HH90 Problems!!!:(

[lspowers]

Hello fellow FTAers. I have been dealing with problems with my HH90 motor since I bought it a year ago and would like some feedback from all of you that may have a similar experience. First my setup: Fortec Lifetime Ultra, orig, factory software(their latest version) less then 75 feet of RG6 cable with gold plated connectors with weather shields, fortec 80cm dish, Fortec universal lnbf, no switches installed and a Stabb HH90 motor. The problem, the motor will turn the dish to the right sat, but then it will return to reference or true south sat position, then back to the right sat location, then back again to ref. position.... my dish looks like a room fan moving back and forth. Sometimes, if the sat is close the the one it is on, will move without a problem, but sometimes it will not and will do the back and forth routine. I brought this problem to the attention of Stabb, and they forwarded my emails to Fortec and asked me to contact them directly. I did, and their solution was to send me a new circuit to replace the one that was in the motor. I replaced the old for the new, but the problems persist. I reran a new cable to see if that was the problem, and it was not. I have checked all of my connectors and they are all sound with no damage or weather entry. What is going on here?!?!?!? This is really driving me bonkers and I am ready to through it in the garbage. I am proud of my self being able to set up the darn motor system, which is in pretty good alignment(from PAS-9 58W to G10R at 123W with pretty decent quailty through the arc) but this problem with the motor is the rain on my parade. Any ideas????

[wejones]

Originally Posted by lspowers

Hello fellow FTAers. I have been dealing with problems with my HH90 motor since I bought it a year ago and would like some feedback from all of you that may have a similar experience. First my setup: Fortec Lifetime Ultra, orig, factory software(their latest version) less then 75 feet of RG6 cable with gold plated connectors with weather shields, fortec 80cm dish, Fortec universal lnbf, no switches installed and a Stabb HH90 motor. The problem, the motor will turn the dish to the right sat, but then it will return to reference or true south sat position, then back to the right sat location, then back again to ref. position.... my dish looks like a room fan moving back and forth. Sometimes, if the sat is close the the one it is on, will move without a problem, but sometimes it will not and will do the back and forth routine. I brought this problem to the attention of Stabb, and they forwarded my emails to Fortec and asked me to contact them directly. I did, and their solution was to send me a new circuit to replace the one that was in the motor. I replaced the old for the new, but the problems persist. I reran a new cable to see if that was the problem, and it was not. I have checked all of my connectors and they are all sound with no damage or weather entry. What is going on here?!?!?!? This is really driving me bonkers and I am ready to through it in the garbage. I am proud of my self being able to set up the darn motor system, which is in pretty good alignment(from PAS-9 58W to G10R at 123W with pretty decent quailty through the arc) but this problem with the motor is the rain on my parade. Any ideas????

This is probably off base, but has your motor done this from the start, and or did you use your receiver much before getting the motor going? Reason I ask, is that the first thing I always suspect with any system with an Ultra in it is that maybe you've exceeded the memory limit of the Ultra, which is easy to do, and once that happens it's like poltergeists are inside the thing. All sorts of weird things happen. If this happened from the start, then ignore this, and hopefully someone else has an idea, but if you did a fair number of blind scans before noticing this problem, I'd check to see if you're over the memory limit.

EDIT: I almost deleted the above, because I don't think it's likely, however I left it, since even bad advise sometimes starts you thinking. However one other thing. You said you have no switches, but do you happen to have Diseqc turned on to some setting? I was fooling around with powering my DTV dish today with one of my Lifetime receivers, and the darn DTV started switching back and forth from 101 to 119 every couple second. It was because I had Diseqc turned on.

[lspowers]

Originally Posted by wejones

This is probably off base, but has your motor done this from the start, and or did you use your receiver much before getting the motor going? Reason I ask, is that the first thing I always suspect with any system with an Ultra in it is that maybe you've exceeded the memory limit of the Ultra, which is easy to do, and once that happens it's like poltergeists are inside the thing. All sorts of weird things happen. If this happened from the start, then ignore this, and hopefully someone else has an idea, but if you did a fair number of blind scans before noticing this problem, I'd check to see if you're over the memory limit.

EDIT: I almost deleted the above, because I don't think it's likely, however I left it, since even bad advise sometimes starts you thinking. However one other thing. You said you have no switches, but do you happen to have Diseqc turned on to some setting? I was fooling around with powering my DTV dish today with one of my Lifetime receivers, and the darn DTV started switching back and forth from 101 to 119 every couple second. It was because I had Diseqc turned on.

I bought my setup last August, 2005 and used it for a few months without the motor. I got tired of climbing a ladder to switch between 97w and AMC 3 and bought a motor, which I though would open up all of the sats to play with. It has been one big pain in the behind. I worked on the problem for a few months and then took the motor down and went with a fixed dish. I finally decided to solve this motor problem once and for all as I hate seeing it sitting in the kitchen storage cabinet and sick of hearing my wife complain about the wasted 100 bucks. I am really mad about this thing and when I started havng problems back at the end of Sept last year after I installed it, I went to the guys who sold it to me and they said I would have to go directly to Stabb as it is a warranteed product. And you know where they sent me, to fortec. As far as your question about Diseqc, no every sat I have selected is set for USALS. I really don't think it's the motor either as it turns and goes to the sats, its the fact that it then goes back to ref. position and back to sat... again and again...the motor seems to be working just find... maybe it's the receiver. But when I reinstalled the motor this past week, I made sure to set the receiver to factory settings and still has original firmware from 2005. I just can't figure this puppy out and its one of those things that just gnaw at you until you have some resolution to the issue. I think I need to go back to fortec and complain, but they seem to be dissapearing from the market and I really don't think they will be of much help at this time.

[lspowers]

One more thing I forgot to add is that once the dish makes it and finally stops at the right sat it was pretty stable, not moving. Now once it finally makes it to the sat after the back and forth deal it has worked into a new kink. Now as you stroll through the stations, something triggers the dish and it starts the back and forth thing again. Huh? Crazy!

[rainman]

if you have access to another receiver you could try it on the motor to see if it works properly.that way you would know if it's receiver or motor.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by lspowers

One more thing I forgot to add is that once the dish makes it and finally stops at the right sat it was pretty stable, not moving. Now once it finally makes it to the sat after the back and forth deal it has worked into a new kink. Now as you stroll through the stations, something triggers the dish and it starts the back and forth thing again. Huh? Crazy!

To me, saying that you're doing something with the Ultra and the word Crazy makes it enough suspicion that the Ultra is doing it. I would really advise checking to see if you are over the memory limit, and/or just go ahead and clear the memory to factory defaults. If you use Gtools, you can save your settings, and in the process check for anything strange, then edit and re-load all the data you need after you do a reset. This is an oportunity to remove sats and transponders that you don't need too. May not work, but that Ultra can really do crazy things when the memory is exceeded.

Also, since you said you have a newer Ultra, this isn't an issue, but I think the older Ultras used the regular Lifetime remote, and that thing would stick on, making it possible that your remote keeps sending the same command over and over, even when you set it down, although I can't see that causing this effect.

I think the channel/transponder memory is exceeded, and the Ultra is going crazy.