Sick Diamond 9000 / Invacom ?

[B.J.]

In another thread, I posted that while using my Diamond 9000 trying to see Ciel-2, which is low on my horizon through the trees, that it looked like something shorted out. It was during a rainstorm, and it's possible that somehow I got water into either the Invacom lnbf or my 4x1 diseqC switch, but I'm just guessing there, because I immediately connected another receiver, and it was seeing the signal I HAD been looking at.

But anyway, I played around with my Twinhan receiver for a while, and for a while was getting some signals, but not good results, then finally switched to my old Fortec Ultra, which "seemed" to be working. Then I decided to try to switch back to the Diamond, however it wouldn't come up. It would come up on OTA channels, but when I'd try to bring it up on a sat channel, I'd get an error which said something like "LNB FAULT" or something. Disconnected the COAX, and it comes up without the error. Connect the coax to my Ultra, and slave the Diamond through a DC block, and the Diamond works fine, and plays the channels.

So I thought that perhaps the coax to the dish was shorted out enough to cause it to draw too much current, so I started doing some current measurements, however I'm not sure how to interpret them.

C-band LNB from Drake..... didn't even register on mA meter. (this lnb works fine).

Coax to SG2100-->diseqC switch--> 4 different lnbfs over 150 mA (motor not moving)

4 ports of an old partially functional Invacom.... each port in 60-80 mA range.

4 ports on the Invacom I'm using.... 1 port near zero (wasn't using that one), the other ports in 50-100 mA range.

Anyway, I'm not sure how much current these lnbfs, motors and diseqC switches are supposed to draw. Does the 150 mA total seem excessive? Should the motor and DiseqC switches be drawing in the 70-80 mA range when not running.
It seemed strange that my C-band lnbf wouldn't even register, but the Invacom was drawing 50-100 mA. Is that normal? I guess that an LNBF has a bit of extra electronics for switching polarity, whereas the C-band lnb doesn't, but it doesn't seem like it should be that much of a difference.

Actually, my feeling is that none of these currents should be enough to kick the Diamond into the lnb fault error, as I think the motor will draw more than I'm measuring when it's running, so I'm fearing that my Diamond might have become crippled, and no longer be able to control the dish/lnbfs. I guess I'll have to just use it slaved from now on. :-(

I did notice one thing. When testing to see if the Diamond would kick out when connected to my OLD Invacom (not on the dish, and not through the motor/switch), the Diamond didn't kick into fault then, but it was interesting that since I wasn't locking a transponder, the receiver kept trying to send out DiseqC commands to the switch/motor. At the time, I was on a vertical transponder, ie 13V. Each couple seconds, it would switch back to 18V, and send out DiseqC commands, then switch back to 13V, looking for a lock. It never stopped doing this. If I switched into Dish Setting mode, it would stay on whatever polarity/setting I put it on. I think this is normal behavior, as I've seen the continual sending of DiseqC signals before on 2 other receivers, but I never noticed that it switches up to 18V before sending out the DiseqC commands. I guess that makes sense.

Anyway, I'm *HOPING* that if we ever get some dry weather here that maybe the system will dry out and the Diamond will come back to life, but I'm starting to think that I killed it, or at least made it only operational when slaved.

 

[Anole]

I've looked at the specs on LNBs (not necessarily the actual current), and the 60..100ma is the right range.
I've noticed some Invacoms are 100..150ma on their spec sheets.
Motors are often 50ma idling, 200..250ma running, and 300..350ma stalled or starting or whatever.
Diseqc switches go for 20..50ma.
(this is from memory)
Receivers should put out 500ma to power things.

The other day, SatAV posted a fix to receivers to put out more current.
Consisted of replacing the LNB voltage regulator with an LM317-T, if I recall.
edit:
Start reading the reference thread about here, and continue on down the page.

 

[B.J.]

I've looked at the specs on LNBs (not necessarily the actual current), and the 60..100ma is the right range.
I've noticed some Invacoms are 100..150ma on their spec sheets.
(this is from memory)
Motors are often 50ma idling, 200..250ma running, and 300..350ma stalled or starting or whatever.
Diseqc switches go for 20..50ma.
Receivers should put out 500ma to power things.

The other day, SatAV posted a fix to receivers to put out more current.
Consisted of replacing the LNB voltage regulator with an LM317-T, if I recall.

Not sure if this helps, but maybe a bit.

Thanks. That pretty much confirms that it's probably the Diamond at fault, unfortunately. I may try to do a reset to factory defaults thing to see if that helps, but if not, I guess I'll just use the thing slaved.

I guess one other thing I should try, is to see if the voltage is dropping on the Diamond right before it goes into fault mode, ie to see if it really isn't capable of delivering the current, or if there is some current sensing issue.

Too bad. Out of 11 FTA receivers I have used, the only one that has been trouble free is my first receiver, ie the Fortec Lifetime. Every "upgrade" receiver I've bought since that has given me problems in one way or another.

Anyway, thanks for the confirmation of the 60-100 mA current for the lnbfs .

 

[Corrado]

I'm not sure how the Diamond reacts, but I have accidentally hot swapped cables without issue and shorted cables with poor cable fittings over the years. Most receivers reboot in cycles when shorting occurs.

I know with mine that without the coax connected to screen just says something like no signal. I've had it powered a few times while playing around with channel list while disconnected from the dishes.

Any chance a channel list data is corrupted? I know with the Diamond the channel editor shows a lot more detail than the screen does.

 

[B.J.]

I'm not sure how the Diamond reacts, but I have accidentally hot swapped cables without issue and shorted cables with poor cable fittings over the years. Most receivers reboot in cycles when shorting occurs.

I know with mine that without the coax connected to screen just says something like no signal. I've had it powered a few times while playing around with channel list while disconnected from the dishes.

Any chance a channel list data is corrupted? I know with the Diamond the channel editor shows a lot more detail than the screen does.

Re channel list, yeah, I guess that's a possibility. I had used the editor about 6 times yesterday, changing names of channels, and adding new channels.

When this occurred, I had just been sitting on a transponder for more than a half hour, while using 2 receivers, one that was connected via the DC-blocked passthru, and another that was connected via a DC=blocked "T". I think I lost signal on the Diamond after I connected a receiver on the "T". I decided that I should check that "T" to make sure it still only passed power on 1 leg, but I can't quite figure it out. The "T" doesn't show continuity between either legs. I thought that perhaps it was a diode thing whereby it needed a minimum voltage before it conducted, so I hooked it up to LNBF power. Still no continuity. I guess that it must require some current to flow before it conducts??? Strange. I think I'm going back to regular direct connect "T"s with a DC block on one leg, instead of this power passing "T".

EDIT: Had the power reversed when I tested with 18V. The "T" was good. Although I had THOUGHT that it wasn't one of those diode type "T"s, but I guess it was.

 

[B.J.]

Update:
I was about to hook up the Channel Master sat meter that has V/mA/22KHz indicators, and watch while I boot up the diamond to see if the voltage drops, and/or current changes prior to going into LNB Fault mode.
Well the good news is that for some unknown reason, perhaps leaving it off all night long, or perhaps that it's no longer raining, and the sun is shining, and my switch and lnbf might have dried out... ....

the darn thing works this morning.


The bad news is that the 2nd sat I turned it to, to check was one which had some nice hidden (manual PID) channels. They were there yesterday, but today they're gone.
Well, you win some and lose some. I think I may do some waterproofing around that LNBF today. I used to keep it in a plastic bag, but the bag fell off. I guess I'll put a new one on.