DG-380 Motor - Play in Motor Tube?

[Cameleer]

Hello,
First time poster, long, long time lurker.

I have been putting together a mini-bud system over the last few months. I have a 1.2m channel master dish that I modded a bracket to attach to my DG-380 motor and a DMX741U & scalar ring. I used variations of the different custom dish mounts that I found on this great site.

I have the dish & motor up and mounted to a perfect plum pole, etc. The problem is that the motor shaft / tube has play in it. The whole dish wobbles back and forth. It is not my dish bracket but rather the motor tube itself. If I hold the motor tube with my hand the dish is pretty solid, has soon as I let go the dish will wobble. Is there any way to tighten up the motor so it does not have so much play in it? Is this normal on a motor?

At my 0 postion which is 99 degree it works great. It also works 2 or 3 sats on each side of 0. But, say I try to go over to 83w the dish has to much play in it or any small breeze the dish moves. The DG-380 motor has no problem moving the dish around it weighs only 31 pounds complete with lnb and aluminum bracket.

Any Ideas, on how to stop the play? A bad motor maybe?

BTW, I cant get access to sadoun forums or I would go and ask them.

Thanks for the help and inspireration!!

Cameleer

 

[Auric]

Hello,
First time poster, long, long time lurker.

I have been putting together a mini-bud system over the last few months. I have a 1.2m channel master dish that I modded a bracket to attach to my DG-380 motor and a DMX741U & scalar ring. I used variations of the different custom dish mounts that I found on this great site.

I have the dish & motor up and mounted to a perfect plum pole, etc. The problem is that the motor shaft / tube has play in it. The whole dish wobbles back and forth. It is not my dish bracket but rather the motor tube itself. If I hold the motor tube with my hand the dish is pretty solid, has soon as I let go the dish will wobble. Is there any way to tighten up the motor so it does not have so much play in it? Is this normal on a motor?

At my 0 postion which is 99 degree it works great. It also works 2 or 3 sats on each side of 0. But, say I try to go over to 83w the dish has to much play in it or any small breeze the dish moves. The DG-380 motor has no problem moving the dish around it weighs only 31 pounds complete with lnb and aluminum bracket.

Any Ideas, on how to stop the play? A bad motor maybe?

BTW, I cant get access to sadoun forums or I would go and ask them.

Thanks for the help and inspireration!!

Cameleer

I'm not a 110% (lol) sure but I believe that the DG380 has plastic gears, & you are not going to get away from the play in any HH motor...They do need a little back lash. Honestly that dish is too large for that motor in winds. I think you will be fine if the wind is not blowing hard. I also have a mini BUD with the same LNBF as you do , but with a STAB 120 Motor. They have metal gears...I don't use it much when it's windy. Even my 12' moves around a lot in the wind. I have the DG280 on a 36" & it moves quite a bit too. Both these two motors came with play brand new. The STAB did have less...It's very tight.

 

[brentb636]

My DG380 doesn't have much play in it at all. I notice that the DG380 has an "automatic backlash adjustment" , and having such a thing leads me to question whether yours is faulty, or loose, etc ( name your favorite defect ) . It might be as simple as a loose screw. I'd had new motors come that had screws falling out of the case. So much for quality control.

 

[Tron]

The DG-380 has metal gears and, as Brent noted, auto backlash adjustment. There may be a defect in your motor, I would contact the vendor and let them know about the problem.

 

[Auric]

The DG-380 has metal gears and, as Brent noted, auto backlash adjustment. There may be a defect in your motor, I would contact the vendor and let them know about the problem.

Thanks for the corection Tron. I did not know that

 

[Cameleer]

Thanks everyone for the input. I will contact sadoun tomorrow and see what they say about it. I was thinking that it could not have been right with that much play in the motor, must be something wrong with it. I wanted to ask someone else about there motor. I worked on it tonight for a couple of hours. It works great on true south sat. But when I move east or west I start having problems with the signal. If I move the dish with my hand and take up the wobble in the motor the signal locks in fine. I let go of the dish and it moves a bit because of the wobble in motor and I loose signal. I have been going crazy with it for weeks trying to set it up.

Thanks Again!!

 

[Sadoun]

Cameleer

The DG380 has all metal gears and automatic backlash adjustment. Yours shouldn't have play at all. It sounds you just got it recently. We will be happy to replace it or fix it under warranty. Please ship it back to us and we will take care of it.

I can't remember we had any problem with play on the DG380 before. Yours is a unique situation. We will know what caused that once we have the motor in hand. Please follow the RMA process on our Sadoun website (right hand menu) to get the ball rolling on this one.

 

[Cameleer]

Thanks Mr. Sadoun,
I bought it on ebay from you on July 3rd. I just finally got my pole in a few weeks ago and everything up and mounted level, but have been fighting with it wobbling ever since.

Can I just send back the motor itself on the RMA to be looked at? I have the motor bracket all set level & tuned in for my true south sat and hate to take it down if not needed? or do I need to send everything back?

Thank You,
Cameleer

 

[Sadoun]

Yes, you can just send the motor without the bracket.

 

[cracklincrotch]

My DG380 has a bit of slack. But how much slack is much or too much could be debatable. It's never been enough that the wind keeps it from locking onto anything. Certainly isn't worth the shipping charges to find out one way or the other, to me.

 

[Sadoun]

The STAB has always had a small slack that is considered normal.

 

[AcWxRadar]

Cameleer,

If you can identify whether the excess play is internal to the motor or isolated to the mounting of the motor tube on the motor stem, you might be able to repair this easily and save some hassles.

If the slop or play exists where the motor tube attaches to the motor stem, you may be able to simply better secure the attachment at that point. I have not witnessed any problems with the DG-xxx series motors in this regard, but I have found some play in the SG-2100 motors.

On one SG-2100 motor I cut a small piece of brass shim stock with a hole for the attachment bolt and inserted it between the motor tube and the short stub that protrudes from the motor housing and then tightened the bolt down good and snug.

If you can identify if the slop is eminating from this point, you won't need to return it for repair, you can repair it easily yourself and get back to business.

However, if the excess play is internal to the motor housing - within the gear train - then the automatic backlash assembly may not be performing its function properly and then I would return it as not to void any warranty considerations.

I thought you might check this first, if it could save you some down-time.

RADAR