New Product: Titanium Satellite ASC1 - Actuator Motor and Polarization Skew Controller

[anik]

We soon will be offering a tested, compatible and price effective USB to RS-232 serial device for the ASC1. This should help folks who do not have a convenient RS232 solution.

A main purpose of the ASC1 design is to be an invisible interface, returning full function to DVBS/S2 and other satellite system receivers and at the same time offer hobbyist advanced features not found on any other controller to future proof the investment. Your expectations are exceeding the purpose of the design. I realize that the ASC1 isn't for everyone. You might be a great example of an equipment design not meeting your basic needs, having expressed enough other reasons that you should not consider purchasing the ASC1...

At least you're giving me straight answers, so thank you for that.

My issue with this is that I don't see any real advantage, in day-to-day use, of your device over a VBOX 7 that sells for under $50. I get that it has some additional features, but the only one that would be of the slightest use to me would be the ability to control the polorotor on my old feedhorn, and I can buy a new feedhorn with C and Ku band LNBs, also for under $50, and that doesn't use a polorotor. So for half the cost I would have the same basic functionality, plus I would have upgraded LNBs.

I get that yours looks more like a piece of commercial equipment (in fact, in the photos it looks like you could drive a small car over it and it just might survive!) but with a VBOX 7 I don't even have to worry about upgrading firmware, much less hooking the thing up to an ancient RS232 port.

The controllers that you mention have been in use in cable headend and broadcast centers for years. Most event controllers use RS-232 control for actuator interface. There are some commercial LAN controller interfaces, but they are competing and proprietary. We are considering a higher priced "commercial" version of the ASC1 that will support the protocols found in commercial facilities including dual axis control. Much different price points when developing for these higher functions and interoperability. Current products with these features are in excess of $1500 - $3,000+. LAN implementation was not considered for the consumer version of the ASC1. The development cost would be prohibitive for the niche market and meeting a target cost of under $200.

I don't mean to imply that you are being disingenuous or anything, but I have a really hard time understanding why the cost would be prohibitive. In another post yesterday, I pretty much outlined how you could make a network controlled positioner using a $35 Raspberry Pi - granted it wasn't a complete design, and I am not an electronics engineer, but it sure seems like it could be done on a conceptual level. In fact, as primestar31 suggested, it would probably be possible to hack a Raspberry Pi to control a VBOX, and the cost for that combination would still be less than the price of your product.

It just seems to me that if you expect people to pay almost $200 for your product, it ought to offer some significant additional functionality over your competitors' products, and I guess I just feel like adding a network interface for software updates and computer control would not be too much to ask. Apparently you feel differently, and perhaps a few others in this forum feel that way as well, and if enough of them do you won't have any trouble selling your device even if people like me (who don't have cash to burn) don't buy one. I do get that your product is likely of higher quality than your competitors' products, I just am not convinced that quality is sufficient to justify pricing yours at 400%-500% of their price when in the end, all these devices perform the same basic function.

I might revise my opinion when I see what your USB to RS-232 serial device adds to the mix, but that's where my thinking is right now.

 

[updatelee]

Well, yeah. Like how you have said in other forums that you don't use your equipment to actually watch TV because you are more interested in analyzing signals, or words to that effect.

But you and I must be total opposites, because an RS232 port would not be my preferred method for any purpose, especially now that many new computers don't even have RS232 ports anymore. IMHO all new satellite equipment should have an RJ45 network jack (and maybe a USB port), and should just connect to the local network, and should be able to directly download firmware and any needed datasets. Why should anyone ever have to hook such a device up to a computer at all? It should get an address from the router that one can browse to from any computer on a local network, and then show a page that lets the user control all available functions.

Sometimes when I enter FTA forums I feel like I have stepped into a time warp where I am back in 1995, as least insofar as any recognition that people now do things over local networks is concerned.

Consider that if each of your eight tuners had a network connection, and a device like this had a network connection, then each tuner could (with the proper software, and I'll bet you could write it) tell the positioner where it seeds the dish to be when you are using that particular tuner. No tuner would need to be directly connected to this device, but any one of them could control it. And at the rate technology is moving in the FTA world, we MIGHT actually see that in 2030 or thereabouts!

My only issue with RS232 is that usually I don't have a computer anywhere near my satellite equipment, and my only portable computer is a tablet, which definitely does not have an RS232 port. So, to do a firmware update, I would have to disconnect this device and carry it all the way across the house, and then if the software that does the updates only runs on Windows, I would have to fire up my ancient Windows 2000 box and HOPE that it still works and that the software runs on that, and that I don't get a virus in the time it's online. Doable, yes. Convenient? Not even slightly. Now, if the software would run on a Linux box then that would be a lot more convenient, but still not nearly as much as if it could just get updates over the network.

I don't like to be the skunk at the garden party but it just really surprises me that anyone sees a RS232 port as a good way of communicating with a device in a time when so many computers don't even have them anymore. This device must already have some kind of computer inside it to make it capable of doing what it does, so why not add a network interface, or at the very least, a USB slot that it can use to download firmware and updates?

I only mentioned rs232 because almost all microcontrollers have rs232 interface built in, so adding support for it is usually just the cost of the connector. Many controllers now have USB as well, but many dont. I have yet to see one with a network interface built in although having it Id gladly pay the extra $20 for the IC !

Your right though, Im not normal, my wife tells me that everyday lol. But she loves me, so I count myself as a lucky guy

UDL

 

[Titanium]

Simply put... If you are happy with the compromised performance of using an LNBF without skew adjustments and satisfied with underpowered plastic controllers with spring clip connectors... Don't buy an ASC1!

I momentarily considered a line by line response to your post, but not interested in a pissing match about our individual ideas of what would be a marketable controller. I have spent a year in R&D, put up enough money for the ASC1 project to buy a house, believing it to be a great investment in the future of C-band and give hobbyist what we have been asking for. I guess I got it wrong.... Bummer!

I personally have replaced cheap G/V boxes 3 times in the past 6 years due to failures. Every time I had to reset the G/V box to clear some error, I had to spend hours to reprogram. How much money and time have I spent because of cheap crap? More than $200 worth? You bet! I am sick and tired of cheap crap being acceptable and excusing bad performance and short life spans just because it was inexpensive and disposable.

You express that the ASC1's serial control updating, updating archival is a bad thing? Serious? Just because a G/V box cannot be updated, backed-up or edited, makes it a better choice? What are you smoking?

If you have the knowledge and capability to build a Pi based controller, sounds like a fun project. Most hobbyists, headends and small broadcast centers don't or won't. Want more features without picking up a soldering iron or coding, the commercial $3000 controller units come close to your list of wishes.

The ASC1 offers many features and functions that you don't need or want... It doesn't have the communication method that you want.... I get it!

Maybe the project should be a Pi controlling the ASC1? LOL!!!

Happy New Year!

 

[anik]

Simply put... If you are happy with the compromised performance of using an LNBF without skew adjustments and satisfied with underpowered plastic controllers with spring clip connectors... Don't buy an ASC1!

I momentarily considered a line by line response to your post, but not interested in a pissing match about our individual ideas of what would be a marketable controller. I have spent a year in R&D, put up enough money for the ASC1 project to buy a house, believing it to be a great investment in the future of C-band and give hobbyist what we have been asking for. I guess I got it wrong.... Bummer!

I personally have replaced cheap G/V boxes 3 times in the past 6 years due to failures. Every time I had to reset the G/V box to clear some error, I had to spend hours to reprogram. How much money and time have I spent because of cheap crap? More than $200 worth? You bet! I am sick and tired of cheap crap being acceptable and excusing bad performance and short life spans just because it was inexpensive and disposable.

Denigrating a competitor's product in this manner does not in any way inspire me to consider your product. Clearly you are irritated that I dared to question the pricing of your product, but there are ways to professionally respond to that sort of criticism. What you wrote here isn't exactly what I'd consider a professional response. But as I said before, at least you're giving straight answers and saying exactly how you really feel, so I'm really not as bothered by this as I might otherwise be.

You express that the ASC1's serial control updating, updating archival is a bad thing? Serious? Just because a G/V box cannot be updated, backed-up or edited, makes it a better choice? What are you smoking?

Sir, I do not smoke anything, and never have in my entire life, not even once (seriously!). I did not say that your serial control updating was a bad thing. HOWEVER, try to see it from my point of view. One product (yours) apparently needs updating and can only be done so in a manner that I would find most inconvenient. The other product apparently does not require updating. In my mind, that translates into "not quite finished product" vs. "mature product" - and I do realize the downside of that, which is that if the competitor's product does happen to have buggy firmware, there's no way at all to fix it. But another part of my mind says that a dish mover really isn't rocket science, and as long as the other product has been around, they should have the firmware pretty well perfected by now. As for the problem you've had with them, it's just odd to me that every time I've asked about how you move a C-band dish with a receiver that only offers DiSEqC control, the VBOX was always the recommended device, and nobody was adding "but they don't work well" or anything like that. So perhaps your experience was somewhat atypical. However, good for you for taking on the challenge of building what you consider to be a better unit; if the competing units are as bad as you imply, then maybe some people will be willing to spend the extra money for yours.

If you have the knowledge and capability to build a Pi based controller, sounds like a fun project. Most hobbyists, headends and small broadcast centers don't or won't. Want more features without picking up a soldering iron or coding, the commercial $3000 controller units come close to your list of wishes.

The ASC1 offers many features and functions that you don't need or want... It doesn't have the communication method that you want.... I get it!

Maybe the project should be a Pi controlling the ASC1? LOL!!!

Happy New Year!

Actually, depending on how you can use that serial port, why not? What I mean is, if you can update the firmware via the serial port, and if you can move the dish via the serial port, and if there is a way to add a serial port to a Raspberry Pi (and I'd be very surprised if there isn't), then basically it would be a matter of writing the software to cause the Raspberry Pi to download firmware updates and then send them to your device. And if you can send commands to move the dish via the serial port, maybe the Raspberry Pi could do that as well. That would basically be a programming exercise, with little extra hardware involved (maybe almost none if the Raspberry Pi GPIO pins happen to operate at the correct levels). Of course, that assumes that the software that controls your unit will run under Linux, and you said earlier that "the loader is currently available only for windows, but there has been some talk of members providing a Linux and Mac solution." And I don't recall if you ever said that the dish position could be controlled via the serial port.

After spending almost $200 to start with, it's not like I personally would really want to dedicate a $35 computer just for bringing in software updates, but that might be a viable option for those folks that already use a Raspberry Pi as an XBMC box on their system. Assuming that the Raspberry Pi could play video and simultaneously talk to your device (which as underpowered as the Raspberry Pi is, might be asking a bit much, but I don't know).

Anyway, I wasn't trying to upset you, but it is becoming pretty clear that hobbyist users (other than maybe wealthier ones) might not really be the primary the target market for your device. If your goal was to design a unit for headends and small broadcast centers, then your price is probably not unreasonable at all, and I'm sure they'd appreciate having something more resembling commercial-grade equipment to move their dishes and would be more than happy to pay the price you are asking. It's probably obvious to both of us by now that I'm not going to buy one, but that doesn't mean that I don't think it's a nice unit, it's really just a matter of being out of my price range by a considerable amount and (in my personal case) being very difficult to upgrade with the equipment I have.

Happy New Year to you also!

EDIT: For anyone that's interested, here are a couple links I found on adding a serial port to the Raspberry Pi. Remember that you still need to wait for a Linux version of the software for this to be useful in this situation:

http://www.savagehomeautomation.com/projects/raspberry-pi-installing-a-rs232-serial-port.html
http://www.savagehomeautomation.com...i-rs232-serial-interface-options-revisit.html

 

[Titanium]

You obviously don't know me or follow my posts and threads through the years. I am a very understanding, professional and usually gracious person that greets all trains... Not irrated our upset that you would question the price or the value, but do question why you weigh in so negatively and continue to research and build your case on a product that you obviously never intend on owning. The ASC1 is not a 99% elitist product. It was built for folks who understand value, quality, reliability and want exceptional customer support from a vendor that has a track record of supporting hobbyists.

The build quality and reliability of G/V box DiSEqC controllers has been discussed many times on the forum. Restating a common discussed fact is not denigrating any one competitor's product. The G/V box designation is generic and produced at dozens of Chinese factories. The units are inexpensive and disposable. The one North American controller that was deemed reliable is no longer available. Which one are you talking about?

Never suggested that a Pi be used as a serial loader. Earlier in this thread we discussed external control and I assumed you had read the earlier posts. We can open up almost any function on the ASC1 RS-232 port for external control. This is the benefit of designing hardware with future expansion in mind. A $35 Pi seems to be a inexpensive fun project if one wanted to experiment and develop a different experience. Imagine the benefits of working on this type of project beside the actual developer......

 

[Hockeynut]

Just curious what are you currently using for a positioner to move your bud now anik?.

The serial cable for updates is not that big of a deal...JMO..

BTW good luck with a Vbox as you will be lucky and I mean LUCKY!!!to get 3-5 yrs out of it( have read that many folks have had theres arrive DOA )..Gbox..Cant find those anymore!!..So when the ASC1 hit the market it is a pleasure that Brian has taken a step forward in developing and ultimately put up the money for the manufacture of the ASC1.

 

[anik]

Just curious what are you currently using for a positioner to move your bud now anik?.

The fact of the matter is that at the moment I do not have a working FTA setup. I had a Diamond HD9000 receiver but it died on me and I have no idea if it could be fixed, but I was never particularly happy with it since it had a tendency to spontaneously reboot and trash recordings in the process. But when I was using it, I had an old analog C-band receiver that I left hooked up solely for the purpose of moving the dish and operating the polorotor.

In the meantime I discovered the HDHomeRun Dual and MythTV, and ever since I have been searching for something that would allow me to stream FTA satellite TV (either live or recorded, but especially recorded) over my local network. Problem is that I have been unable to find anything that works exactly the way I want, and would likely wind up settling for something that will not do much of what I want, but I am ever hopeful that something newer and better will appear. But in any case, I have pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I will need to get a VBOX and a new LNB if I want the receiver to be able to control the dish position. An alternative, if any positioner control box had this feature, would be to run a separate program on a network-connected computer to control the disk position. In some situations that might be preferable, because then I could set up schedules and wouldn't have to remember to manually move the dish, even if I should somehow manage to acquire an additional tuner.

The serial cable for updates is not that big of a deal...JMO..

Probably not for you because you probably 1) Have a computer that has a serial port 2) That runs Windows, and 3) That is in a convenient location. I have none of those except for an ancient Windows 2000 box in a tower-style case that is nowhere near where the positioner would be. My current devices all run either OS X (a "hackintosh") or Linux, but the larger issue is that they simply do not have serial ports. So in addition to shelling out close to $200 for one of these devices, which is more than I would pay for a new satellite receiver and which I can ill afford, I would also need to buy a whole new computer running Windows in order do apply updates, or (if their software will even run under Windows 2000) need to disconnect a bunch of wires and lug either the device or the ancient computer around the house to do updates. If there were upgrade software that ran under Linux, however, then at least the inconvenience would not be as great.

I guess it is a combination of things that put me off on these devices, but primarily the difficulty in updating and especially the price. I realize that there are some people in here for whom price may be no object, but it is for me, and the cost of new equipment is the sole reason I haven't jumped back into this sooner. I know that the Gbox was a better unit (and as is typically my luck, I found out about them maybe two months after you couldn't buy them anymore) but consider that even if a competing unit only lasts three years on average, I could buy for or five of those for what the device we are discussing in this thread would cost. I am not questioning the fact that this new device is a better unit; I'm simply questioning whether it's worth four to five times as much as the competition, especially if you don't have any convenient way to do firmware updates. In my case, there is simply no way I can justify that. That said, it seems that I am beating a dead horse here, because it's obvious that Titanium believes his device is worth every penny of that price, and even if I were seriously trying to convince him otherwise, I doubt it would work.

BTW good luck with a Vbox as you will be lucky and I mean LUCKY!!!to get 3-5 yrs out of it( have read that many folks have had theres arrive DOA )..Gbox..Cant find those anymore!!..So when the ASC1 hit the market it is a pleasure that Brian has taken a step forward in developing and ultimately put up the money for the manufacture of the ASC1.

If one arrived DOA, it would get sent back for a replacement. And it seems that nowadays you are lucky to get 3-5 years out of any new electronic device. The last two microwave ovens I have purchased haven't lasted that long! And that, in fact, is one of the reasons I am so reluctant to pay top dollar for any electronic device. After all, we have no guarantees that this device will last any longer, and even if it does, we have no idea if it will be compatible with receivers made five years from now. What if newer receivers come out with a new DiSEqC standard that's not compatible with this device? Sure, maybe they could address it with a firmware update, but would they? What if in three years I am for some reason forced to move someplace where I can't have a big dish? What if some company comes out with inexpensive DiSEqC controlled positioner arms for C-band dishes? All I am saying is that at the rate technology (and life) changes, there is no guarantee that any of these boxes will be useful in 3 to 5 years.

It would be one thing if 9 out of 10 of the competitive units were going up in a puff of smoke when first plugged in, but that's not the case here. In my value system, if I can pay one-fourth the price and still get 3 to 5 years out of the unit, there is a high likelihood I'm going to come out ahead by doing that, even if it's a PITA when they fail. Those who have a lot more resources than I do may see that equation quite differently, and may opt to buy the Audi rather than the Kia, if I can use that comparison. But if the Kia is all you really need and is all you can afford, that's probably the one you are going to buy. And I do have to wonder if some of the units that failed were not plugged into any kind of surge suppressor, or if maybe they were using those el cheapo capacitors that fail easily, but that are also relatively easy to replace (assuming you can figure out which one failed).

By the way, do you happen to know what price the Gbox sold for when it was available? I only ask because that would probably be a more apt comparison, if I am understanding correctly (that was the American-made one, right?).

 

[. Raine]

Sorry, I didn't read through all the previous posts, so maybe it's all ready posted, but I'm looking for the RS232 plug on my V-Box....can't seem to find it. maybe someone could also tell me where to find the skew control on it too?

And how to fix the plastic case that broke from when my cat knocked it off the shelf? I called where I bought it from but I just hear wind whistling in the phone....

Sorry, I just couldn't resist. I haven't got an ASC1 but comparing it to V-Boxes and G-Boxes is like comparing apples and oranges. Just like your comparison of an Audi and a Kia, they both do the same thing essentially, but can you go buy an Audi for the price of a Kia? No. An orthomode feed pretty much does the same as a feed with polarotor control, are they the same price? Hmm...No. The skew control on the ASC1 alone is enough to justify a higher price, in my opinion.

As far as the RS232 port, I'd rather have that than USB myself.

In another post yesterday, I pretty much outlined how you could make a network controlled positioner using a $35 Raspberry Pi - granted it wasn't a complete design, and I am not an electronics engineer, but it sure seems like it could be done on a conceptual level. In fact, as primestar31 suggested, it would probably be possible to hack a Raspberry Pi to control a VBOX, and the cost for that combination would still be less than the price of your product.

There's a huge difference between this and actually producing a unit for sale to the public, things the average person wouldn't even think of, such as patent infringement and the list goes on endlessly, building the device is probably the easiest part. Both concepts that were talked about in your other thread probably would be very easy to do, I'm positive sure that I could do it if I wanted to bother. Do it and try to sell it legally as a product for sale to the general public, then you might find it's not as easy as thought to be. Especially as an add-on hack to someone else's product. Once again, comparing apples and oranges.

 

[Titanium]

The fact of the matter is that at the moment I do not have a working FTA setup. I had a Diamond HD9000 receiver but it died on me and I have no idea if it could be fixed, but I was never particularly happy with it since it had a tendency to spontaneously reboot and trash recordings in the process. But when I was using it, I had an old analog C-band receiver that I left hooked up solely for the purpose of moving the dish and operating the polorotor.
<<<< SNIP>>>>
is that I have been unable to find anything that works exactly the way I want, and would likely wind up settling for something that will not do much of what I want,

So all of this from someone that doesn't own a working satellite sytem, never owned a controller and can't find anything that suits you? Did I correctly summarize?

Happy New Year SatelliteGuys!

 

[KE4EST]

.... All I am saying is that at the rate technology (and life) changes, there is no guarantee that any of these boxes will be useful in 3 to 5 years. ....

There is no guarantee of tomorrow either, so are you saying I should just give up on life and die?

 

[Chewie]

Hello Titanium
Just check your website and notice you have a new loader 1.5, I download it and I think is missing a file, there is 2 .dll files and that is it.
Can you check on that. I would like to have this new loader.
Thank you.
Chewie

 

[Magic Static]

WinRAR indicates a corrupted archive. The EXE didn't compress correctly.

 

[Hockeynut]

Getting unexpected end of archive error with v1.5 loader here also..email sent guys.Sure it will be fixed soon.

New bin file 20140101 looks fine here.

 

[KE4EST]

I have let Brian know...fix coming soon.

 

[Titanium]

Thank you Chewie1 (et all)! :

Loader/Editor v1.5 is now ready to download. The zip was correct on my computer, but appeared to be an incomplete file transfer when uploaded to website.

 

[Hockeynut]

New loader and new file have been installed with no glitches...Thanks Titanium Brian.

 

[KE4EST]

Thank you Chewie1 (et all)! :

Loader/Editor v1.5 is now ready to download. The zip was correct on my computer, but appeared to be an incomplete file transfer when uploaded to website.

Now that was fast service...even on New Years Day! :up

 

[anik]

So all of this from someone that doesn't own a working satellite sytem, never owned a controller and can't find anything that suits you? Did I correctly summarize?

Yes, but so what? Does that mean I'm not allowed to try to find a system I would like at a reasonable price, or failing that, try to make something work?

It's not as though I've NEVER had a satellite system. My original system was an early Winegard with the big 10 foot dish and the distinctive square pole (and, by the way, a separate controller unit, although what would have been considered a controller back then was nothing like today's controllers - DiSEqC hadn't been invented yet). And up until my Diamond receiver died about a year or two ago, I've had a working satellite system that entire time, including that 10 foot dish. But now, because I don't CURRENTLY have a working system, apparently I'm not worthy of commenting in your eyes.

Well, tell you what, up until this point I found this discussion interesting and was only slightly annoyed by the tone of some of your comments. But since you are now resorting to this sort of innuendo, I have decided that I will never purchase one of your products, not if you were the last satellite equipment dealer on the face of earth. I'm also done discussing this with you; do what you want with your products and price them as you like. We'll see what the marketplace decides.

 

[anik]

There is no guarantee of tomorrow either, so are you saying I should just give up on life and die?

No, not at all. Though the way things have gone lately, sometimes I feel like I'm about ready to (don't take that the wrong way, I'm not suicidal, just sort of losing my will to live. This extremely difficult winter is a large part of that).

I am giving up on this thread, though. Apparently my participation is not wanted here.

 

[Hockeynut]

anik...with all respect I do think it would be a good idea to get a bud going again....I like alot of your ideas and once a bud is working again I bet you can help many!