Sky Minidish / Raven Gemini Dish Paint Colour (Dark Grey)

garym71

I just received my Raven Gemini 70cm Mesh dish which appears to be dark grey in colour (in fact it looks an identical colour to my sky minidish).

However, the mounting/elevation bracket that bolts to the rear of the dish is actually a silver zinc colour which was a little disappointing as it is going to stand out against the dish. I am therefore considering painting the bracket before fitting it although I want this to be as close as possible to the colour of the dish.

Does anyone know of a dark grey matt spray paint that is a close match to the Sky Minidish (and also the Raven Gemini)? I looked at the plasi-kote paints and they do a "medium grey" colour which looks quite close but unfortunately it's only available in gloss and not matt...

_http://www.plasti-kote.co.uk/Product/pcode---4181/pccode---6751

Analoguesat

Surely matt black would be close enough - especially at a distance

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garym71

Well maybe I'm just being too fussy

Anyway, I took the LNB arm down to my local Halfords today and managed to find what looks like a fairly close colour match based on the spray can lid colour. The colour is Rover Hurricane Grey. The brackets have now been primed and will be left overnight to fully dry. Tomorrow I will then be applying the Hurricane Grey top coat

rolfw

Hope you'll put some pictures up Gary.

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garym71

Will do

The elevation bracket that came with the Raven Gemini was a pole mount one (also compatible with the "U" type brackets) but because I actually want to utilise the existing wall mount "arm" type bracket that my Sky Minidish is currently already mounted to I needed to make a few small modifications to the Raven Gemini elevation bracket to enable it to bolt directly to the Sky Minidish wall arm bracket. Hopefully the modifications I've made will work OK but I won't know for sure until I get up the ladder and try to fit the modded dish elevation bracket.

The plan is to finish painting the brackets tomorrow, leave them a week for the paint to fully cure & harden then mount the Raven Gemini dish in place of my existing Sky Minidish next weekend (as long as the weather holds out).

I already have the Quad LNB for my Sky setup but I'm still waiting for the other 2 single LNB's to arrive If they don't then I'll just have to set up 28.2E for the time being and add the other LNB's later.

rolfw

If that is the standard minidish bracket, it is possibly a little lightweight for the Raven.

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garym71

Yes...it's the standard bracket that comes with the Sky dishes (pics attached below). It does seem pretty sturdy to me and the Raven Gemini dish doesn't seem to be that heavy although I don't yet have all the LNB's attached so when they are that might actually change things. I think I'll try it anyway and see how it goes as I want to try and avoid drilling additional holes on the front wall of my house for another bracket if I can possibly get away with it.

Attached Images

	SkyMinidishBracket1.jpg (102.2 KB, 12 views)
	SkyMinidishBracket2.jpg (112.6 KB, 16 views)

garym71

Well, the moral of the story is listen to the experts

I spent a fair amount of time modifying the pole mount bracket on the back of my Raven Gemini dish so I would be able to mount directly to the Sky minidish wall mount arm. The outcome? Well it was a waste of time and as I was advised, the arm isn't strong enough to hold the bigger dish as any pressure on the dish or arm (i.e from cross winds) just causes the arm of the minidish bracket to twist/flex with the weight so it was no use whatsoever.

I fitted a rigid U-mount bracket instead and as expected the dish doesn't move at all. It unfortunately meant having to drill a few more holes in the front wall of my house But at least I will have a reliable signal from a stable dish

rolfw

Well as they say, nothing ventured. Glad you got it sorted though.

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