How (and with what) to lubricate motor etc

[superswede66]

Hi from a newbie on this forum.

I have a 90cm Gregorian dish with a Fibo motor. When moving the dish it doesn't sound quite as free-moving as it used to. What is the best way to service the motor and cogs etc and with what should I lubricate it?

I have never removed the motor or done anything else to it in the 8 years I've had it and it has always been good with no problems at all, but I'm sure it wouldn't mind a bit of TLC. I use an Echostar LT8700 analogue receiver positioner and have just updated my digital receiver to a Technomate 5400 after my old Humax/Digiquest F1-CI decided to pack up.

Thanks for any help.


p.s. hope the pictures attach OK.

 

[Snuffer]

Nothing outside and inside only a little on the cog direct on the motor thats all.
And if you will do outsite cogs do it with "Spiritus" (dutch word for it) you clean it thats all.

 

[p]

1st off i have had this pin sieze on me before, had to complete strip it and clean it up, so every now and then i squirt a drop of wd40 on the top, the operate the dish from one side to the other to work it in abit.



secondly, never seen one just bolted straight on the wall like that! has it been like that for 8 years? and what bolts have you used? and what are they fixed into?

 

[superswede66]

1st off i have had this pin sieze on me before, had to complete strip it and clean it up, so every now and then i squirt a drop of wd40 on the top, the operate the dish from one side to the other to work it in abit.



secondly, never seen one just bolted straight on the wall like that! has it been like that for 8 years? and what bolts have you used? and what are they fixed into?

Thanks for the help .

The dish was installed like that from new by Spectrum of Addington and I'm not sure what bolts they used, but I've had no problems at all, even in very high wind (we back onto a field and sometimes the wind comes directly onto the dish). The wall in particular is part of an extension (before we moved in) so would imagine it is breeze-block or similar.

Would you (or anyone) suggest using WD40 or would it possibly be better with some oil like 3-in-one (or maybe start with WD40 to free it quickly and then use oil)? It does still move fairly well, but it is starting to sound as if it's struggling slightly.

 

[Snuffer]

Some old type's have the bolds there also on top there is one.

I found the most of this type's at 55 CM disches.

You can closer the 2 parts closer when the special plastic tape inside is gone.
Than the space is gone.

 

[johnsattuk]

Would you (or anyone) suggest using WD40 or would it possibly be better with some oil like 3-in-one (or maybe start with WD40 to free it quickly and then use oil)? It does still move fairly well, but it is starting to sound as if it's struggling slightly.

I have also used WD40 on occasion to free the pin up, they are a bit prone to getting tight, it's a 14dia st.st. shaft in plastic bearings.

I have had the pinion on the end of the motor shaft get a bit tight in the alloy housing, this can cause a bit of stiffness of movement, a good clean and greasing usually cures.

It is easy to squirt some on the top bearing but a bit more difficult to get to the bottom bearing, the best way is to dismantle it, polish the shaft, clean out the bearings, and re-assemble with water resistant silicone grease, but obiously this is more work, but I consider it worth it for a 'Fibo'

After 8yrs I myself would also relubricate the internal gear train in the motor

It had not occured to me that the mount was anything other than a wall mount, I had a 90cm mounted like yours, and my 55cm is mounted like that at the moment.

 

[superswede66]

Thanks very much for all your help.

For the moment I think I will do the easy option and lubricate it with some WD40 or oil as the dish still moves pretty well. This should see it through the winter without any problems and when the weather is a bit more conducive to taking things apart (i.e. next year), I will do just that and give it as much of a clean as possible before using silicone grease. Is there anything I should be aware of or watch out for when dismantling and cleaning? I presume it is possible to remove the motor/gear assembly and give that a clean separately.

Not having done anything like that to a motorised system, do I need to do anything in particular so that everything goes back as it should and the dish is still aligned properly? I've got no problem taking things apart, but it's nice to have as much info as possible in advance.

SuperSwede

 

[johnsattuk]

Not having done anything like that to a motorised system, do I need to do anything in particular so that everything goes back as it should and the dish is still aligned properly? I've got no problem taking things apart, but it's nice to have as much info as possible in advance.

SuperSwede

The motor usually comes of quite easily, remove 4 x 8mm a/f set screws and it falls into your hand. But be aware that as soon as you take the motor off the dish is free to swing about and knock you off your ladder and/or put a dinge in the dish face when it hits the mount. 2

If the pinion is tight in the hole, which serves as a bearing for it, it can somtimes be a bit difficult to remove and in some cases the motor will extract but leave the pinion in the mount, which can then be awkward to remove without dismantling the mount. :mad:

Because of these possibilites I prefer to remove the dish/mount assembly complete and do all the fiddling at floor level. The complete ass. unhooks off the wall mount quite easily, after undoing and removing the long bolt and loosening the bottom part of the clamp.

So that I can put it back in the south facing position, I set the dish azimuth to 0deg and measure from the wall to the dish before starting, I can then reverse the procedure when I hang it back up. I also carefully mark/note the inclination angle and the position of the dish on it's scale. It is generally much easier to remove the pivot shaft, held in position with a dowel pin, with the dish face unbolted from the mount. The inclination adjustment for the motor does not normally need to be disturbed.

If you dismantle the motor to lubricate it, it is likely that the pinion will not be in exactly the same position. You can temp. fit the motor without the cover on and spin the gears with your finger to get back to zero, refit the cover and motor in position. Or depending on your control system it may be poss. to resync the positions, the V-Box for instance lets you do this.

 

[superswede66]

Update.

I have used a little oil (3-in-one) on the central pin/spindle (as pointed out by P above, thanks) and the dish moves a lot smoother now. Have bought some spray silicon/PTFE lubricant from Maplin and will use that as it should be more weather resistant.

Just a thought I want to add. If, like me, you like to take things apart to fix or just to have a look at and you want to make sure you put certain things back exactly how they came off, here's a useful tip. If you have a digital camera, take lots of pictures when you dismantle and you've got something to look back upon when putting back together. A little tip I have used many times. Useful for mechanical things and electrical wires (which colour goes where) etc.

Thanks for all the help given.

 

[p]

a result then, i normal now oil mine, several times in the summer , when im clean the windows or gutter etc, not had any issues since

 

[superswede66]

It's been a while since I posted the original question and I thought I'd post an update as a few things have happened.

A few weeks ago, after having moved the dish away from my usual satellite to Astra 1, I was unable to move it back . My Echostar 8700 which I use mainly as a positioner now (and to watch some analogue channels, mainly Eurosport and F1 on RTL during ad breaks on ITV) reported a 'motor error' which is the first time I've seen that. No matter what I did, nothing happened and the dish stayed where it was :mad:. I checked for Voltage on the output on the Echostar and that was there just fine. I then checked to see if that reached the motor and it did. I checked the screw connections and they were all nice and tight. But suddenly the dish moved (not all by itself, I had used the remote) while I was checking for Voltage while having my multimeter probes pushed on the 36V electrical connectors. That made me wonder if I had an intermittent bad connection problem.

By now I realised that the dish was not pointing to where the positioner thought it was, so I thought that I'd take the motor off and have a look inside, hoping I'd be able to fix the problem. The motor itself came off very easily and I was pleased to find that the dish itself moved very freely along the arc. No problem with the spindle sticking at least.

Taking off the motor cover I was pleased by how clean the internal gears and motor looked after almost nine years. A little investigating soon revealed the problem. Poor and cracked solder joints holding the screw terminal block onto the small circuit board. All five joints where there is a wire attached had cracked. A bit of soldering and the joints were as good as new. I'm just wondering why I hadn't had a problem earlier. I took the opportunity of using some silicone grease on the various internal gears before closing it all up again.

After putting it all back in place the dish now moves quickly and freely, so I think that at least part of my original problem was the poor solder joints not allowing all power to reach the motor.

Now my only problem was getting the dish and positioner to agree on where the dish is pointing. Having never done such a thing I didn't have a clue where to start. I searched this forum but found nothing. In the end I was a bit lucky though, as I found a pdf copy of the Echostar manual to download. In there I found the 're-sync actuator' menu option. Having moved the dish until my Technomate digital receiver was able to pick up a strong signal I used the re-sync option and moved the dish to where the Echostar thought it should be, before moving it manually (using the remote) to where it should be and then storing that. Worked perfectly. All is now functioning exactly as it should be and I'm a happy bunny .

Thanks for the help from everybody as it was very useful in the end with the removal and re-fitting of the motor.

Please find below some pictures showing what I found. Nice clean internals, poor cracked joints, very clear to see on the close-up.

 

[Topper]

Glad you are sorted and yes that is typical of what very poor quality solder looks like after a few years use. Very common and I wonder how many other members have intermittent motor problems caused by poor quality soldered terminals on a circuit board. Lots I'll bet

 

[CROSSBONES]

This is a common fault with the Fibo motor`s'O'-red

Well spoted though;)

 

[johnsattuk]

This is a common fault with the Fibo motor`s'O'-red

Caused by the stress of enthusiastic connecting/disconnecting the wires