Major malfunctions with my folks S9, need advice

[Dee_Ann]

A month or so ago my folks S9 was loose and wiggling off the satellites. So I went over to look at it and we figured out that the bolt inside motor tube was loose. So my dad used a tool to reach up inside it and tighten it back up. With that I assumed everything was all done, end of trouble.

Then last week they called and said it was messing up again. So I went and looked at it and there it was, loose again..

When I went there I wasn't thinking that the motor tube was going to be loose again. I thought it was the backlash bolt so we tightened it up and it was still wiggling. I didn't think that the motor tube bolt was loose again after he tightened it up. So I told my dad I would go try to contact the manufacturer to see about a warranty exchange. I went home then. Later that evening as I sat and thought about it I really began to think it had to be the main motor tube bolt loose again.

So today I went back with my meter and we took it all apart, took the dish off the motor and removed the tube from the motor. Dad's plan was to put a lock washer on it. But when we took it off there was a surprise waiting. The shaft sticking out of the motor case is tapered. And it did not fit snugly into the tube as it should, it had a LOT of looseness to it!

So Dad took some sheet metal and cut some little strips to fit inside the tube so that it would be extremely impossible for the thing to twist and wiggle anymore. He said that it was just "bad engineering", that whoever designed and or built it just didn't care about a precision fit.

Oh well. Dad figured out a way to fix that problem. So he put the sheet metal strip in, put the tube on and bolted it up with a big star lock washer. He said that it will NOT be slipping anymore.

Ok. Fine.. That problem is at long last resolved.

BUT.........

A new problem.. Well, not really new.

As I went about trying to use the S9 to move the dish to different satellites so that I could check the signal strength and alignment, I discovered that the dish wasn't moving. I would use the remote and select a channel on say, 97 and press OK. The tuner would say "MOVING DISH" for a bit, then the message would go away and there was a nice black screen with a big "!" and "NO SIGNAL" on it. HUH???
So I looked out the window and tried to move the dish to other satellites and it would do nothing at all.

I powered it off with the main switch on the back of the tuner and then it would say "MOVING DISH" and I would look out the window and it would really be moving the dish to the last satellite that I had selected before I turned the power off. Then I would get a channel, like RT. I would press the remote to change to History on 101 and it would say it was moving the dish but it would not. Then the black screen, and no signal. I would press the remote to go back to 97 which it had not actually physically moved from in the first place, the moving dish message again but no movement then no signal. And it never moved at all.

After playing with it for over an hour I finally came to the conclusion that it will NOT move the dish unless you cycle the power first.
They said it has been doing this from day one but that it's gotten progressively worse to the point now where it's unusable.
I asked why they didn't tell me about this before and they said they thought it was a "glitch" that would go away, which sometimes it would.

I also went outside and played with the motor. I saw on the motor than the red LED was blinking for "ERROR" after attempting to move the dish via the tuner. And with the error light blinking, the motor won't respond to it's own push button controls. It goes into LA-LA-Land and it won't work until you cycle the tuner power.

Once you cycle the tuner power the error light goes away and turns green and you can use the motor button to move the dish any way you wish. UNTIL you try to have the tuner move the dish. Then it's back to LA-LA-Land.


Now what I'm wondering is, could it be maybe that the firmware is bad and causing that? Or do we need to send the tuner back for an exchange?

I took a picture of the firmware info from it so maybe you guys can look tell me if that might be the problem. I do not know how to decode the numbers on this thing to anything meaningful.

Thanks!

 

[FaT Air]

Once you cycle the tuner power the error light goes away and turns green and you can use the motor button to move the dish any way you wish. UNTIL you try to have the tuner move the dish. Then it's back to LA-LA-Land.

I can't be certain, as I don't run a motor, but that sounds like the only plausible cause would be (1) improper programming - double check it. or (2) corrupted firmware. if the programming looks correct, I'd reload the firmware and attempt to reprogram.

 

[KE4EST]

This is what I am thinking too....I was trying to do a little research for you, but have not found any good leads. If reloading the firmware doesn't help try a newer ver.

 

[KE4EST]

Try this one: Openbox 08/30/2011 - Downloads - SatelliteGuys.US

The clock even works

 

[Dee_Ann]

Try this one: Openbox 08/30/2011 - Downloads - SatelliteGuys.USThe clock even works

You da man!
I'll try that in the morning. For now I'm calling it a night. Thank you so much, I will most definitely give this a try and report back!

Thank you, thank you!! :hippie:


edit: Heck, after reading that page you linked, I think I'll try that on my S10 too. Member "Radio" commented that it worked fine on his S10. So what's to lose?

Thanks again!

 

[KE4EST]

Yes it runs fine on my S10.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Well I'm going to have to put a passcode on my parent's S9.

I brought it home the other day and fixed it. It was working fine here.
Last night my mom came and picked it up, took it home and my dad hooked it up.
It worked just fine all night. Then today my dad decided to poke around and he hit some satellites that were blank, wild feeds I assume.
After that it would no longer receive ANYTHING on any satellite.

So he went into the menus and changed all kinds of stuff up. Like um, the longitude and latitude.. He changed them from west to east and all he was getting was "out of range" messages. So I talked him on the phone through changing it back as it should be but it still will not receive anything at all.

So tomorrow I have to go over there and fix it. Again. And this time I'm locking him out of the menus!
Seriously? How sad is that? Here I am, a girl, and my dad is messing up electronics and I have to go over there and fix it for him because he messes it up?? LOL!! I may have to revoke his Guy Club Card for this.. Poor dad...

Sheesh!

 

[KE4EST]

Now now he just feels bad because his daughter knows more about this stuff than Dad........but yeah I used to have the same prob with my dad. I just started taking longer and longer to getting by there to fix it, so he started to learn if he wanted to watch TV he'd better leave it alone.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Now now he just feels bad because his daughter knows more about this stuff than Dad........but yeah I used to have the same prob with my dad. I just started taking longer and longer to getting by there to fix it, so he started to learn if he wanted to watch TV he'd better leave it alone.

Well, to be fair, I have been reading like 4-5 hours a day, 7 days a week for almost three years now about how to do this stuff.
I think a little of it has managed to seep through my hard head after all this time.
I'll never be able to hold a candle to you guys but I'm trying..

I can't really complain too much about my folks, they have done a LOT for me all these years and still do, every day. So it's the least I can do in return of the countless favors they have done for me..

 

[chaskuchar]

i'm a dad that started playing with this fta after being retired from the electronics field. now for thanksgiving i am taking my daughter my 36" geopro dish and dg-280 motor and mount. probably take the rg-6 cable with me also. will be there 4 or 5 days in creve coure, mo by st louis. i have my 6' dish working well now and the 82 year old tv guy, still puting dish network dishes up, has an 8' that he is giving me. does that qualify me for a dish farm? wife though won't part with her dish network dish... love your descriptions of working with your folks. charlie

 

[Dee_Ann]

So. Their S9 continues to grief them..

Last week their tuner "went out." I was over there with my meter so my dad could take the motor apart and fix the loose, wiggly dish problem. He did that, that part went well. I aimed and realigned the dish with my meter so that everything was coming in just fine. But then it started "not working", so to speak.
I brought it here, put the August firmware on it and it worked just fine here. My mom picked it up and brought it back home. Then I find out a few days later that it had worked fine that night but the next day, it quit again.

So my dad just came over and I got more specific details from him about it.

He said that yesterday he was watching the History channel, it was working perfectly but then for no reason what-so-ever, the screen just froze up and the "NO SIGNAL!" warning was overlaid on top of the frozen video. He said it was if someone had pressed the pause button. But, no one had touched anything at all. The sky was crystal clear. The tuner had been on for about 45 minutes.

After about 2 minutes the frozen video went away, the screen went black but the no signal warning was still there. He tried to change channels and still there was just "no signal". He tried changing to other satellites. It would say "moving dish" then it would have a black screen and "no signal". NOTHING could be tuned in at all, NOTHING........

So he turned it off by the power switch on the back for about an hour then turn it back on. Whooop! There it is! Everything was back, everything was working as it should. And again, it worked for about 45 minutes to an hour and pooped out again, just like before. He said he put his hand on it and it didn't feel hot but he thinks it is behaving like it has an overheating problem.

My S10 got really, really hot, it would get so hot I was afraid it would start a fire. His, he says it feels maybe slightly warmer than room temperature. That doesn't sound abnormal to me. But then I don't know.

So last night he took a small, personal fan, like I did with my S9 and put it where it would blow on the tuner. He left both the tuner and the fan powered up all night. He only turned the TV itself off. This morning when he went to check it, it was working 100% perfectly after having been on all night.

So, the conclusion is, it is indeed overheating and it needs to have a little fan installed in it like my S10 needed.

One good thing is, my whole family, we are pack rats. We never throw anything away. So now we are having a family wide scavenger hunt for some old computer stuff that might have a little fan in it. Dad had an old PC that we robbed for a fan to fix my S10 but there was just one in it. There has to be something in my house or theirs that has another one.

Anyway, he feels pretty certain that these tuners have overheating problems. So if you are having flaky things happen with your Openbox, try putting a little personal desktop fan next to your tuner for a few days and see if that clears things up for you. It sure can't hurt anything to try it.

 

[KE4EST]

Well that is some good info, well sort of not good that they have overheating problems, but good info that you have engineered a fix. I have done that to a few things over the years. These electronic do-dads like to be cool.... So far so good on my S10 but if something like this starts, a fan will be installed.......you know it might not be a bad idea to just go ahead and install one.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Well that is some good info, well sort of not good that they have overheating problems, but good info that you have engineered a fix. I have done that to a few things over the years. These electronic do-dads like to be cool.... So far so good on my S10 but if something like this starts, a fan will be installed.......you know it might not be a bad idea to just go ahead and install one.

I had my dad put one in my S10 a few weeks ago. It got scary hot, enough so that I was afraid it would start a fire if something was sitting on top of it. It was also messing up really bad too. The fan helped eliminate most of the problems I had with it.

I hope this is all his needs. It's really annoying and I feel bad because I recommended they buy the darn thing.. Mom gets really mad when she can't see her PBS. They both love Antiques Roadshow, a lot...

 

[KE4EST]

Yeah I watch a few channels on PBS myself, I got my self stuck watching Bob Ross again. I love to watch the way he paints.

Yeah I seen in the other thread where you added the fan and took out the stuff not needed..

 

[Dee_Ann]

Well their S9 is totally messed up now.

The fan my dad put next to the thing, worked fine for about 24 hours. But then it started back with it's usual bad behavior.

As described in message #11 above, the video freezes then the dreaded no signal message. After that NOTHING works. The motor won't move the dish and it won't tune in any signal at all.

He has to power off and leave it off for like 20 minutes.

After it went out on the 3rd (this was even after putting a small fan next to it) he turned the fan up to it's highest setting and that made no difference at all.

He said that thinking back, this thing has been a problem since the beginning and that each time it acts up, the time between problems decreases gradually.
From days to hours to minutes.

Now I have to look the warranty up from when we bought it (I bought it for them on ebay) and see if the seller will replace it or not.
My dad is MAD now. My mom, is LIVID..... :rant:

I'm stuck in the middle of this because I'm the one that recommended it and bought it and helped set it up.

It's all rolling downhill and guess who's at the bottom of the hill? Yep...

My folks just rang me up when they were like 2 minutes from my house, no forewarning. "Dee, are you awake? I'm bringing this piece of ***t satellite over, we're right down the street from you. You need to send this thing back, it's a piece of ***t !"

They pull up and Dad strolls in and dumps the tuner on my kitchen counter. Without the remote control.

He informed me that he peeled the sticker back without ruining it and opened the tuner up for a look. He said he looked over every square inch with a strong magnifying glass and he said he could not see any signs of overheating. He said when things get hot they will discolor the boards inside. And even before he put the fan on it, it was just a tad above room temperature. He never really believed that it was overheating but he tried the fan anyway just in case because it ACTS like an overheating problem, in his opinion.

Fortunately he didn't break the warranty sticker and he never got around to installing a fan in the case like he did on my S10, so it should be fine to return it. IF the seller will exchange it.

But before we try to send it back I wanted to see if you guys have any suggestions first. Like, firmware?
Maybe it's bad firmware?


Thanks!

 

[SatelliteAV]

Could be heat related. It is very unlikely to be a failure of the tuner and unless their is a catastrophic electronic failure you would not see any indication of overheating on the PCB. It is fun to look like Sherlock Holmes peering through a magnifying glass!

Test the STB on your system and if the problem occurs, test the DC voltage on the SAT IN port of the receiver. Is the voltage 13vdc on vertical TP and 18vdc on a horizontal TP (+/- 10%). This would narrow down the section of the receiver.

If you are planning on opening the STB, buy a spray can of electronic component chiller. When the loss of signal occurs, start spraying each component on the motherboard individually and one at a time. As the component temperature is reduced, the signal may return and reveal which part is failing.

Do not spray the power supply PCB!!!!

 

[chaskuchar]

when my solomend, just like the s9 and probably s10, the power supply was the problem. after 40 yrs of fixing electronic problems i knew it was a power supply. i kept my receiver on 24/7 for over a year. i had read reports of the on light staying on and not going into the boot stage. that was the second thing that happened. the first was it would be on a channel and when i hit the select button the channel list would not come up but the video was still ok. when i opened it up and looked at the power supply, there were three 1000mf capacitors that were slightly bulged at the top. when i was in the electronic supply store in kansas city i bought 1000mv/25v capacitors to replace the failed ones. i did also replace the 33mv/250v? with a 33mf/450v because i saw a bit of leakage around that one. my fixed receiver has now been working for a couple of months now without any problems. if your dad don't want the radio, i would be glad to buy it and fool around with it but i really think he could fix it. charlie

 

[Dee_Ann]

Could be heat related. It is very unlikely to be a failure of the tuner and unless their is a catastrophic electronic failure you would not see any indication of overheating on the PCB. It is fun to look like Sherlock Holmes peering through a magnifying glass!

Test the STB on your system and if the problem occurs, test the DC voltage on the SAT IN port of the receiver. Is the voltage 13vdc on vertical TP and 18vdc on a horizontal TP (+/- 10%). This would narrow down the section of the receiver.

If you are planning on opening the STB, buy a spray can of electronic component chiller. When the loss of signal occurs, start spraying each component on the motherboard individually and one at a time. As the component temperature is reduced, the signal may return and reveal which part is failing.

Do not spray the power supply PCB!!!!

I had to re-read that a few times and digest on it awhile but now I understand.
I think I have a meter to show how much voltage something has, like my vehicle batteries. I have a lot of trouble with my car and van batteries going dead on me because I drive so very little. I vaguely recall Dad bringing me some little meter some time back but darned if I know if it's still here or where it would be if it is.

But anyway, I believe what you are inferring is that perhaps the tuner stops sending power to the LNB & motor for some reason.

As for opening the tuner, I am not going to do that. Dad looked in it and that's good enough for me. I have no business inside that thing and I don't have any of that chiller spray nor would I have the first clue as to where to get any. I'll just leave things alone there.

I think checking the voltage like you suggested is the best idea so far.

I'm pretty sure this thing is going to have to be exchanged, it's got serious problems and my folks are MAD as the dickens over it.
My dad isn't going to be satisfied unless it's exchanged. I just hope the seller is going to honor the 1 year warranty and replace this clunker..

Thanks!

 

[Dee_Ann]

Ok, so I have their S9 here.

I plugged it in and put my motor on it.

And exactly as Dad said, it runs about 2 minutes then BOOM, no signal, nothing.
The motor won't work either.

So I found that little voltage meter and I unhooked the wire. After it died on the History channel I checked the wire and it says 18.80 volts.
So I put the wire back on and BOOM, there's video again. It works. But only for about a minute or two at most.
And the same thing, no signal.

So I unhooked the wire and checked the volts. Same as before, 18.80 volts.
I put the wire back on the tuner, the signal is back again just fine, motor works and all.

Then a repeat. No signal. Unhooked the wire, didn't bother to check the volts, just waited 10 seconds and put the wire back on.
The signal comes back. And promptly dies again in under 2 minutes.

So simply unhooking and rehooking the wire to the LNB temporarily restores the signal when it goes out.

Dad said that this thing has gotten progressively worse over time to the point where it is now, 100% unusable. Previously he would turn the power off and it might work fine for days or just hours at a time. It's been a slow, degenerative slide down to the bottom. He never knew that unhooking the wire would do this, he just turned the main power switch off and back on.


I don't know what is up with this but it's broke, BAD.....
I'm open to suggestions but I am 99% sure that this thing will have to be exchanged.

Oh, and it's not even the least bit warm. My S10 got 10x hotter than this thing. And it didn't even have time to get warm, it had been unplugged for hours, and it went to poop within minutes of hooking it up.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Sweeeeet!

I emailed the seller at like 2:30am and by 3:00am they had replied to me with an RMA number and instructions on returning it for replacement!
Now THAT is service!

The dealer is in California, the phone and address is California so it's like 1am there.
And because they are in the US this should, hopefully, be a quick turn around.

I sure hope so.. I wanna keep my folks happy.

Oh yeah, I did try something else while I was killing time.
I hooked up that little squealy meter in between the tuner and the motor. It has an LED red light in it (why?) and it squeals. And there is a meter with a needle that goes back and forth when you adjust your dish. I have seen them on ebay for anywhere between $10 and $30. It was one of the very first tools I got for this stuff, I got it from a neighbor a few years ago.



So I turned it way low so I don't have to listen to it too loudly then tuned in to RT on 97. The tuner was working fine and the meter was lit up and squealing and then after awhile, BOOM. No signal and the meter went silent and the little red light was very dim.

So for some stupid reason the tuner just stops sending power to the LNB at random. Disconnecting, waiting 60 seconds then reconnecting the LNB brings it back, for a few minutes.

Who knows.... I don't care now. It's getting replaced and that's what matters.
Hopefully this won't happen to anyone else but if it does, well, now you know...

After seeing how their S9 has acted up and the nonsense my S10 has given me, I'm still setting a goal of obtaining an Azbox but it will be well into next year, if at all.. Sigh......