Question About OHR Adapter on ASC1

[Dee_Ann]

Brian,

I'm wanting to put my big dish back up at my new house and I'm hoping to do everything RIGHT from the git-go.
While it's down and apart I'm doing a complete refurbish to fix dinged up panels and put a fresh coat of paint on everything.

Last year after I bought an ASC1 to replace the G-box I had been using I began having trouble which we attributed to my having used ethernet wires instead of the right stuff.
So I also have to buy new wires for the new house. I already have RG-11 so I don't need to buy that old type of C-band wire that has everything all-in-one.
I'll just have to find the power and control wires from somewhere that has then all shielded from one another.

Then I saw this new gadget. Would it be a wise investment to get one to ward off potential problems like I had before just in case?
And would it work with my actuator? I have an old "HARL-3624 Super PowerJack Actuator".. You guys had advised me to put a capacitor on the motor to help with the problems I was having but it didn't really work very well, again probably because of my stupid wiring.

I would not mind at all spending $30 something on the gadget if it would help things go smoother. I don't understand the technology involved in the thing so that's why I'm here asking stupid questions.

Thanks.

 

[Titanium]

No need to purchase this adapter unless complete isolation is necessary. Most sensor issues are due to shielding and grounding issues. I am confident that bonding your dish to structure ground and using shielded cable attached to ground will address the problems that you experienced with the unshielded cat 5/6. If sensor counts caused by noise are still a problem, then install the capacitor on the motor. If excessive noise continues to deafen the sensor circuit, then add the capacitor on the controller sensor terminals. If there continues to be noise in the sensor circuit, only then I would consider installing the OHR for reed switch isolation and signal reshaping.

 

[KE4EST]

Broke this off to its own thread.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Ok, this is very helpful as I don't really understand the magic inside this new gadget. I saw that it was something to help with motor problems and thought maybe it would be a good thing to add to my system when I start over anew.

The only wire I could find was some wire for fire alarms. I need about 120' of four strands. What I found is two strands so I would make two runs, one for power and one for the sensor. So all in all, a little under 250'.
I can't find a 250' roll but I did find a 500' roll for a reasonable price (under $100 shipped)

Since I would have two run of shielded wire, each shielded on it's on, would that be adequate?
(What I do not know is if the 18 gauge would be enough to carry the power for the motor)

Here's what I'm thinking (assuming) I could use to control the motor on my C-band.



Thanks!

 

[primestar31]

18 gauge is NOT large enough by itself to carry proper current for 100'. If you can get at least 4 strands, or 6 strands, you can double or triple twist the bare wire ends together (on both ends) to help increase the current carrying capacity. However, you really should run a 12 gauge wire, even 14 gauge should work ok. You can get the large gauge speaker wire, like some people use in their cars with those huge amplifiers that will work fine. Run it in conduit (or plastic black coil pipe) though, don't bury it directly.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/300-feet-TR...747?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43d9d60923

 

[Titanium]

That shielded wire will be good for the sensor circuit. It is sold by the foot at most home improvement stores. Do not increase the conductor count to also carry the motor power in the same bundle. This would place both circuits inside of the shield and defeat the purpose of shielding the sensor circuit from the motor. It would be best to use this type of wire only for your sensor and another type of wire for the motor power.

To add to Primestar31's great information, landscaping low voltage wire works well. It is used for low voltage lighting and is 12g and suitable for direct burial and uv resistant.

 

[Bongu]

All my computers pretty much came out of dumpsters

My latest dumpster find is a Dell Precision 470 workstation. It has dual Xeon 3.4 with 2Gb memory. HD and Opticals were absent but no problem for me. Just need to check caps for bad ones before I restore it to service. This is one for me to be proud of.

The low voltage landscape lighting cable is a good alternative. The others beat me to it. Just get the 12AWG or 14AWG.

 

[Bongu]

Oops. Ignore that quote.....

 

[Dee_Ann]

Ah ok, I was not sure about the voltage capacity of the motor wire, if the gauge was enough or not. I don't know how to figure that out though I'm pretty sure there's a math formula to figure it out.
I have a bad habit of just doing stuff without knowing what I'm doing and hoping for good results.

I was however determined to use the shielded wire for the sensors because I went through a lot of misery with that last year for using all the wrong things. I knew the motor and sensor wires had to be shielded from each other hence the ebay wire I was looking at. I figured that I might as well use shielded wire for the motor too so that each pair of wires has it's own shielding and when run side by side to one another there would essentially be double shielding between the two. But since the 18 gauge wire is too small then that nixes that plan. And to break with tradition, rather than my usual GUESSING at everything, I ~just now went outside and found~ a 100' tape measure in my dad's garage and unreeled all 100 feet of it around the path the wires will take and 100 feet of wire will be enough. So I don't have to buy 500 feet like I was thinking. I can buy 100 feet of sensor wire and 100 feet of motor wire and be well within the what I need with maybe 10 feet extra that I can just coil up and zip tie out of the way. Better to have just a little extra than a ton extra. That will save me some money too since I won't be over buying to cover my guesswork.

All my wires run along the house right at where the second story is, like where it sits on top of the first story. I've got one RG-11 FTA wire running there now and two RG-11 Dish Network wires. I'll be adding a fourth RG-11 for my secondary FTA system so there's going to be a pretty chunky gob of wires running around the house, plus the wires for my C-band motor/sensor. In my brain I'm thinking that it can't possibly hurt to have every single wire shielded so that none of them can interfere with any other wire. Another potential issue is that I've got a huge whole house generator wired into the breaker box and there's a conduit that carries several very large, high voltage wires and a gob of control wires from the transfer switch back to the generator because the two communicate constantly as it monitors the power and tells the generator to start up when the power fails. ALL of the satellite wires have to run parallel to that generator conduit for about 15 feet and the conduit is plastic, nothing in it is shielded, only insulated so I want to be careful there's no interference between the generator stuff and the satellite stuff.

I had such a difficult time with all this the first time around at my old house so I'm hoping that I learned something from all that and hopefully I can avoid going insane all over again fighting invisible problems that I (still) don't understand.

Almost all of this stuff I do, I really have no understanding of how it works or why it works. I just put stuff together and hope it works. I've learned how to do some things from simple repetition, like an assembly line worker that assembles things she has no clue as to how it works.

Now you guys tell me 12 gauge wire would be good for the motor power but I'm wondering is there a math formula that I can use in the future to help me KNOW what the proper wire to use should be?

Thanks!

 

[primestar31]

http://www.bulkwire.com/wireresistance.asp

Length of cable: 100ft
Load Current: 6 amps
Source Voltage: 36 volts

Click "Calculate"

 

[rgk]

http://www.uglysbooks.com/proddetail.php?prod=10556

 

[rgk]

This one is free:

http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm

18 ga resistance is 6.3 ohms per thousand or .63 ohms for 100 ft. Voltage drop at 7 amps would be 4 volts.

 

[Dee_Ann]

WOW! You guys are awesome! Thank you!!

Ok, now another stupid question.

The capacitors to put on the motor, I do not remember what it is supposed to be.
Seems like last year when I was having trouble I ended up finding one that was ~kinda close~ to the required part and y'all told me to go ahead and use it anyway,
I think I found it in an old dead VCR.

Well, a few weeks ago one of my Dish Net tuners burnt out and I tried to fix it by replacing the burnt part with some new ones I bought on ebay.
(it didn't fix it and I had to buy a new tuner) so now I have this bag of capacitors left over because I had to buy a dozen of them.

Will these work to put on my C-band motor?



They say Y5P, 103K, 500V

If I can't use these, what would be the right ones I should buy?

Thanks!

 

[Titanium]

With the separate shielded sensor wire bundle and the shield connected to ground, the system will probably not need the capacitors. These are optional components only needed if there are problems with excessive noise.The capacitors will only be installed if there are positioning errors due to excessive motor or other noise.

Page 20 of the ASC1 Install Guide gives the values and where to install:

Download: http://titaniumsatellite.com/downloads/asc1/ACS1_Manual_MedRes.zip
Online: http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE55AFEFB5/titanium-satellite-asc1-owners-manual-v7.html

 

[Dee_Ann]

Thank you!