it (if the internal motor controller is not damaged) is to manually move the motor to it's zero or due South position, (using the switch on the motor) then disconnect it from the receiver, then you have to check everyone of your satellites you have stored in the receivers memory, making sure that something has not changed in their settings, and make sure that all satellites that are further East from you have the motor settings disabled.

Once this is done, set the receiver to the due South satellite, shut it down and reconnect it to the motor, have someone turn the receiver on and watch the motor, if it starts to move then shut the receiver off ASAP as something has glitched the motors internal controller and you may have to do a full reset at the motor.
 

Channel Hopper

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I'm sure there was a thread on the site a couple of years back on the same issue. Does going to the zero reference do anything with the motor ?
 

Terryl

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Manually putting the motor back to the zero mark is like it came out of the box, then doing a full reset on the motor controller will bring you back to square one.

You will have to reprogram all your satellite's positions (if you don't use the USALS function) but its about the only way to clear out something that would swing the motor full East.
 

trev1978

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I know this is quite basic but how do i send the motor to zero? I know there is left and right buttons on the motor. I tried using those a couple of years ago. However when i movered the motor with the buttons it promptly returned to its original position after a couple of secs.

I have been using USALS
 

Channel Hopper

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If the software driven 'go to Zero' doesn't work, you will have to disable the DiSEqC/USALS in the receiver install menu, and drive the motor manually using the buttons. Then set the receiver back to factory conditions.
 
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