Upgrading an old motor-dish system

Llew said:
Just the five wires are in the cable coming out of that actuator to the ABS box -

Blue - Motor A
Green - Motor B
Red - +5V
Yellow - Pulse ( this will no doubt be connected to the White wire coming out of the ABS box)
Black - Common Ground
Click to expand...

I opened the box at the dish and the yellow cable is in fact attached to the white cable. The yellow and extra ground are connected to a wire giong to the LNB.

Now when I try to move the dish I get the fault message ER2, indicating no pulse. The wiring seems ok. Is there a way of testing that? What happens when I open the motor, will a heep of cogwheels fall out and spread all over the lawn?
 
Hi m8 ..
Testing the wiring is easy enough ..
Isolate any pair of wires at both ends ..
In this case The Black and the Yellow ..
Connect a multimeter on the OHMS range and connect black to -ve and white to +ve at one end of the cable ....and temorarily join the yellow and black at the other end ...
The meter should then give a resistance reading of a few ohms..
If it does not ..then there is a break in the wire somewhere ..
As to the pulse generator at the motor ..
I dont know what method is used ...
often this is a reed switch ..
which is magneticly sensitive set of contacts inside a vacuum sealed glass tube ..
A rotating magnet close to the reed ..generates the pulse ..
The magnet is rotated by the acton of the motor when _it_ rotates to drive the dish.
If you have one of these fitted ..
..you can again connect a meter accross the contacts at either end of the glass tube ...and bring a permanent magnet into close proximity ..
This action will open and close the internal contacts ...and thus prove it is generating a pulse.

If you dont have a reed switch then its likely you will have a micro switch to generate the pulse ..whose contacts are open and closed by a cam ...which again is rotated by the motor ..
you can test the micro switch ..again with a meter ...and by physically pushing the micro switch manually..
Hope this helps ..
rgds
VS
 
It's an opto sensor in that actuator Vipersan. They rarely give trouble, but it might be worth Paschulke taking the cover off the actuator and checking the sensor disc is revolving. The arm would of course need to be turned around manually for that check.
 
Llew said:
It's an opto sensor in that actuator Vipersan. They rarely give trouble, but it might be worth Paschulke taking the cover off the actuator and checking the sensor disc is revolving. The arm would of course need to be turned around manually for that check.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info Llew..
I have to admit I haven't had any experience of this method of pulse generation ...but I assume its a rotating disc with holes in it ...and that that an IR LED is shone through the holes with a sensor on the other side ..
Presumeably the solid parts of the disc would interrupt the beam ...providing the 'zero's' and the uninterrupted beam ..through the holes providing the 'ones' ie pulses ?
cheers m8
VS
 
From experience, the motor could benefit with a quick disassembly and some soldering round the PCB directly behind the connections
 
Vipersan said:
Thanks for the info Llew..
I have to admit I haven't had any experience of this method of pulse generation ...but I assume its a rotating disc with holes in it ...and that that an IR LED is shone through the holes with a sensor on the other side ..
Presumeably the solid parts of the disc would interrupt the beam ...providing the 'zero's' and the uninterrupted beam ..through the holes providing the 'ones' ie pulses ?
cheers m8
VS
Click to expand...

Yes, that's the idea. Haven't checked mine recently, can't remember exactly what it looks like inside. After many years' use in all weathers it's still operating perfectly OK.

One possibility of erratic pulses could be a low voltage on the +5V line. A check with a multimeter would confirm this.
 
Hm, now I tested all the wires and everything's just fine. I know the motor works since I tested it before with a car battery.

Leaves the read switch which "looks" ok, but I haven't tested it, the dish can't be moved by hand, I guess I have to dislocate the motor for that? Haven't tested if there actually are 5V on the red wire either.
 
Hi. Did you ever get the actuator working?
I have almost the same setup only branded "Nokia", and a v-box from harald nyborg "vandenberg" . I could not find out how to connect the opto-sensor to the v-box. Tried all possible options. Gave up yesterday and connected a superjack motor with reed-switch, working ok but the arkivator is surely faster and less noisy than the superjack.
 
Hi Steffo!

Actually I still haven't got it working - haven't tried anymore since my last update here in this thread. I tried finding a pro to get the job done, but apparently no one knows anything about motor dishes around here, standard answer was to manually move it to Astra and be happy -.-

As soon as I have some time over I might try Channel Hopper's tip about resoldering the contacts - after having checked that there actually are 5V coming out of the vbox.
 
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