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

[elgemcdlf]

That doesn't look like a very good design. I would have thought large U-bolts going all the way through the housing. I do believe if the motor was mounted in that fashion it would not have let go.

[Vitruvius]

I am yelling and screaming myself... The winds snapped my newly installed motor in a very similar way. Snapped right at the point where the adjusting bolt anchors to the bottom cast aluminum motor casing. The wind swung the dish over and bent it. This is a horrible design and is obviously not meant to hold the 180cm dish even though the motor is named HH180. I hope Sadoun can help us out on this. I spent about 16 hours setting this assembly up and I never had it working.

[pmb1010]

What a shame. I feel bad for you.

I'll probably put the motor in a box and send it to the president of Moteck with a sarcastic "thank you" note.

[rainman]

Yeah that look like it could have been prevented if they would have used a little steel in it. Maybe a letter to Motec might get them thinking about a recall on the motor or at least a upgrade to a little bit of steel.

[1captain]

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.

Yes you are 100 percent correct, on the wind speed a mess dish is the same a solid dish at 60mph or more, an most dishes here (south FL) that fail with high winds turns the mess dish into a clam, an solids will bend, if not spin around on the pole.

but in the picture it looks like a poor design, of the parts that broke, cant see for sure in picture if it was made out of pot (kind of looks like it) metal, an pot metal doent take any bending at all then it breaks. an if it was steel probably be ok.

[Vitruvius]

I emailed the company, Moteck and will see what they say about their poor design. Attached are pictures of my damaged motor and kinked dish... I will be contacting Sadoun.

[Vitruvius]

PMB1010, What have you done with your dish and motor? Have you reinstalled the assembly? I just finished some wiring I had to do and may set up the 6 ft dish as a fixed dish. I don't know about getting another motor..
I wonder if the dish can be converted to a polar mount with an acuator attached to it.

[pmb1010]

nothing.
I put my 30" and SM312D motor back up on the pole this was on, so I could watch something.

I have not decided what to do, in light of DVB-S2 and rumors of 6' not being big enough.
Yes you can put polar mount on w/actuator, to fix my dish up with that setup was about $150 from Sadoun.
I just don't want to put good money after bad.

So it sits in my summer screen room. I'll have to do something with it soom, either put it back up or take it apart and store it. And here I went and cut down that big tree that was in the way.
I am *very* disappointed in the outcome of all this.

[Vitruvius]

Ok, I tried fixing the motor. I got some epoxy and 1-1/2" steel angles and epoxied them to the bottom plate that was broken. I bent the plate right around the pivot point of the adjusting bolt. I also had to do some minor wiring repair. It seemed to hold. I was excited that this may work. I re-installed the motor on the pole and put the dish on the repaired motor. Wow... it looked good. Then I went to the neighbor's for a little while and when I returned I found the dish slumped over again. The epoxy had ripped apart. Cheap stuff I guess.

I sent the motor back to Sadoun, and they are sending me a new one, which I suspect may break again... Perhaps the dish will be destined to be a fixed installation. I'll need to be very selective on which satellite to align to.... I am tempted to aim to 127 to view BBC... any suggestions?

[rainman]

Is there anyway you can brace the new motor before you install it?