V-box II question

[Arion]

Hi all;

Ordered a 10' c-band dish kit from Tek-2000 [I'll do a dish review with pics after install] and they included a V-box II mover. They call it a Superjack but it's definitely a V-box. The manual that comes with it is a translation from Chinese I believe and it doesn't tell you very much.

I take it that you can save sat positions using the box and then use your receiver and set each satellite to Diseqc 1.2 and put the position in the receiver for each satellite that you saved with the V-box and then the receiver sends the commands and you don't have to monkey with the mover.

The question I have is that after locating and saving your true south satellite how do you locate the other birds in the arc? Specifically the display show pulse counts from the actuator. The question I have is how many pulse per degree of arc are there with this box or does it differ from mover to mover? Would it be 10 counts per degree or 20 counts, ect?

I'm waiting on the pole to arrive before I can do the install but thought I would throw out my question to make it easier when it comes to program the box.

Thanks in advance!!

 

[KE4EST]

PPD will depend on the dish, the actuator and which satellites you are counting between. It will change as you go through the arc.
Satellites on your horizon will have fewer counts between them, as opposed to ones near true south.

 

[sgs]

Pulse counts are dependent on the mover (actuator or "arm") that you are using. Some are around 10 per degree but there is no guarantee, and it is different towards the horizon as KE4EST says.

I suggest you manually move it with the remote East/West buttons while getting the dish aligned to the arc, otherwise if you have to adjust the dish, the positions need to be re-saved on your receiver.

Once the dish is aligned really well, pull the actuator all the way in, move it out to the first satellite you can pick up, and set that at zero on the remote (press and hold "reset" for 10 seconds). After that, use the receiver to store the positions across the arc.

On that vbox there is also the concept of "limits" which can be set, where the counter on the vbox will not go beyond. The remote will have a "limit" button to do that. It's a nice fail-safe in addition to the limits on the actuator itself. When you first get the vbox it might have a limit at 000 for example, so you might need to adjust that if you want to move into negative numbers. HTH

sgs

 

[Arion]

O.K.

I've rarely used Diseqc 1.2 before except to fine tune. So I take it the way to find the other birds would be once I'm on true south satellite [which would be 87w for me] that I would put a known transponder for say 91W into the receiver and just slowly move the dish west until I get a lock and then wash, rinse and repeat for the other satellites?

 

[KE4EST]

That is correct. DiSEqC 1.2 is not automatic like USALS. You will have to move fine tune and save for each satellite. Once done though, it will stay. You can always fine tune down the road, with no issues.

 

[Arion]

Thanks!

This will be interesting. I had the dish delivered at my work address and the panel sections alone filled the bed of my pickup truck and the other box that I guess has the mount is almost as big. I've got #500 of cement mix at the house and the pole is supposed to arrive next week. Other than that the biggest dish I ever put in was my 1.2 meter dish so this will be an adventure. The reward will be worth it though.

 

[bpalone]

After you get the dish together, might want to do a string test, just to be sure, and allow you to adjust panels if not. Then measure the depth of the dish at the center to the string. Write that number down and keep it just in case you have issues getting it tuned in properly. My dish from them, didn't measure up as their specs state and I had to relocate the feed support arms to get the Feed Horn in the right place. Hopefully, you don't have any issues. I spent days checking and rechecking, before I came to the point that the only thing I hadn't checked were their numbers. After checking those and correcting, it has been fine.

Good luck and above all, have fun.

 

[Arion]

Thanks!

I've read that thread that you started a few different times and I'll first start off with their measurements but if it's not working out then I'll remember what you had to do. The pole should arrive the middle of the week and I hope to cement it by Thurs or Fri and I'll start assembling the dish the week after as I want to let the cement cure for several days. One thing I will say so far is that they did a fantastic job with shipping the dish and accessories. Everything was double boxed with a lot of foam peanuts and copious amounts of tape. I remember from the other reviews the damage that occurred to the boxes during shipping and that wasn't the case for me. I do have one of Titanium's PLL Lnb's that I used when for giggles I put it on my 1.2 meter dish and was actually pretty impressed that a dish that small could pick up quite a bit on c-band so it will be a real treat to see what a dialed in 10' dish can do.

 

[FTA4PA]

Thanks!

One thing I will say so far is that they did a fantastic job with shipping the dish and accessories. Everything was double boxed with a lot of foam peanuts and copious amounts of tape. I remember from the other reviews the damage that occurred to the boxes during shipping and that wasn't the case for me.

I bought one of their 8 foot mesh dishes back in 2014 when they first started selling (still using it today). Yes, they definitely had some shipping issues back then but glad to hear they have improved. Enjoy!

 

[Lone Gunman]

Might I suggest that instead of using your first East or West satellite as your "ZERO" point for your Vbox II, instead use the "hard stop limit switch" in the actuator for that. The first satellite is an "unknown" and if you have to reprogram your Vbox you'll have to go fishing to find it whereas the East and West TRAVEL LIMIT IN THE ACTUATOR is always going to be the same.

Example: On my systems I use the East limit switch in the actuator as a starting point and BTW, you can use the West limit switch if you like. Each Satellite is numbered chronologically after that all the way across the arc. So my first satellite is #1 for 37.4w and my last satellite is #57 for139w. Position #0 in the Vbox is set for one click West of the "East Limit Switch". Position #58 is set for one click East of the West Limit Switch.

The reason for starting at the limit switch is when you have to reprogram your Vbox satellite positions, and you will at some point I assure you, then all you need to do is run the dish to the limit switch, bump it one click in the opposite direction and "ZERO" the count and then start programing Satellite positions from a Satellite list you made when you FIRST found them.

I'm going to try to upload my satellite list, which isn't current BTW but it will give you an idea of how to do this. And note that there's two columns to put count numbers in mine because I have more than one system. If you don't have more than one then yours only needs one column for count numbers.

 

[KE4EST]

Lone Gunman that almost looks like my list for my old vbox, but I can't see good past 131W for trees and much past 50W on the other side.
So I had somewhere in the upper 40's for sat positions, so what I did was skip numbers so I could add something in between later if needed.
P2, P4, P6,...

 

[Arion]

What I've been thinking of doing and it would make it easier to set up in the receiver is to assign the orbital slot of the satellite to the v-box. My due south is 87deg so that would be 87 on the v-box and when I get to 101 that would be position 01 and 105 would be 05 ectera. But once it's set up then it shouldn't matter so much as if the satellite position for each bird is setup in the receiver then it should be seamless [I hope]. I unpacked all the boxes this morning and I'm impressed with how dang big the back ring and everything else is on this. I'm glad that detailed instructions were posted in a thread on another forum because there wasn't much in the box besides the flyer on the length of the lnb support rods and depending on the length is how far down you have to look for the holes to mount the rods. It looks like they took the two boxes that the dish came in from China and then put another box and wrap around that box and filled the void with styro peanuts. Very nice packing job. Now just need to get the pole delivered......

Thanks everyone for your help and I might changed the title of the thread and use this existing thread to ask more questions as I put everything together as this is my first dance with a big dish so there is a learning curve but since I can throw up a motorized KU dish with no trouble I'm pretty confident that a lot of that will be the same on the big dish except the scale of course is much bigger.