Titanium ASC1 DiSEqC Positioner

subman

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From reading all of the above its clear i did the right thing in not buying a ASC1 as its clear i dont think it would work moving a large dish with my
36 inch Thomson Saginaw Actuator with Hall Effect Sensor . So looks like its back to the original plan use the Echostar AD-3000IP to move the dish and skew motor or the only other way is via a Single or Dual axis dish controller by research concepts . From looking at the rear of the RC1500 it looks straight forward . But looking at the spec of ADC1 I dont think its got the grunt to move a large commercial solid dish .
 

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Channel Hopper

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Not at all

If your dish is correctly weighted then there is no reason why the ASC1 should not work.

The Prodelin dish (in Greece) is designed by the manufacturer to drive no more than 75 to 90 degrees out of the box.
I /we modified the polarmount to track quite a few degrees more since the actuator had enough travel. It was only at the extreme point it was apparent moving the fibreglass panelling would exceed the current supply from the positioner.
 

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subman

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Well I can only go by what people have stated in previous comments plus look at all the mods that people have done to the ASC1 I dont think people would have done all these mods if the ASC1 could cope nor would they have stopped making it . I dont know the weight of the 3.7 aluminium dish but I think it does need a grunt to move it plus when you think of the price of a ASC1 around 298 Euros + shipping against the second hand price of a Single or Dual axis dish controller by research concepts or like I said just use the Echostar AD-3000IP to move the dish and skew motor .

But in the end best to go for a over kill than under sticking with Commercia kit but also brings me back to why did satellite receiver manufacturers move away from having built in dish and Skew motor controls as lots of people still have satellite motorised systems so why stop making them ?
 

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But in the end best to go for a over kill than under sticking with Commercia kit but also brings me back to why did satellite receiver manufacturers move away from having built in dish and Skew motor controls as lots of people still have satellite motorised systems so why stop making them ?

Money. The satellite tv hobby is very much a niche hobby. If you design a receiver with all the motorised options built in and it costs £75 chances are many folk are going to go for the one with lesser options that costs £50. Also the R&D costs still have to be covered which could be difficult if your sales numbers are tiny.
Even within the hobby the number of enthusiasts that require serious heavy duty motorised capability is very limited.


Plus of course you have the Chinese problem these days - make a decent product & China will be churning out knock offs at half the price in a few weeks.
 

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Well I can only go by what people have stated in previous comments plus look at all the mods that people have done to the ASC1 I dont think people would have done all these mods if the ASC1 could cope nor would they have stopped making it . I dont know the weight of the 3.7 aluminium dish but I think it does need a grunt to move it plus when you think of the price of a ASC1 around 298 Euros + shipping against the second hand price of a Single or Dual axis dish controller by research concepts or like I said just use the Echostar AD-3000IP to move the dish and skew motor .

But in the end best to go for a over kill than under sticking with Commercia kit but also brings me back to why did satellite receiver manufacturers move away from having built in dish and Skew motor controls as lots of people still have satellite motorised systems so why stop making them ?


Many 'previous comments' will be made by those with an interest in promoting their own positoner, or just trashing the competition.

It is not in the main down to the weight of the dish that impacts on the current needed to move it across the arc, but the 'weighting', or front/back ratio of mass over the polarmount. Have a look at dishes that have been modified with a counterweight to take the strain off the actuator, not just those that have an elevaton adjustment. If this is carried out then there might be no need to modify the ASC in the first place.
 

subman

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Thanks Analoguesat yes I fully understand its all down in the end to price but with the amount of people with motorised systems all over the world you would have thought someone would have made some thing instead of all these add on boxes . As for me its a pain to maybe add a box for moving the dish plus some thing for the skew . There are many people on this forum with motorised systems I wonder what there using ?

Looking at the spec CH of the ASC1 it does look well within the capabilities of the ASC1 as the max current the jack is drawing 3.5 amps and the ASC1 should be able to take 5 amps max but its clear from looking at the amount of mods that people have done to the PSU its clear it needs beefing up a bit . But the the good thing about forums every one can report first hand on good + bad points on there equipment .

I know what I wanted to ask you guys has any only used a Laser Distance Meter Range to reset up my corotor as the new support arms arrived the other day I will measure the distance from the centre of the dish to the throat of the corotor plus I will set the new arms to the same length as the old but had a thought that a Laser ranger might be more straight forward .

 

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For the larger dish projects (one of which is counterbalanced), I have a couple of Uniden UST771s for the actuator driving, which are 2" diameter superjacks, (there is a set of Saginaws lying around, but they are more noisy ).

The second 771 of these took over from an Echostar AD3000 when the software got corrupted, but I have since acquired two more which sit in reserve.
The motors outside are more important though, and in particular the distances of the end points away from the polarmount bearings (the greater the distance the better).

I have been known to use an Ajak horizon to horizon gear box on the old 3.1m solid petal patriot and Unimesh 12 footer, neither of which required counterweights. Last time I was experimenting I connected it up to the Technomate V box and it ran without trouble.

I would not spend money on a laser pointer, a decent metal ruler / tape measure will get you within a mm, plus you have the analyser for fine tuning.
 

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el bandido

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The dish I am using is identical to the one pictured in post #42 of this thread.
Amps does not really mean anything.
You can have 4 amps at 25 volts, which will equal 100 watts.
You can have 5 amps at 20 volts, which will equal 100 watts.
My Prodelin dish uses at least 180 watts at start-up when the dish is around 40 degrees from the center position. There are very few dishes that will need this much power, provided the dish is assembled correctly, and provided the actuator is in good condition.

My Prodelin will move with less power, and I have moved it without issues from about 20 degrees of center with a cheap V Box. These positioners will do good to produce 60-80 watts.

I guess at the end of the day, it all boils down to what you are wanting to move, how fast you want to move it, and the maximum amount of power that will be needed to move it. The little power supply mod that I made has worked well on my system for some years now.
 

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I the big world of electrical circuit design,(what I have done for over 50 years) amps means everything, yes the two equations you show are the same in wattage, but can the circuit designed for 4 amps 25 volts take the extra 1 amp load at the lesser voltage? Maybe, maybe not, only time will tell.
 

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We are not building a nuclear bomb. We just want to move a satellite dish.
When I first got the Prodelin, I tested several different positioners and found they all act similar.
A VBox may say it is rated at 36 volts dc and 3 amps. This would be over 100 watts of power for the actuator if the thing could hold at 36 votls and pull 3 amps. The reality is the dc voltage drops rapidly, and you will end up with something like 3 amps at 20 volts dc, then you may see 4 amps at around 15-16 volts dc as the load is increased. So more or less, the power output in watts is the same, even when the amperage is increased.

As for reliability, I burned up a couple of the V Boxes testing them, and I agree, circuit design is important. But these amperage ratings we have seen for these positioners do not mean much.
 

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If the DC voltage is dropping then use bigger gauge wire out to the positioner, the voltage drop will be less at the positioner.

The smaller the wire gauge on a long run the bigger the restive load, the bigger the resistor the bigger the voltage drop.

My Vbox is rated at 4 amps at a 24 volt output, the positioner on my 10 foot dish is rated at 3 amps 24 volts under peak load,(I tested this and it was only 2.5 amps at full load) but the run out to the dish is over 200 feet, if I used 16 gauge wire the voltage drop would have been about 4 volts, this would or could have starved the motor.

I could have gone with 10 gauge wire, that would have gave a drop of only 1 volt, but instead I mounted the Vbox in a water tight box out at the dish, and ran 110 VAC to it, I still ran 12 gauge wire to the motor, but only needed 15 feet.

If your getting a drop to 14 to 15 volts, and the motor needs more, then the power supply will try to make up for the excessive voltage drop,(it will go to the maximum DC current of it's design) this will be a very big strain on the power supply.

So what I'm saying is that the wattage means nothing, it's all voltage and amperage to a restive or inductive load.

Here is a voltage drop calculator for different parameters, note that you do not see one for wattage.

Code:
https://www.calculator.net/voltage-drop-calculator.html
 

el bandido

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The tests I did were on a table and could be referred to as bench tests.
To test the positioners and their output, I use a string of dc lights to set the load, and an actuator motor that is disconnected from the actuator. All positioner boxes that I tested would have the dc voltage fall at a rapid rate - even with a small load. A good power supply should not do that. It was common to see dc voltages down in the twenties with less than two amps being pulled. The ASC1 did the best of any that I tested, and is also the best designed as compared to any G Box or V Box that I took apart or tested.
 

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a good way to build a polarmount is to equilibrate the dish weight .
a counterweight can give you a constant current (or power) for dish positioner .
i made this (picture) a few years ago and even if i remove the actuator , the dish stay in any position !!
wcontre.jpg
 

subman

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Yes I know what CH as I have installed a few Winegards and Paraclipse but these are offshore and there panels get blow out with the wind .But until I can find some thing better I will use the Echostar unless I can find someone on the forum who is using a research concepts then I can pick there brains on how to wire it into a 36 inch Thomson Saginaw Actuator with Hall Effect Sensor and a Corotor . But it would be so much straight forward if they made a receiver with a dish positioner + skew control .

While digging around in the shack I found these that I used about 30 years ago so we should have lots of gear for setting up the arms and corotor .
 

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el bandido

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I made a short video of my dish moving from 40 degrees west to 87 degrees west. 85 West is about center position for my location. This system has been running for a long time without any issues. The cheap power supply board does a good job moving this dish system. Average speed is around 2 degrees per second.

Video =Index of /Prodelin
 

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The arc you have with the 3.7 is within Prodelin's specification sheet, in Rhodes we were a long way outside the comfort zone, plus the cable run to the house was I believe over 50metres. It is one installation where the reception needs would have benefitted from a gear driven horizon mount.
 

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subman

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I am surprised the mount looks very light weight when you compare it with the Precision mount its reminds me of my IRTE 1.8 petal construction buts yours has more ribs . I wonder what feed have you got on there el bandido ?
 

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el bandido

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I am running cheap Pauxis c band dual lnbf. Maybe one day I will invest in a decent feed and some decent lnbs to go with it.

I think the mount completely assembled for my Prodelin weighs around 80 kilos. The dish panels weigh about 19 kilos, and there are 8 dish panels. The lnb feed assembly weighs another 4-5 kilos. So all of these pieces and parts together make for a bit of weight.

The dish weight helps in windy conditions. I used to lose signal with the mesh dishes when the wind would be around 50-80 km/h. The signal loss in the wind was probably caused by the dish vibrating, or the mesh distorting. With the Prodelin, I do not know the wind is blowing unless I look outside as the winds so far have not been strong enough to notice a loss in signal.
 

subman

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Hi el bandido all ok on the Pauxis C band dual feed could you send a picture .we are both running 3.7 m dishs but I use a corotor for C + Ku my dish and polar mount were made by a UK company called Precision Antennas its a one piece spun aluminium. Its very heavy duty . Leave the big mesh petal dishes well alone things like Wingard or Paraclipse as the petals blow out . When I was working offshore I saw many of these and they all ways had blown out petals the worse time was when the chopper would land and the down draft would move the dish and push the petals out . Soon I will be stripping my system down to change out the support arms , Corotor and LNBs Been looking for a SMW Ku band Type R or E but not had much luck as for C band just using a 30 year old Gardiner 35 Kevin . I wonder what C Band LNB your using ?
 

el bandido

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What is "very heavy"? I weighed the dish petals on the Prodelin.

I think most actuator or dish moving problems are in the dish system and not in the positioner or power supply. I spent a lot of time and money getting my Prodelin to move the way I want it to move. The old actuator worked, but the screw was rusted, which would cause the dish to bounce or jerk at some points in the arc. Then you need decent cabling to feed the power to the actuator, and you need shielded sensor wiring. Using large wire like 10 guage to feed the actuator is not practical because the lugs on the positioner will not accept a wire that size, so I use the largest wire that will fit in the positioner properly.

For the satellite dishes, there are two grades of actuator from the Venture company. One grade requires 3.5 amps at 36 volts dc (max), and the larger actuators require 5 amps at 36 volts dc (max). The Venture engineer will tell you these actuators will run at a lesser voltage, but will have reduced performance. You need a big burst of energy to move a heavy dish (100-200Kg dish petal weight) from a low spot in the arc at start-up. Most of our dishes do not weigh this much, so we can use any type of positioner. Commercial dishes such as the Prodelin will be made of a heavier material.

I uploaded some more pictures which includes the Pauxis lnb that is on my C band Prodelin now. I spent a lot of time a few years ago on positioner power supplies to move this c band dish, and modified both Gbox and Vbox with the same power supply design. The ASC1 is best suited in my opinon for moving a large dish, and has the best build of any consumer positioner. The ASC1 also has the most features of any consumer positioner.


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