reciever or motor?

[Charlie Baker]

I am trying to set up an fta, my first one. I have had several equipment problems, making me more confused and unsure all the time. I finally got what I thought I needed Thursday, put my pole in the ground Friday, and have been trying to set up my system today.
I have a 100 cm fortec dish, invacom quad lbn, mercury II receiver and an hh100 motor, I also have the 22khz switch. I put it all together today, tuned into a strong signal on ia5, then shut everything off to take off my signal meter and hook things up permanent. After I reconnected the cables, the motor would not move. I messed with the cables for awhile, finally took of the switch, and the motor moved, but instead of going to ia5, it went all the way to the westward limit. I then hit "go to 0," and it went past 0 to the east side, then came back to about 20 degrees east of 0. Every time I hit "go to position" it goes to the westward limit. Does anyone know what might have happened or what might be wrong?
I have been reading post this last week and see that I am not the first one to have problems setting things up.
When I first learned about fta, I thought, "why don't more people use this and know about this, everything I watch is up there free." Now I am beginning to see why. I believe that nothing is easy, but right now I can't see the light at the end(is there an end?) of the tunnel and I don't like the dark.
Thanks for any help or suggestions.
charlie

[wejones]

Originally Posted by Charlie Baker

I am trying to set up an fta, my first one. I have had several equipment problems, making me more confused and unsure all the time. I finally got what I thought I needed Thursday, put my pole in the ground Friday, and have been trying to set up my system today.
I have a 100 cm fortec dish, invacom quad lbn, mercury II receiver and an hh100 motor, I also have the 22khz switch. I put it all together today, tuned into a strong signal on ia5, then shut everything off to take off my signal meter and hook things up permanent. After I reconnected the cables, the motor would not move. I messed with the cables for awhile, finally took of the switch, and the motor moved, but instead of going to ia5, it went all the way to the westward limit. I then hit "go to 0," and it went past 0 to the east side, then came back to about 20 degrees east of 0. Every time I hit "go to position" it goes to the westward limit. Does anyone know what might have happened or what might be wrong?
I have been reading post this last week and see that I am not the first one to have problems setting things up.
When I first learned about fta, I thought, "why don't more people use this and know about this, everything I watch is up there free." Now I am beginning to see why. I believe that nothing is easy, but right now I can't see the light at the end(is there an end?) of the tunnel and I don't like the dark.
Thanks for any help or suggestions.
charlie

Check to make sure you don't have east longitude rather than west programmed in for your location and/or the sat's location.

Also, where do you have the switch installed? Hopefully after the motor?

[Charlie Baker]

The switch is a bit fuzzy to me, I hope I have it right. I have the cable coming out of the lnb side of the motor going into the middle port of the switch. The A side(of the switch) goes to the L port on the lnb, the B side goes to the C port.
Regarding the longitude, it is still west.
I have read about resetting the motors, and I wonder if that is it. I also remember reading something about shutting the receiver off before the motor finished moving(I didn't do that) but I still wonder if I did something wrong that caused it to get lost out of sync. If I can't get the usals back, can I still program it in diseqc? I will sure be glad when I can get some results. Thanks, charlie

[rainman]

I had this to happen to my HH100 one time after doing a factory reset on the receiver then sending the motor to zero all was ok.

[Charlie Baker]

How do I do a factory reset, and how do I reset the motor to 0?

[rainman]

check your onwers manual for the mercury it will tell you how to do a factory reset then just use the receiver to tell the motor to go to zero.

[Charlie Baker]

I did the receiver reset, then, go to 0, but in usals, the motor still goes all the way to the west limit, and stops there. If I go back to 0, if I try to get out of usals, it goes to position, which is all the way to the west.
I have programmed it in diseqc, and it works, but it will not work on usals. Any ideas?

[rainman]

Originally Posted by Charlie Baker

I did the receiver reset, then, go to 0, but in usals, the motor still goes all the way to the west limit, and stops there. If I go back to 0, if I try to get out of usals, it goes to position, which is all the way to the west.
I have programmed it in diseqc, and it works, but it will not work on usals. Any ideas?

that does sound weird do you have your lat and longitude program in to usuals with N and W. as S and E will make things weird.also if you can borrow another receiver you could try that.

[Charlie Baker]

I called fortec tech support, and they told me that my micro processor in the motor is bad.
My question is this: The 22 khz switch seemed to act funny to me. In diseqc mode, when I would move the motor by step movement, the switch would click and buzz, and sometimes the motor would not do anything, by pressing the step move again, then at times the motor would move. Is that normal? Do you think the problem could partly be the switch? I don't want to put the new motor on and have the switch cause another problem.
If the switch was acting up, could it have weakened my signal?

[wejones]

Originally Posted by Charlie Baker

I called fortec tech support, and they told me that my micro processor in the motor is bad.
My question is this: The 22 khz switch seemed to act funny to me. In diseqc mode, when I would move the motor by step movement, the switch would click and buzz, and sometimes the motor would not do anything, by pressing the step move again, then at times the motor would move. Is that normal? Do you think the problem could partly be the switch? I don't want to put the new motor on and have the switch cause another problem.
If the switch was acting up, could it have weakened my signal?

I don't have any specific ideas that would be useful, particularly because I don't have the motor you have. However I would suggest to think twice before accepting what one manufacturer says about another manufacturer's product. I'd bet that if you talked to the motor company they'd blame it on the receiver.

Re the switch buzzing, I don't have a 22khz switch, however diseqc commands are sent over a 22khz carrier, so it makes sense that the switch would react to the diseqc commands. I have a meter that senses 22khz, and when I send diseqc commands, the 22khz blinks, as it should. I'm not sure about the buzzing part though.

Re whether the switch could weaken the signal, since the switch is after the motor, you normally wouldn't think so, however if it is somehow shorting out, I guess it's possible.

Again, I don't have that motor, but I'm a little confused. From reading your symptoms, it seems to me, that you may just need to do a hard reset on the motor, however I looked at a manual, and it doesn't look like this motor has a reset button, but instead that it only has some reset/resync commands that can be sent by some receivers. On my SG2100, if you manually move the motor to it's actual zero, then do a reset, it calibrates the position of the zero position. I'm not sure if that will work with this motor or not, but before giving up on it, it's worth a try.

The other thing I'm confused about, is that in the manual I've downloaded (I think I got it off the Saduon site, but maybe not), there doesn't seem to be any mention of the HH100 being USALS compatable. It makes me think that perhaps there was an early version of this motor which doesn't do USALS, and a later version that does. So I'm curious whether you got this motor new? From Sadoun? Or from Ebay? And does the manual mention USALS?

Even if you do have a motor that does USALS, you were mentioning using some commands that are in diseqc-1.2 mode, and other commands that are USALS commands. You often get confusing results when trying to switch back and forth between USALS and diseqc-1.2. Different receivers do different things when you go out of one of these two modes. I'm still confused by my 2 lifetime/ultra receivers and the Mercury with respect to when it will decide to send commands to make the motor move. But one thing is for sure, and that is that the goto position command in diseqC-1.2 isn't the same as the goto position command in USALS. The former tells the motor to go to a position stored in the motor (and the Mercury receiver has been found to get it's memory scrambled with respect to which motor position corresponds to what satellite, particularly if you have ever added a sat or deleted a sat. Basically the Mercury receiver does not have a fully implimented diseqC1.2 ). The USALS command, on the other hand tells the motor to go to an angle it computes, and that angle is relative to where the motor thinks it's zero position is, so if the motor's zero position is off, then it will go to the wrong position.

Anyway a few more things to think about.

[elgemcdlf]

Ok start by removing the switch totally. Connect the lnb side of teh motor to a L port on the lnbf. Connect the receiver side of the motor to the receiver. I would be doing this out at the motor with a small tv and the receiver with short pieces of coax. I assume you are using RG6 cable rated for sat usage. A bad coax could cause your problem. If the problem persists after doing this I would guess along with Fortec the motor is the culprit.

The switch should be installed between the motor and lnbf not the receiver and motor. As long as you have things connected this way the switch should not cause any problems with the motor as data is passing between the motor and receiver with no switch involvement. I am with Rainman & Bill on double checking your USALS location settings. Having either set to the opposite will create interesting things as well.

In closing these are small inexpensive pieces (when compared to C Band equipment) that are specialized. I do not hold much stock in their lifespans nor being good out of the box. I have a SG2100 that died after a year and a SMD series motor that is getting some time on it with no problem. Funny thing is the SG2100 has glowing reviews and the SMD series motors are not so good (in reviews from users). I have a dead lnbf that lasted about a year. I have never lost a lnb from a big dish although I might be about to replace one now but we are talking a very old lnb.

Just so all is clear neither the motor or the lnbf were purchased from Sadoun. It is the equipment I purchased form him that has stood the test of time so far with the exception of his Diseqc switches. I am still planning on sending them back for testing as he had asked for them some time back.

Didn't even think about not being USALS compatible as Bill noted as a potential cause. Definitely something else to look into.

[Charlie Baker]

Well, I'll try to respond, if I can remember everything. The motor not only labeled as usals, but, when I first hooked it up, it went to ia5 and I got a decent signal(after some adjustment). I had a signal meter inline between the motor and receiver, so I turned everything off and removed the meter. When I reconnected the cables, that is when the motor started to act up. After thinking about your reply "The switch should be installed between the motor and lnbf not the receiver and motor. As long as you have things connected this way the switch should not cause any problems with the motor as data is passing between the motor and receiver with no switch involvement." I started to think and it makes sense. I believe I do have it hooked up correctly, from the LNB, L goes to A side on switch, C goes to B side on switch, and the middle port on switch goes to LNB port on motor. But, if the micro processor is bad, then instead of the signal moving the motor, it is running amuck and causing the switch to click.
Fortec is the distributor of the motor, and the tech acted as if it is not uncommon for this to happen. He suggested that the signal meter could have caused the problem by altering or sending signals of its own to the motor. He said to throw the meter away and use the receiver.
The reason I asked about the switch weakening the signal, I have not been able to tune in white springs tv, I could have the wrong transponder # though, someone answered my post and said that they had moved. I was confused because I got a weak signal when looking for tp 11964, which is where lyngsat said it is. When I get back up and running, I will do a blind scan and see what happens.
I appreciate everyone's advice, it does feel good when you finally tune in a signal.

[Charlie Baker]

I forgot, this is a package I just got from sadoun, everything is new and from them.

[Charlie Baker]

concerning the usals and disqec, I started off in usals, but when it went haywire, it would only go to the west limit, and not anything else. I switched to disqec and was able to load a few sats in, but then the motor quit completely.