big dish - actuators for az and el

[truckracer]

I have a fixed postion 1.8 meter offset dish that I am using for c-band that is doing pretty well. It uses 1/2" allthread and jam nuts to position elevation and azimuth. The mount uses a 1 1/4" grade 8 bolt with lock washers and lock nut that actually holds the whole thing together.

This 1 1/4 " nut is adjusted loose enough that the dish will turn freely but not move in the up and down direction. From what i can tell the allthread bolts are about 18" long each and could easlily be replaced with actuators.
I thought some heavy duty teflon washers between the moving pieces of metal would provide some wear protection for the mount.

the big question is how to control both actuators. I could of course use a stand alone postioner such as a v-box or digi-box positioner but this only controls the azimuth since most all big dishes use a polar mount to track the clarke's belt on a fixed arc. I do not know if there is any type of polar or Horizon to horizon mount for the Prodelin brand dish.

I wondered if there is a controller out there that could recieve pulses from both the azimuth and elevation motors.

Another option would be to build an adjustable "bent pipe" mount that would mimic the motek sg-2100. My dish is mounted on a 3.5" stainless steel pipe that is 4 feet in the ground with a 24" concrete base. The pipe is also filled to the top with concrete. a bent pipe mound aimed at true south with a declination adjustment made of some angle iron with pins, bushings, large 3/4" allthread, jam nuts, and some creative welding. I do own a welder and can weld fairly well.

Let me know what you guy think of either idea. With the two actuators scheme I could track inclined orbit sats also.
Thanks for your help and suggestions

 

[drhydro]

hey truckracer,
why not just find a BUD mount from a busted BUD and fabricate a way to put the dish on it? if you cant find one i know where there is one sitting in a horse pasture ; - )

In your post you mention both the v-box and another one i havent heard of before, the digi-box. I am getting ready to pick up a v-boxII but am always interested in looking at other products. Do you have any experience with either the digi-box or the v-box II?

[edit-the digibox is not designed to control an actuator, it is designed for diseqc motors]

My goal is to set my BUD so that all of the fta stuff can be controlled thru 1 remote control (i am wife proofing it Instead of slaving my FTA reciever to my analog reciever, i actually want to do the reverse, ie: slave my analog to my FTA reciever and have the FTA reciever control the BUD via a diseqc positioner.

 

[truckracer]

hey doc

I don't actually have any experience with the v-box or digi-box, I read about them and i was thinking one of them had a 36v dc 5 amp output to move a bud. Can't remember even where i read about the digi-box positioner. I do remember that it would convert diseqc commands to 36v DC for use on a bud. and it had a pulse input from the bud's reed switch or hall effect sensor.

I guess the v-box is just for receivers that are not diseqc 1.2 or usals compatible.

I did manage to get two satellites tuned in using two lnbf's on c-band.
A giant "dish 500" sort of.

I got g-10R on the boresight and satmex off to the side with pretty decent signal. quality on most tp's is around 45%. Not too bad for bouncing off the edge of the dish. I found this by accident using an analog sat meter.

Boy would I love to get one of those bird dog or sat hawk satfinders, I wonder how fast they lock on to a digital tp. It would be sweet if you could just basically sweep the dish slowly and it would bark out sat names on the display. No more guess work. There are a lot of active small bandwidth tp's on satmex. I am doing a blind search now.

Have a good night doc hydro.

 

[truckracer]

wifeproofing

Speaking of wifeproofing the sat receivers, I always get humor from my girlfriend who cannot learn to use any of my satellite recievers. She only knows how to use her directv receiver. (that plug and play stuff) call for help if it does not work automatically. LOL.

She says you have to be a comunications engineer to operate anything in my living room.

 

[drhydro]

She says you have to be a comunications engineer to operate anything in my living room.

My wife has said basically the same thing. She has no problem in using the c-band vc-2 stuff (its pretty simple) but when it comes to using my FTA stuff she gets lost quickly lol. I dont really blame her, cause i have my satworks 3618 slaved to my BUD receiver. To get FTA off of the BUD you have to first change the BUD to the satellite desired, then select channel with the Satworks, then change TV inputs from VIDEO to TV on the tv itself. All in all, 3 remotes required to change channels.