9 foot Birdview Dish

[linuxman]

Hey Lone Cloud,

You can check out the thread Birdview Reed Sensor Kit.

It has a lot of information in it, and I documented pretty well how I built my last one from scratch.

You can buy the magnet wheels, and get the sensors separately, but will cost almost as much as the kit from Skyvision.

It is a shame Skyvision doesn't carry them anymore. I was going to buy my next one.

 

[Lone Cloud]

Good thread on the project linuxman, but I am curious. If the aftermarket kit had 8 magnets, why is it better to have 24? Will it stop the dish at finer intervals? Some other advantage?

Also, now that you have gone through a shakedown cruise with it, are you happy with your reed sensor? Do you prefer another one? If so, which? For
your reference, I can't find the sensor of the same number(20A-221-H2.) as the original kit.

Whichever one you ended up happy with is the one I'll go for. No sense reinventing the wheel, (although I thought the notion of one magnet and holes or notches in the disk to be promising).

 

[linuxman]

Good thread on the project linuxman, but I am curious. If the aftermarket kit had 8 magnets, why is it better to have 24? Will it stop the dish at finer intervals? Some other advantage?

Correct. The more pulses/magnets/counts, the finer the increment that the dish moves and stops.

Also, now that you have gone through a shakedown cruise with it, are you happy with your reed sensor?

So far I have been very happy with my home-made one.

Do you prefer another one? If so, which? For
your reference, I can't find the sensor of the same number(20A-221-H2.) as the original kit.

It was just a lot of work to hand make everything without a proper machine shop.

Whichever one you ended up happy with is the one I'll go for. No sense reinventing the wheel, (although I thought the notion of one magnet and holes or notches in the disk to be promising).

Now that I know that I can't buy the total kit, I have a magnet wheel here that I bought from an ex-installer that I will probably just put a switch with and use that for the one I still don't have up yet.

If I get another Birdview at some point in the future, I will probably buy the magnet wheel pre-manufactured. Making the switch and bracket work is not hard.

Hope that helps!

 

[Lone Cloud]

I was trying to find out if you were happy with your reed sensor. I think you were responding as to your gizmo as a whole.

I wasn't sure from your other thread whether you had settled on one sensor or another.

Where did you end up on that? Is there a part number? Maybe a dealer?

Thanks

 

[linuxman]

I was trying to find out if you were happy with your reed sensor. I think you were responding as to your gizmo as a whole.

I wasn't sure from your other thread whether you had settled on one sensor or another.

Where did you end up on that? Is there a part number? Maybe a dealer?

Thanks

I think I ended up with a sensor that I stole off another actuator I had here.

It really doesn't matter what reed-switch sensor you use as long as you can mount it securely and near enough to the magnets to have it work properly.

I don't have a part number for it. Sorry!

 

[Lone Cloud]

I got it

Got the Birdview dish on Saturday. I have soime cellphone photos I'll post as soon as I figure out how to do it.

I tried to get the Birdview receiver/mover from the guy but he says he can't find it. That's unfortunate because the motor still has the potentiometer in it.

I actually think the guy will find the receiver somewhere in his stacks of stuff. I hope it's sooner so I could slave the receiver to another one and move the dish without modding it to a reed sensor.

When I pulled the mount and hh motor off the pole, it wasn't lined up due south. When I got it home, I hooked it up to my G-box positioner. I wanted to get it to move to due south position so I could measure the declination with an inclinometer.

I did get it to move, but in half pulses only. In any case, I was finally able to position it in its due south position and I measured five degrees difference in declination. It' s supposed to be 4.79 declination degrees for my latitude, but I'm not quibbling right now.

In that vein, I do notice two deficiencies with this dish- there is no declination adjustment. It is fixed, meaning to fine tune it I might have to put washers in between the dish and the mount. The second deficiency is there is no threaded adjuster on it. On my current big dish there are threaded rods that adjust declination and tilt.

As for the six inch mast, I got it too. My current pole is 3 and 1/2 inch and goes through my roof overhang. My intention is to put the six incher over it, make it plumb, fill it with concrete and then do a little bolting and welding to finish it off.

The dish itself is in good shape, except for a few i/4 inch air rifle shots in it. I have been able to carefully peen a few of them out already.

Thanks for all the help. If you guys are interested, I'll keep you posted.

 

[phlatwound]

.....If you guys are interested.....

Heck yes we're interested!!!

Get those pics up when you can and congrats on landing that rig, that will be a nice one when you get it going. :up

 

[Anole]

Heck yes we're interested!!!
Get those pics up when you can . . .

Always enjoy seeing another bird flying proudly.
Show us the beef!
Pictures are good to have.
Even if you want to cover the tear-down, any repainting, and re-greasing of the gears, etc.
Or even just before and after the pressure-wash!
It's all good.

 

[Lone Cloud]

Well, my stupid Motorola razr celll phone camera isn't recognized by my computer, and Motorola doesn't do a driver - for that you have to go to unknown websites who may well be using it to give your computer a virus or a trojan horse - I'm not risking it, unless someone here has the same cellphone and can vouch for someone's free driver download.

I am thinking, if I have to mod my mount with a reed sensor, I want to put it where the potentiometer now is instead of on the worm gear shaft on the other end. That will mean a smaller disc and fewer magnets- a minimum of 8 and a maximum of 16.

For the magnet wheel, I'll use the flat part of a 4" pvc end-cap. I'll draw a circle on paper with angles radiating out from the center (between 8 and 12 angles) and when I'm done
with that, I'll rubber cement the circle onto the pvc disc. Then I'll carefully mark the center of each magnet hole with a punch. Then I'll drill the holes very carefully with my table-top drill press.

Any help on the camera driver will be appreciated.

 

[linuxman]

Any help on the camera driver will be appreciated.

PM me your email address and I will send you what I have used, or you can google for it.

P2KCommander

I've also got the razr v3.2 usb driver

I have used both, and the Windows machine is still running fine.

 

[Anole]

I guess my RAZR V3i driver downloaded as part of the iTunes attack I took first time I hooked up the phone to the laptop.

No, maybe that's not true.
I just plugged the phone into another computer for the first time.
The system correctly identified the Motorola USB device, without any further angst.
Then, a new drive letter appeared
Upon navigating into folder: mobile/picture
I found my jpeg images.
Of course, your phone is different model, but I wonder if your ver of Windows is giving you trouble by not just accepting the USB device?

As for the magnets, you would like that magnet wheel to be as large as possible, placing the magnets as far apart as you can get them, and using as many as you can get to work.
Well, that's mandatory if you expect Ku band to track.
For C-band only, the aiming is a bit more relaxed.

 

[Lone Cloud]

My computer is not recognizing my phone, it is not listed in the camera menu, and I am really nervous about viruses.

On my current big dish, with my Sonicview 8000, I have a BSC 621 universal, but I have never had good luck getting Ku band off of it. I have a 1 meter Winegard on another mast with a Stab motor to do that. I'd LIKE it if I needed only one dish, but I think skew and polarization are issues with polar mounts on big dishes. If I am wrong on that, I don't mind being corrected.

If someone can tell me how to reliably get both c-band and linear Ku band off of a big dish, I would really like to know.

I understand using a big disk so that magnets can be placed as far apart as possible, but I do note that, when the conversion kit was sold, it had 8 magnets and was put where the potentiometer is.

In any case, I have been wondering if linuxman has too many magnets on his. I wonder if the glitches he's had are the result of the magnetic fields going past the sensor too fast and the fields overlapping too much. I don't know, of course, but everybody likes learn a bit from the experience of others.

 

[linuxman]

In any case, I have been wondering if linuxman has too many magnets on his. I wonder if the glitches he's had are the result of the magnetic fields going past the sensor too fast and the fields overlapping too much. I don't know, of course, but everybody likes learn a bit from the experience of others.

You obviously didn't read the whole thread or the other many threads I have written about the magnets in the Birdview.

I have had no glitches since I put the finished product on my Solid Birdview.

You are correct, the OEM conversion kit that came from Birdview only had 8 magnets and did go where the potentiometer was installed.

The later conversion kits that Skyvision sold had 24 magnets. I have one of them, and the literature picture is in the reed sensor conversion thread along with a picture.

Anole is correct. 8 magnets was fine for C-Band analog, but not for C-Band digital or Ku anything.

 

[Lone Cloud]

In that case, I must be wrong.

It is not, I assure you, the first time.

 

[linuxman]

In that case, I must be wrong.

It is not, I assure you, the first time.

I have been wrong more times than I have been right during my lifetime so don't let being wrong discourage you.

Look at WD40. They made 39 wrong attempts before they got to formula number 40 and look how much money they have made since.

 

[melgarga]

I have been wrong more times than I have been right during my lifetime so don't let being wrong discourage you.

Look at WD40. They made 39 wrong attempts before they got to formula number 40 and look how much money they have made since.

Does that go for Heinz 57 too........What IS that 57th ingredient? And what about Formula 409?........lol
Congrats on your score Lone Cloud. I've got some work ahead of me from a couple of Birdviews I picked up this weekend as well. Problem is, so many irons in the fire, it takes most of my time to chop wood just to keep the fire going....lol Fourtunately I did get the STBs. One looks like its been in suspended animation for the last 25 years. The positioner is a separate unit on that one.

 

[djkurious]

Send your pictures to your email address just like you are sending a text message. This has always worked for me.

 

[Lone Cloud]

I am having no luck at all with the various software drivers recommended above. One of the sites has about 30 drivers on it and none of them run when I click anything. I really would like to post the photos. I can't get them into my computer and my phone won't email them anywhere either. What a pain in the a$$

On the positive side, I have a spare aluminum sanding wheel that has an allen set screw in it and a 1/2 inch shaft hole. This should work for the magnet wheel. As you likely know, these wheels are made to spin pretty true. The only problem is it's a bit large. I'll have to cut it down. Also, I got the 1/4 inch magnets from Michael's (24) They are pretty strong for being such little suckers.

I think all I have left to get is the reed sensor.

I really hope I can get the right driver to get you the photos.

 

[linuxman]

On the positive side, I have a spare aluminum sanding wheel that has an allen set screw in it and a 1/2 inch shaft hole. This should work for the magnet wheel. As you likely know, these wheels are made to spin pretty true. The only problem is it's a bit large. I'll have to cut it down. Also, I got the 1/4 inch magnets from Michael's (24) They are pretty strong for being such little suckers.

I wish I had thought of a sanding wheel when I started making mine. That would have solved a lot of the problems I had in the beginning with the wheel being true with the shaft.

Yes, the little magnets from Michaels are very strong. You will need to have them opposite polarity on every other one for everything to work.

Sorry the driver I mentioned won't work with your phone. I'd throw my phone in the creek if I had to pay for the factory software to work with it.

 

[osu1991]

If you can get a hold of the motorola phone tools program it will work. I don't know if I still have a copy of it. I switched from a razr to a pda phone several months ago. Oh the joy's of being in constant email reach now! You should be able to send the photos as part of a text message to someone too.