H180, 6foot dish, C&Ku Analog, DVB & DCII

[pmb1010]

Oh the wind was amazing this past Sunday. So much whistling and racket, that I thought it was going to blow my house off its foundation. I think it spun my 31" inch dish out of alignment.

The wind blew down a big 90 foot tree 2 doors down from me (one of the 5 big "sticks" of what used to be in my way of G10R). It lays across my neighbors yard. He's 89 so I know I'll be out there when spring comes helping cut it up.

And, it did blow my 6 foot/H180 motor out of alignment. Someone warned me that the combo was fragile, it's not fullly broken but it does seem quite sloppy at this point. I've had to adjust it on the pole a couple times now. Not sure what's out of alignment exactly, it's 9 degrees out and I dont want to drag the receiver/TV out there.

[pmb1010]

Will take pictures and post later.

We again had some major winds today (gusts up to, and probably over 30mph) and I look out, there's the 6 foot dish on the ground.
The H180 motor broke at the casting between the base, and the motor part with the gears - literally split in 2 pieces. Sure doesn't look like it's fabricated strong enough, if what I looked at was the point of failure.
With the temp currently 20 below zero (with the wind) diagnosis of this will have to wait.

Someone else warned me about the weakness of this motor. Now I know. I cannot recommend anyone buy this motor anywhere there's wind. It won't survive.

My 4 foot and HH120 motor is still on the pole it's been on for a long time. It's not active right now and out alignment, but that will now be my dish to ressurect when it gets warmer.

The dish doesn't look too bad, the mounting arms for the LNBF are collapsed. I'm sure they will need to be replaced. Sux...

--- Was looking at the Polar mount for the 6 foot dish. Might be thinking of retrofitting it onto this as the H180 is going to be scrap now... I can't see where it pivots from the pictures on Sadoun's site for it. Maybe it's just the view of the JPG's.

[rainman]

Hate to here it PMB we had some 40 mph winds here yesterday luckly my dishes survived maybe look around and find yourself a used mesh dish may withstand the winds a little better.

[pmb1010]

it wasn't the dish - it was the mount (motor) that failed!

[elgemcdlf]

it wasn't the dish - it was the mount (motor) that failed!

Actually it probably was the dish. Being a solid dish it caught wind instead of much passing through as a mesh dish does. This caused untold stress on the motor casing which led to breakage. The motor casing itself may be of poor design but the dish catching all that air definitely helped with the demise.

I would not think a motor rated for the size dish it had installed would break under 30mph winds.

[Vitruvius]

This has me worried. We had tremendous winds yesterday and I have mounted my 180cm dish with HH180 motor on a nice 2 1/2" pole. I haven't connected the wires yet so it is not in use. I didn't check the dish and motor yet.
The weather man said we were to get 50 mph winds....

PMB, could you have had a defective motor assembly? I'll let you know as soon as I can check it how my dish is.

[rainman]

Actually it probably was the dish. Being a solid dish it caught wind instead of much passing through as a mesh dish does. This caused untold stress on the motor casing which led to breakage. The motor casing itself may be of poor design but the dish catching all that air definitely helped with the demise.

I would not think a motor rated for the size dish it had installed would break under 30mph winds.

plus the polar mounts on these dishes ar a whole lot stronger.

[lumpkin666]

Actually it probably was the dish. Being a solid dish it caught wind instead of much passing through as a mesh dish does. This caused untold stress on the motor casing which led to breakage. The motor casing itself may be of poor design but the dish catching all that air definitely helped with the demise. .

Maybe with small winds, but I've read about this several times, and it seems that at a certain wind velocity, a mesh dish does not allow wind to pass through the small holes enough to make the wind strain any lighter. An article I had read on this subject referred to the mesh dish as being "seen" as a solid in the respect of wind resistance beginning at a relatively low wind speed.

[ayelvington]

I am really watching this closely since this is the identical system that I currently have stored waiting for installation. I'm very interested to see the photos since they will tell a lot.

Very sorry to hear about your neighbor's tree (even if it was blocking G10R). I'm curious to hear if the owner misses it.

Sorry to hear about your loss. I'm really going to start looking for a used BUD to liberate and re-use.

Al

[pmb1010]

Here are a couple pictures of the failure area on the motor.
It's literally split in half.
I put a red box around the area thats common to both halves.

It's only about 1/8", with maybe 3 or 4 1/4" ribs of whatever the material is - zinc or aluminum. In my opinion, that is woefully inadequate.

What I think happened is the wind would cycle the dish up & down, just enough to stress the area shown. Just like bending a paperclip back & forth, eventually it stress fails and breaks.

When it warms up (it's still 20 degrees here, but at least the sun was shining) I'll remove the motor from the 6 foot dish and put the halves back together to see if things could be stregthened, perhaps by drilling the base and bolting on a steel support plate with a dozen small pan head screws.