V-Box problem/glitch?

[. Raine]

I had an odd thing happen this morning with my V-Box 7 and was wondering if anyone would know why this happened, so I can keep it from happening again. I wanted to find out what the actual space was that my 9' C-band dish took up within it's full range of movement so I moved the dish all the way to one side with the V-Box remote, then moved it to centered, then all the way back to the other side.

When I went back inside, when I selected a channel on the receiver the V-Box would go straight to 000 on all sats instead of the positions programmed for them.
I moved to a few sats and then hit store for the positions and they worked fine but are now at different numbers on the V-Box. Before I'd had 000 as center of the arc on the V-Box and now it's at like 1400 or so. The dish didn't move on the pole, the gears didn't slip on the mount, I have all that stuff marked and it's the same as before and I had limits set in the V-Box for just before both ends of the dish's travel range.

I've moved the dish all the way from one side and then back to the other again before and never had it do this, don't understand what caused it.

The dish is the 9' Radio Shack with HH mount and V-Box 7, one 4x1 diseqc switch going to the C dish and my Ku dish. The receiver is an X-2, but all the settings and everything seemed to be fine in that. The Ku dish still worked fine, using USALS for that, diseqc 1.2 for the C dish. Maybe reed switch or whatever in the motor on the C dish?

 

[Pixl]

You may have hit the mechanical limit at one end or the other. The motor keeps trying to move and messes up the "count".
More of a positioner problem than is a V-box problem. Re-cal all of your positions and try to stay away from the extreme East or West.

 

[. Raine]

You may have hit the mechanical limit at one end or the other. The motor keeps trying to move and messes up the "count".
More of a positioner problem than is a V-box problem. Re-cal all of your positions and try to stay away from the extreme East or West.

Probably it, I hope so. I did have the software limits in the V-Box set, but right at the very end of the dish's range of movement, maybe a half inch before it hits the hardware limits. I'll set them for further in and stay away from the extreme edges, there's nothing I can receive way over at either end anyway. The dish does really zip right along when it's moving. If it did hit the hardware limit I would think that it wouldn't take much time at all to mess up the count. Thanks, Pixl.

 

[Lone Gunman]

I may be wrong here but doesn't that counter circuit/reed switch have 5 volts on it all the time? I mean there's two different circuits in that Vbox, ie, 24/36v for the motor and 5v for the reed switch, right? They have to do this to keep the counts correct when power goes off to the motor to stop it at certain positions in the arc? As far as I know, those motors do NOT have brakes on them that activate when power goes off so it's going to coast XX amount before it stops turning after the power is shut off? The actuator hardware limit does NOT shut off the power in the Vbox. You get the "Error" message because the shaft STOPPED turning but power is still going to the Vbox side of that actuator limit switch.

FYI, I use the hardware East limit switch in the actuator as a "zero" position for both my systems as it's a known. I run to the East limit switch then zero the Vbox via the reset button and start from there going West with P numbers for satellite locations. I have a setup sheet that I record each P number and count number from the Vbox so I can easily reprogram the Vbox if needed. Takes less than 5 minutes to do that.

Having said all that, these Vbox controllers will just go bonkers sometimes and require a "redoo" in order to make them work correctly again.

 

[. Raine]

I may be wrong here but doesn't that counter circuit/reed switch have 5 volts on it all the time? I mean there's two different circuits in that Vbox, ie, 24/36v for the motor and 5v for the reed switch, right? They have to do this to keep the counts correct when power goes off to the motor to stop it at certain positions in the arc? As far as I know, those motors do NOT have brakes on them that activate when power goes off so it's going to coast XX amount before it stops turning after the power is shut off? The actuator hardware limit does NOT shut off the power in the Vbox. You get the "Error" message because the shaft STOPPED turning but power is still going to the Vbox side of that actuator limit switch.

FYI, I use the hardware East limit switch in the actuator as a "zero" position for both my systems as it's a known. I run to the East limit switch then zero the Vbox via the reset button and start from there going West with P numbers for satellite locations. I have a setup sheet that I record each P number and count number from the Vbox so I can easily reprogram the Vbox if needed. Takes less than 5 minutes to do that.

Having said all that, these Vbox controllers will just go bonkers sometimes and require a "redoo" in order to make them work correctly again.

Yeah, definitely no brakes and no coasting, power is off and it stops. I don't know exactly what happened, but I think Pixl is probably right. I may have even forgotten to set the software limits last time I redid all the positions in the V-Box. Think I did set them, but it's possible that I didn't, trying to hurry things.

Was strange though, all three times I moved the dish this morning I didn't get an error message, just a normal position number. It was on a position number with no error when I switched to a channel and it went from -400 or so to 000 and then error and then all sats were just 000 and error, and the dish swung all the way West.

I don't know how the reed switch and sensor work actually, other than a general idea, I've never had to fix one yet. I use 000 as my center of the arc position for the same reason you use it for your East limit, a known position and also equal amounts of travel with the V-Box, 999 below zero and the same above, even though just 999 on one side is enough for all of the sats that I track. I also have a setup sheet with P positions and count numbers.

Redid it all this afternoon and it seems all right, hopefully it stays that way.

 

[Lone Gunman]

I'll bet your first dish was a motorised Ku and you used USALS for positioning. Hence the due south zero. On my setups I go from 000 up starting with the East hardware limit then 37W is position 2. My West hardware limit is 989 on my Winegard and 856 on my Unimesh.

All satellites in my receivers have the same P numbers in both my systems. I've got 6 receivers and all 6 of those use those same P numbers for satellite locations so I can swap them between systems without having to change anything in the setups.

Damn, I just love this "technology" stuff!! (when it works correctly that is)

 

[Magic Static]

FYI, I use the hardware East limit switch in the actuator as a "zero" position for both my systems as it's a known. I run to the East limit switch then zero the Vbox via the reset button and start from there going West with P numbers for satellite locations. I have a setup sheet that I record each P number and count number from the Vbox so I can easily reprogram the Vbox if needed. Takes less than 5 minutes to do that.

This is good if you don't need more than a thousand counts to cover your dish travel. The VBox provides 2000 counts and when you reset the VBox it goes to 1000, (000.) on the display. The (.) indicates a count over 1000. So when you reset the VBox it goes to the center of it's travel range.
A note about coasting: I have a VBox running a modded sensor in an AJAK. At 20 counts per degree and 2 degrees per second this thing flies. If it over runs the position the VBox simply reverses the power and backs up a click to the correct number.

 

[. Raine]

I'll bet your first dish was a motorised Ku and you used USALS for positioning. Hence the due south zero. On my setups I go from 000 up starting with the East hardware limit then 37W is position 2. My West hardware limit is 989 on my Winegard and 856 on my Unimesh.

All satellites in my receivers have the same P numbers in both my systems. I've got 6 receivers and all 6 of those use those same P numbers for satellite locations so I can swap them between systems without having to change anything in the setups.



Damn, I just love this "technology" stuff!! (when it works correctly that is)

My first dish was a motorized Ku using USALS. Well, fixed for a month or two and then a motor went on to it.

It just seemed to make sense to do it that way, 000 in the center and equal amounts of travel either way. I can see the advantage of using the East hardware limit like you do though. No matter what, that position won't change. I also have some stone markers in my yard for certain positions, like true South. One of my neighbors jokes with me about it being a mini Stonehenge and doesn't seem to believe me when I tell him it's just because I got tired of compasses not reading consistently here.

Definitely an advantage to having the same P numbers in all receivers. I only have one receiver that I use right now but I'm planning on buying a MicroHd soon.