Anyone tried to make BIG dish at home?

BombedOne said:
Well, regardless of way he did it - I'm not going to make 8m one anyways:) I just want to estimate, what will be cheaper - buy 2.4m one or make own 3m one.
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BombedOne,
The Supral offset is 370 cm. I saw it yesterday on their website. It does not look like a regular offset dish.
Was that dish manufacturing plant you visited - General Satellite. I'm asking b/c I read about their dishes in the mid 90's in Tele Satellite mag and in Moscow they could receive intelsat 27.5w. I thought it was amazing. Did they stop producing them now, as I can't find anything on the internet.

1.What Chinese producers do you know of; I suppose the 240 cm petalized could be $35 Jonsa, is it? What make is the $120 0.9mm? The only other Chinese dish I know is Wiux Huaxim.

2. If you're after a 3m , maybe you could buy Jonsa 320 cm primefocus ( it should be very cheap) and the STRENGTHEN IT. You know Andrew (channel master) dishes have MESH reflective structure inside the plastic. Do you know what plastic it is? Then maybe you could apply that plastic on the Jonsa dish and if successful, nobody could call it a flimsy dish :).
 
No, plant I've visited was one of military plants, which started to produce regular dishes to make some money. This plant was here, in Georgia, in city of Sukhumi. It was completely destroyed in mid 90s (while walls still stand, all mahcinery and etc vandalized and sold as metal scrap). As I know, this was experimental manufacture, only 100 to 200 dishes were produced.

There are a lot of chinese manufacturers - just go to alibaba com and search there for satellite dishes. Biggest and most advanced is China Radar Corp. Next comes SVEC and so on. There is no understanding of term "brand" in most mainland china. You ask to put Microsoft logo on dish? - They will do it, for larger orders - free of charge.

And about buying dish from china. Delivery here is very expensive, that $120 dish weights about 80KG, which will cost me 80x7=560 us dollars.

I already have some experience in strengthening cheap chinese multi-petal dishes. I can easy make it rock solid, but there's another problem. As these dishes are mainly for C band, they have very bad petal geometry and thus - very unsharp focal point. So, 185cm one roughly performs as 120cm one in Ku band.
 
BombedOne said:
I already have some experience in strengthening cheap chinese multi-petal dishes. I can easy make it rock solid, but there's another problem. As these dishes are mainly for C band, they have very bad petal geometry and thus - very unsharp focal point. So, 185cm one roughly performs as 120cm one in Ku band.
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BombedOne,
IN Dish Set-up topics section, which is directly above Fringe reception, currently on page2 there is a thread: "Fortec star 1.8m dish ain't too bad". It is about Jonsa petalised dishes. A very experienced member of this forum managed to put together that dish in 30 minutes so well it was better than 150cm Gibertini offset( and no worse than 180cm Andrew). What do you think?
Would you roughly describe how you can strengthen it bo be solid as a rock, please. I want to buy a 420 cm Jonsa for when I go to a secluded countryside to experiment. I don't know how it converts but I could live w/ 420cm performing as a 3,0 m dish. How do you strengthen those dishes? And what do you think about ENCAPSULATING IT IN PLASTIC?
 
Sorry now I have to go, will tell you more details tomorrow, here's quick description how we done it: We made flat box with top side open from plywood, filled it with liquid concrete (don't forgot some steel armature for strength) and just submersed dish in it in such ways, that only outside diameter is visible. Now dish weigths about 300kg or more, is a part of garden wall, and no wind can do any harm to it! (of course, forgot about motors and re-aligning) :D
 
BombedOne said:
Sorry now I have to go, will tell you more details tomorrow, here's quick description how we done it: We made flat box with top side open from plywood, filled it with liquid concrete (don't forgot some steel armature for strength) and just submersed dish in it in such ways, that only outside diameter is visible. Now dish weigths about 300kg or more, is a part of garden wall, and no wind can do any harm to it! (of course, forgot about motors and re-aligning) :D
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:-rofl2

Can we have a photograph of this wonderful construction please? :)
 
Unfurtunately - can't. Since this was built in customer private property. No photos were taken, upon his request.
 
I have been using my homemade concrete 3.2 meter dish on the costa blanca for about four years now. I used a plywood former on a homemade bearing arrangement to "cut" the form in a .6 l/d format ( cheap offset LNB) I used kitchen foil glued on in 30cm triangels to reflect radiation, painted white with emulsion after getting a bit burnt during set up lol. I get BBC2 until about 7pm. Used to be 9pm but a lot of foil has peeled off.
 
Juan54321 said:
I have been using my homemade concrete 3.2 meter dish on the costa blanca for about four years now. I used a plywood former on a homemade bearing arrangement to "cut" the form in a .6 l/d format ( cheap offset LNB) I used kitchen foil glued on in 30cm triangels to reflect radiation, painted white with emulsion after getting a bit burnt during set up lol. I get BBC2 until about 7pm. Used to be 9pm but a lot of foil has peeled off.
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Nice one Juan!
Can you post some pictures? (please no links, post the actual pictures here).

Thanks, TG :)
 
perkis.narod.ru/Tv_technolog/parabol_ant/an-stv.htm

here's instruction about how to made mold from concrete and dish from fiberglass cloth. This one uses a bit different approach than in my book, but also seems to be good.

Page is in russian, you can use babelfish.yahoo.com for free online translation.
 
T_G said:
Nice one Juan!
Can you post some pictures? (please no links, post the actual pictures here).

Thanks, TG :)
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I seem to have lost my construction pictures but I'll include a picture of the dish. I've still got the plywood template with bearing pole attached if anyone is interested.

The material cost was very low but it took about 10 days work to make the template, construct the dish, stick the foil and paint.

I mounted the pole with template pointing at the satellite using poles to support high end and the lower end set in a block pillar. I then simply build up behind the template with blocks, cement, any old rubble I had. When I was within about 3 cms of the template in any position I applied a layer of fine concrete, repeated with strong cement mix, then once more with a creamy cement mix which I wiped to the exact curve by rotating the template.

I stuck the foil on shiny side down using a waterproof pva glue.

A few problems. Even with the dull side of cooking foil exposed you have not got to get to close to the focal point in Spain to feel a great deal of heat at certain times of the day. I had to paint it before something caught fire! The foil bubbled up in places. I pricked the bubbles and restuck but after a couple of years it started to peel here and there. I originally planned to use aluminium powder suspended in varnish and just brush on. At the time their was a lot of terrorist activity and I did not fancy mail ordering a known suspicious substance (aluminium powder)

Note the flat top to the dish (amazing it works so well) The local town hall is not at all agreeable to strange constructions so it's invisible from outside the garden. Only about 20cms of top missing but on weak signals picture breakup can occur when certain cars pass behind the dish on the road about 20 meters away.
 

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Nice one Juan! Great work, I really like it!

If you do still have the pole etc, why dont you post a picture of it if it is not too much to ask. This is really a fascinating!

Question: So when it was finished you did not move it anymore, or did you have to do some adjustments to get the best signal?
 
Fabulous stuff - the ingenious dish setups made by our members really impress me every time :)
 
I have to confess I did more than one double take on the photograph of that dish, at first I thought, no it is a problem in the display of the photo then I thought someone must have smashed the top off, O-no then I read the post and see that it is made like that, absolute genius:)
 
If anyone wants to repeat dish construction, where's reflective side is made from foil, below are several recomendations.

1. To glue such different structural materials, such as foil and concrete or fiberglass, you need phase change glue. This means epoxy and it's subtrates. Any glues based on surface tension (cyanacrilate, pva or others) won't last for long

2. To avoid bubbling and wrinkling, go to internet, and find a software called "pepakura designer". This is japanese software, you draw some 3D model in it, then it gives you flat print of it, to allow to cut out of paper and glue back into 3d. It's trialware, but will suit your needs. Draw your dish in it, and it will give you detailed print out of patches with exact dimensions of each. You need to cut out them from foil, and then glue. You'll recive minimal wrinkles using this method.

3. Using thin, kitchen use foil not reccomended. Go to hardware store, buy a thicker foil.
 
I had to make sure the pole was pointing fairly accurately towards the satellite for maximum efficiency. After tweaking up the LNB on 28.2 I can see the dish is maybe a couple of degrees out. The construction probably weighs well over a ton. It is totally storm proof and non movable. The long focal length does allow a lot of leeway if you should want to align to other satellites though. I used a threaded bar arrangement to align the LNB.

I'm just finishing off another project (the hole in front of the dish) so I'm in a bit of a mess at the moment. I'll see if I can get to the template later and take some pics.
 

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hi all made 1.4mtr dish out of wood and glued ali foil on its surface it was a prime focus dish,it worked ok.
 
pride21 said:
hi all made 1.4mtr dish out of wood and glued ali foil on its surface it was a prime focus dish,it worked ok.
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Pictures available??:)
 
pride21 said:
hi all made 1.4mtr dish out of wood and glued ali foil on its surface it was a prime focus dish,it worked ok.
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Hi,

Did it perform as well as a shop bought 1.4 m pf dish? If not then to what commercial dish size would you compare it?
 
I have a photos of russian home made 2 meter prime focus wooden (carcass) dish. Unfortunately, owner had no other dish to compare, since he lives in deep siberia, but he's satisfied with results, even made polar mount for it. If anyone wants, I can post these photos.
 
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