Sticking Relays on my V-box

barney115 · May 18, 2020

hi guys i have a problem with Sticking Relays on my V-box
dish will fine move east/west correctly and move 1 or 2 steps east/west full movement then ER-2 will show on my V-box
i have read this is possibly to to wiring issues which is true as i am wiring up a new 36" Actuator arm on my 2m dish and i did wire it up wrong [ 4 core electric cable ] a few times which caused the ER-2 and now V-box relays are sticking or Stuck and not free moving the arm around .

i read that this is fixed by opening the V-box Positioner and Tapping the relays with butt end of a screwdriver will release the sticking relays , i assume that the power needs to be on when tapping the relays to get them unstuck ??
i do'nt wanna get electric shock please advise if anyone has heard of this fix and did it work

Ferret · May 18, 2020

Never heard of the fix or had this issue but tap them with the wooden handle of a mallet or hammer you wont get a shock, i would of thought powering down the vbox would do it.

dj999 · May 18, 2020

had similar problem, 1 wire was loose at back of v-box. and checked the connections in the actuator, full of crap.

barney115 · May 19, 2020

update post ..
so i made good progress the relays on my V-box were stuck
i opened the V-box and just like ferret said no electric shock i pushed the relays back into position and my 1.2m dish is driving again perfectly ,

i have the same ER-2 message still on my other V-box for my 2 meter dish and its still sticking i opened that V-box but relays are still all in place perfectly so the cause of this issue is the 4 core cable its brand new but wires on it are too heavy for the Reed sensor totally different from my other 4 core cable which has two light wires and two slightly heavier wires... the reed sensor requires milli-amp voltage.. where the motor require the slightly heavier wire amp voltage ,
i will now buy correct 4 core cable and no doubt be back fully in operation shortly : )

gap30 · May 19, 2020

barney115 said:
update post ..
so i made good progress the relays on my V-box were stuck
i opened the V-box and just like ferret said no electric shock i pushed the relays back into position and my 1.2m dish is driving again perfectly ,

i have the same ER-2 message still on my other V-box for my 2 meter dish and its still sticking i opened that V-box but relays are still all in place perfectly so the cause of this issue is the 4 core cable its brand new but wires on it are too heavy for the Reed sensor totally different from my other 4 core cable which has two light wires and two slightly heavier wires... the reed sensor requires milli-amp voltage.. where the motor require the slightly heavier wire amp voltage ,
i will now buy correct 4 core cable and no doubt be back fully in operation shortly : )

It does not matter what size cable you use as long as it is capable of carrying the voltage, I am an electrician I just use whatever is to hand (for actuators) that is not the cause of your problem

barney115 · May 19, 2020

That is strange how come my 1.2 dish now moves fine ?
but 2m dish V-box still gives ER2 and only drives a step or two at a time due to the constant ER2 message on V-box ?

The brand new 4 core cable from 2 meter dish actuator to V-box has 4 core wires all same thickness where as my old correct V-box cable has 2 thinner wires and two thicker and works fine .

i even tried a brand new Vbox and same results ER2 on Vbox front display ..

gap30 · May 19, 2020

barney115 said:
That is strange how come my 1.2 dish now moves fine ?
but 2m dish V-box still gives ER2 and only drives a step or two at a time due to the constant ER2 message on V-box ?

The brand new 4 core cable from 2 meter dish actuator to V-box has 4 core wires all same thickness where as my old correct V-box cable has 2 thinner wires and two thicker and works fine .

i even tried a brand new Vbox and same results ER2 on Vbox front display ..

Sounds to me like a faulty actuator

Edit: swap your v boxes that will confirm

SilverHippy · May 19, 2020

Hi Barney, another electrician here..."just the cable reed sensor requires the two thinner milliamp wire" that goes against electrical theory........Thicker is better...less resistance which = less voltage drop.

I've been using a heavy duty actuator QARL3624 for 12 years with 4 core 1mm rated cable & various V boxes & never any problems with the cable. But if you're using the same Superjack then.....I've gone through about 4 reed switches & I also had a problem with loose field magnets in the motor unit, the strange thing is, someone on another forum who lives 60 miles north of me had the same fault with the magnets about the same time as I did. Both of those faults will give an E2 error in both diections.
Hope you fix it.

Regards :thum:

barney115 · May 20, 2020

Arm is Superjack 36" Heavy only brand new from Satellite super store i do not find anything loose in the arm but i'll cut and RE-do the two sensor wires again on the arm and on the Vbox
i'm guessing i should leave the Motor wires alone since the dish is turning correct East & West , so it must be just the two Reed Sensor wires stopping arm from moving free and the ER2 error message on Vbox ?
BTW. Thanks very much for all the replies i really wanna make this work before i really loose my mind altogether

:thum:

SilverHippy · May 20, 2020

Hi, yeah it could be something as simple as a bad connection on the sensor wires, it can help if you've got a multimeter the running current through the motor should be about 1.5 Amps depending on load. That would then tell you if you're getting E2 because of overload. Best of luck, stay safe

ArloG · May 20, 2020

There's a nice writeup on satelliteguys of trials and tribulations of actuator sensors.
I purchased a 36" super-crap actuator just over a year ago and now wish I would have just spent the cash for a Von Weise.
Since having this dandy of an actuator I've added a pinion gear to support the main drive gear and keep it from flopping around and take up slop.
Discarded the reed sensor and replaced with a modified hall sensor board. Again from a Saginaw motor.
Made a magnet trigger wheel with 20 small neodymium discs with alternating N-S poles to drive the hall device hard-off.
The original magnet trigger/reed showed 5 short and one long pulse per revolution on an oscilloscope. That and motor slop was generating accumulated count errors when sweeping through the arc and back. Added more count errors when searching for and peaking signal on new sats.
Even a 20 year old Saginaw motor with a rusted out motor has a robust gear train with little gear slop.
I really wished I'd have spent the extra on the Von Weise.
Now I guess I will.

barney115 · May 26, 2020

Just to update everyone today after many days of playing about with this actuator arm i called in a sparky to have a look at it and he got his multi meter on the wires and the 4 core cable was indeed perfectly fine , the Vbox [ Amiko ] was sticking quite a bit but not the problem either i had everything wired up okay motor wires were reading slightly above 36 volt but the sensor wires nothing zero not even milliamps , tested the limit switch adjusted upper,lower CAM but still E-2 ERROR ON Vbox and nothing was hitting any limits ..so that narrowed everything down to the reed sensor itself ....son of a b*tch !!

i took off a few reed sensor switches from 2 of my old arms that were laying dead in my shed and we connected it up turned on power to VBOX and Bang counter started moving no more E-2 Messages as i yelled at the top of my voice in relief... a tiny little part with 2 wires [ reed sensor switch ] was what stopped everything... and ...exactly what everyone was saying all along

The arm was sent out with a faulty not working reed sensor switch

now both my 2 meter and 1.2 meter dishes are moving free and fast ... although my signals now on my 2 meter dish are very slightly lower than normal which tells me i have to make adjustments and peak my signals better a small job for my trusty 14 mill spanners , my tape measure shows i fitted arm at 5 and a half inches and it should be just 5 inches to track every sat correctly ...a minor adjust which was my fault when installing the arm but i am getting the whole area around my poles for both dishes cemented in the next day or two so i will be checking my pole is still plum and level and aligning everything even better very shortly ...i will take a few photos once i get this big job done and all should be looking really well Brand new Arm and new cable and even now i decided to use my brand new Vbox
so for next 10 years + i should be trouble free with any kinda luck at all : )

Thanks to all that gave me the great advice on getting this issue resolved u guys are great !!
cheers !

SilverHippy · May 28, 2020

Nice one Barney :thum:, glad you were able to get it sorted & it was a relatively simple fix. The reed switches on these actuators can be a pain in the a$$ at times, I've had to change mine a few times & was able to source a couple of bare (not encapsulated) ones from Ebay. One problem they have is that the leads from them are just pushed through a grip to make contact on the small PCB, after time the pressure on the grip can fail leading to more E2 faults

I don't know if it's the same on a 36" but I soldered mine in & no more faults since. (maybe make this a sticky--Actuator Faults & Fixes)

Regards

Sticking Relays on my V-box

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