Captain Jack
Burnt out human
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2006
- Messages
- 11,806
- Reaction score
- 7,990
- Points
- 113
- My Satellite Setup
- See signature
- My Location
- North Somerset
Right now, there is absolutely zero play in the dish, mount and the joints to the actuator. Where I think the play is is inside the actuator itself. As if I go from 9E, store position in VBox, then 7E, store, 5E, store, 1W store and then go back to 9E, the alignment is slightly out. However, if I go from 9E to 5E, the alignment is spot on. Likewise, going from 5E to 1W is perfect. However, going back to 5E from 1W results in an error and I have to manually push the dish slightly further.
The same principle applies if I store satellites from 1W to 9E (in that order), the alignment is perfect when travelling to satellites from the west eastwards but is out when going from east to west.
What I think is happening is that the motor in the actuator starts turning, and therefore generating pulses, but the rod doesn't start moving straight away and therefore the dish doesn't reach its final destination. This only happens if I start moving the dish in the direction it arrived from. The misalignment isn't huge (3-4% SNR) but significant on weaker satellites.
Too dark now and raining so I will have a look inside the actuator itself to see if there's anything loose there. Will also check exactly what's happening...
The same principle applies if I store satellites from 1W to 9E (in that order), the alignment is perfect when travelling to satellites from the west eastwards but is out when going from east to west.
What I think is happening is that the motor in the actuator starts turning, and therefore generating pulses, but the rod doesn't start moving straight away and therefore the dish doesn't reach its final destination. This only happens if I start moving the dish in the direction it arrived from. The misalignment isn't huge (3-4% SNR) but significant on weaker satellites.
Too dark now and raining so I will have a look inside the actuator itself to see if there's anything loose there. Will also check exactly what's happening...