Satwork 3688 won't recognize LNB

[stardust1]

I don't know if this makes any difference, but as long as there is power to the LNB from the other receiver, I can blindscan both polarities with no issues. It scan H and then flips to V because I get the channels I should on both polarities

The plot thickins..........Hell yeah that makes a difference..... my understanding is the polarity is voltage controlled which is what the 13/18 means on the setup screen 13v for vertical / 18v for horizontal.
At this point I would unhook everything from the 3688 and plug the coax into back where it comes into your house.... straight run from receiver to lnbf then unscrew the other half of your dual from any other receivers. Make it so only the satwork is hooked to the dish. Is your lnbf standard or universal? What are the other options for lnb type? I'm not a big time expert or anything but I would start from square one with just the dish/3688/tv only hooked up at the same time - no splitters disq sw's or anything else. If it's still not working play with settings on the set up screen / try a master reset. Then go to the voltage tests and see if is correct for both v and h channels at the lnb connector on the back of the receiver.

 

[Mr Tony]

Stardust…I’ve worked with enough receivers so I’ve done all the normal testing. But I’ll answer the questions below. All other receivers work fine with the setup

The plot thickins..........Hell yeah that makes a difference..... my understanding is the polarity is voltage controlled which is what the 13/18 means on the setup screen 13v for vertical / 18v for horizontal.

Correct. 13v is for vertical ONLY and 18 is for H only. Its set for 13/18

At this point I would unhook everything from the 3688 and plug the coax into back where it comes into your house.... straight run from receiver to lnbf then unscrew the other half of your dual from any other receivers. Make it so only the satwork is hooked to the dish.

The line runs directly from the Satwork up to the LNB. I haven’t unhooked the other output mainly because I couldn’t climb on the roof lately (bad knees acting up). But I have hooked my DirecPC dish up, which is a single output LNB aimed at G3. Ran that line in and same issue. No power, even with the LNB set to 18

Is your lnbf standard or universal? What are the other options for lnb type?

Standard DMSI dual .5 options are standard C, Standard KU or Universal

I'm not a big time expert or anything but I would start from square one with just the dish/3688/tv only hooked up at the same time - no splitters disq sw's or anything else. If it's still not working play with settings on the set up screen / try a master reset. Then go to the voltage tests and see if is correct for both v and h channels at the lnb connector on the back of the receiver.

No splitters involved…no Diseqc switches. Straight shot from dish to receiver.

Only other option is different cable, but when I hooked up the Satwork I ran all new cable and the other receiver would control the polarity with no issues.

I’ll try the voltage thing and let you know.

 

[Mr Tony]

Well....tried it again last night

Unplugged both cables from the receivers
Plugged the cable into the Satworks only and powered on
signal there for 3 seconds then gone

Tried a couple other dishes and same thing...no signal unless its slaved

 

[stardust1]

What's going on here doesn't make any sense. If the satwork can change polarity then it must be putting out voltage. If it's putting out voltage then the lnbf is getting power. The satwork is able to pick up and tune signal when slaved. So the satwork is doing the same thing the pansat is doing. It's putting out the correct voltage for each polarity, it's able to take signal from the lnb and tune to different frequencies and it's able to output to a tv. So why should it matter if it's slaved or not the satwork should work by itself without any help from the pansat......personally I really like to tinker, fix and understand. If I had that unit here and it was mine I would relentlessly pursue anything I could think of until either I had an answer or the unit was destroyed. Sorry if I wasn't much help I've been a lurker here for a long time, learned a lot from your posts and thought maybe I could add something to help. For what it's worth my next step would be to check the voltage output on the coax with and without the pansat hooked up on both polarities for each unit . I would reverse the 2 receivers and see what happened. I would try leaving everything the same but try every combination of lnb power from each receivers menu-both lnb off - both on - pansat on satwork off - satwork on pansat off. I would try and figure out what the pansat is doing to/for the satwork and then try and zero in on what the fix would be for the satwork. Good luck

 

[Mr Tony]

stardust
I appreciate the help But I'm not really one to rip stuff open like that

Here is every test I think I've done and results. Now what I have is a 30" dish with dual LNB. One port goes directly to the Satwork and the other port goes to a switch which goes to the Pansat. The dish is right now at SBS6

Both machines hooked up and Pansat on SBS-Satwork works
Pansat master switch off-Satwork doesnt work
Pansat on other port of switch-Satwork doesn't work
Satwok directly hooked to LNB (no others hooked up)-Satwork doesnt work
Pansat in standby-Satwork works and will blind scan both polarities

If the Pansat is on, the Satwork only works on the same polarity as the Pansat. This is the weird part. I scanned SBS6 with the Pansat and as soon as it switched to Vertical, the yellow light on the Satwork (yellow light means signal lock) went off. As soon as I was back to H, it came back on.

I'm going to download some software from DMSI (older versions) and see if that helps

 

[Cascade]

Ice, a shot in the dark here:

With the DMSI LNB, set it up as Universal with 10750 on both LO settings. If it's possible with the receiver omit 22KHz in the STB menu altogether. If that doesn't work try 10750 in LO1 and 0 in LO2 and vice versa.

I used to have a Standard which only worked with Universal settings on a PCI card.

 

[Mr Tony]

Tried the following combos with both the dual and the DirecPC LNB

10600 22k on
10750 22k on
10600 22k off
10750 22k off

I even tried a DBS LNB at 11250 and nothing....but as soon as there is power from another recever, bam it works

 

[Cascade]

Hate to say it but it sounds like the box is dodgy.

 

[Mr Tony]

I got some older software and am going to try that to see if that fixes the issue

 

[drhydro]

I am wondering if flashing the box with 3816 software might have something to do with it. The 3618 has no options for lnb (13/18v) power like the 3688 does, so my thought goes that flashing it to the 3618 might have messed up something in the hardware. I know this doesnt help you fix it, but it would be nice to know if that could have caused the problem.

 

[Mr Tony]

good point....but even with 3618 software in it, the box did the same thing

 

[hiebert]

good point....but even with 3618 software in it, the box did the same thing

Iceberg
have you a 0/12 switch or other switch or the cable go direct to the LNBF?

 

[Langod]

Perhaps I am mistaken, but I thought the 13/18v setting was used when you use an LNB like the new quad-polar Invacom.

My experience has been if you only receive signals from vertical transponders, then maybe your terminations are flaky due to corrosion, etc.

Stardust…I’ve worked with enough receivers so I’ve done all the normal testing. But I’ll answer the questions below. All other receivers work fine with the setup


Correct. 13v is for vertical ONLY and 18 is for H only. Its set for 13/18


The line runs directly from the Satwork up to the LNB. I haven’t unhooked the other output mainly because I couldn’t climb on the roof lately (bad knees acting up). But I have hooked my DirecPC dish up, which is a single output LNB aimed at G3. Ran that line in and same issue. No power, even with the LNB set to 18

Standard DMSI dual .5 options are standard C, Standard KU or Universal


No splitters involved…no Diseqc switches. Straight shot from dish to receiver.

Only other option is different cable, but when I hooked up the Satwork I ran all new cable and the other receiver would control the polarity with no issues.

I’ll try the voltage thing and let you know.

 

[stardust1]

Pansat in standby-Satwork works and will blind scan both polarities

If the Pansat is on, the Satwork only works on the same polarity as the Pansat.

Well I still say hook a short coax jumper to the satwork lnb connector and check the voltage for each polarity. Maybe the satwork is only putting out on one polarity. Then when it's slaved the pansat is supplying voltage for the other. That would explain why it works when hooked to the pansat.

 

[Mr Tony]

Iceberg
have you a 0/12 switch or other switch or the cable go direct to the LNBF?

no switches..straight shot to LNB

 

[Mr Tony]

Perhaps I am mistaken, but I thought the 13/18v setting was used when you use an LNB like the new quad-polar Invacom.

Thats needed to send power to the LNB. If its off, then no power is sent to the LNB

 

[Mr Tony]

Well, I downloaded some older firmware into it (the previous update) and same thing.

I hook the line from my DirecPC dish and can get CCTV in right away (the dish is at G3) but a minute later it goes bye bye...it loses signal.

So now I have the most up to date firmware....I guess I'll just leave this as a slaved unit

Maybe this weekend I'll grab a meter and check voltage coming out.

 

[Mr Tony]

well...I gave up

sent the unit back for repair to see what the heck is wrong

 

[stardust1]

I would be interested in knowing what was wrong if you find anything out.

 

[Mr Tony]

I'll let ya know once I find out