Arc travel with Von Weise 24" actuator

[markbone100]

Anyone know off hand the arc that can be traveled with a VW 24" actuator?

Dish is a Winegard 8.5ft set for western sats, no modifications done. At 137 degrees the limit stops movement and the arm is more or less all the way in. I have my eye on some sats in the 50 on the C side but afraid this is far out of the limits of the actuator. Anyone have a similar dish and the idea of what arc range it can pull off?

 

[eurosport]

I have a Winegard 7.5 footer with an 18 inch Venture actuator, and it travels from 139w to 58w with no trouble.

 

[Lak7]

I have a 24" Something or Other, goes 43 to 139

Just be careful traveling to the East, make sure the Arm clears the Mount

 

[oldsatdude]

You set the arm on the lowest limit first with the dish just on the 139 bird and then slide the arm thru the clamp too get it into position. Be sure and tighten the clamp before moving the dish and have a second person hold the dish for you while making the adjustment safely. Then move up to the eastern most limit and you can loosen the limit set screws, turn the stop and gain a tiny bit more arm. Be sure not to put the stops equally together. Von Weise is great arm.

 

[markbone100]

I have stopped at either 89 or 79, havent tried further east yet. Since the remote is UHF I could run a piece of coax out and stand there at the dish with the remote to make sure everything clears. Need to wait for the weather to break first

 

[Lone Gunman]

My 10 ft Winegard is setup on the West side and I can get 139W back to 37.5W then the actuator (24" VonWeise) runs into the phisical limits of the polar mount. The SAMI I have will bo to 37.5W also but trees get in the way below 125W where that dish is mounted. According to the angles on my Winegard though, the SAMI will also go down to 139W once I cut some trees down and it has a 24" SuperJack on it.

 

[Bongu]

I have a Winegard 7.5 footer with an 18 inch Venture actuator, and it travels from 139w to 58w with no trouble.

This gives me hope for moving my 6' WSI bargain dish. the 18" positioner is a bit more in my budget.

 

[jaray]

I will add, that my 6' mesh dish had a tough time getting to the extreme east at all due to the mounting location of the actuator. By the time it started getting over around 72 the actuator arm was almost right against the dish bracket and that was it. Some modding to the mount to get the actuator to "sit out" further from the dish would help but I never bothered. I put a different actuator on with more stroke, but it wouldn't help because the tube was actually a larger diameter and would run into the mount even sooner. Just food for thought...

 

[DK_Sat]

With some modifications to the Unimash polar mount my 24" Thompson Saginaw goes from 139.0 w to 27.5 w

 

[FaT Air]

I moved my actuator to the east side of my mount to get the Atlantic sats. Now have 53 to 139(actually only 137 is programmed) With the actuator on the west side, 72w was it, safely.

 

[markbone100]

Its a no-go. Satellite signals dont seem to want to go through a house

 

[stanleyjohn]

With my 24" actuator and 6 foot dish i can get from 30w to just short of 139.I try to move the dish slow when i get down to 30 w because the dish gets alittle unstable that low.

 

[markbone100]

UPDATE - On the way back west about 87 degrees the actuator lost grip internally somewhere on the arm and now the dish can be moved by hand. Ran the motor east then west a ways to hope it would recatch but no luck. Have to wait till day to see what happened but im guessing it finally shot craps. It was a frankenactuator from two different models that didnt match all that well. Both were rusted very badly so its no wonder it went out, thought it would be a matter of time. If its dead then its gonna be a while before I can buy a new one since money this time of year is just enough to stay afload

 

[yankee495]

UPDATE - On the way back west about 87 degrees the actuator lost grip internally somewhere on the arm and now the dish can be moved by hand.

One the way back west? So it was moving? It didn't just screw right off the end? I hope it did.



They have a nylon like nut in them. Sounds like the threads stripped and you have a free floater. Dam!

Try and clamp it where you want it...at least you'll have one sat.

 

[markbone100]

Thats what happened. Looked at it this morning and the nylon acme nut is stripped clean. I know that it had seized up on the way back as according to who I got it from the dish sat still for 10+ years. The rubber boot that goes over both telescoping sections was in the wrong spot and the sliding section was wide open to allow water to get in and seize up everything and it was horribly seized when it was apart. Thought it was cleaned good but it still catches in places from the rust damage.

Ill have to put it back in so I can leave it on W5 until I can find an 24" arm on eaby hopefully new and cheap .

On the plus side I can get a lock on 59W with the FTA but the dish has to be picked up a little. Dont even know about the Ku side of the dish yet since that was also last nights project until it died.

DOH!!!

 

[markbone100]

Another update:

Using the old nut that was a different style and some "home brew engineering", its back together and moving. The Ku side I do not have a signal on as is but I believe I need to raise the elevation.

 

[Lone Gunman]

What kind of actuator do you have? I did a rebuild with pics on a VonWeise earlier this year and those factory nylatron nuts are available from VonWeise for about $25 or so. When I did mine I bought bronze nuts to replace the plactic and never looked back!! One of the two I did at that time has been in service now for about 6 months and is working great. The other is in my closet waiting for that 12 Foot Conifer dish I plan to bring home this spring.

 

[markbone100]

This one is a Von Weise V76-5 but the smaller telescoping section that has the threaded eye bolt where the dish connects is from a V24-LC. The original from the 76 is damage and needs major work done to it plus a nut for it.

 

[Lone Gunman]

This one is a Von Weise V76-5 but the smaller telescoping section that has the threaded eye bolt where the dish connects is from a V24-LC. The original from the 76 is damage and needs major work done to it plus a nut for it.

At one point I had contacted a solar panel company out in Arizona and they had that complete inner tube with a new nut for around $100. Problem with that though is you can get a 24" mover off of fleabay for around $50. I went to the trouble to rebuild my VonWeise movers because I believe they are better than the China junk and I have the tools and know how to make that happen.

You can search for posts made with my username and find the post on the VonWeise rebuild and also I put that info on my racing forum here Motorsports Village • View topic - Von Weise Acme Nut Repair