Motorised Dish moving in wind

Zardoz

I'm just wondering about other posters dishes moving in strong winds.

I am having some issues with my 1m Gibertini and I'm getting fed up of having to realign it manually .
The dish is a 1m Aluminium Gibertini and its attached to a Superjack DG120 motor which is attached to a 2" scaffold pole on a TK bracket.
Its been up for the last 2 years and when it works its great .
It works well for a few months ,until a strong wind blows and I notice a reduced snr on the weaker sats especially 16e.
I readjust the motor position via software and that is fine until some more wind and eventually I need to realign it after 6 months.

The pole is still plumb and the motor declination is still at its starting point.The dish angle is still the same and the dish is still flush on the motor arm.Bolts are tight,no give.
The odd thing is that the dish always shifts Westwards .
When installing the dish I designed its positioning so as it would be sheltered from Westerly and Southerly winds .
I think the motor is shifting westwards on the pole .
The Superjack motor along with the Moteck motor has a poorly designed backplate .The U bolts that are used to attach the motor to the pole are difficult to tighten properly as the bracket metal bends when you tighten it .
The clamps are made from terrible metal.
I put 2 flat steel plates behind the brackets ,it was the only way I could tighten the bracket properly .
I think this flaw is causing the motor to move in a South South easterly wind ,when the dish is looking straight into the wind at 28e ,where it is primarily parked.

I was wondering when other peoples dishes move out of alignment what moves ?
The dish elevation ,the dish on the motor ,or the motor on the pole ?
I'm going to solve this matter ,even if I have to fabricate a reinforced bracket with new clamps as I'm getting fed of realigning the dish.

fat-tony

I used to have a Moteck SG2100 motor (I still have it, but it's in the shed!) and a 1.1m steel dish mounted on a J-shaped bracket which was fastened into a block wall using M8 coach bolts. I found that the motor U-bolts would move on the J bracket after a strong wind, no matter how much they were tightened. The dish never moved on the motor at all. The adjustments were straightforward enough as it was a simple east or west movement of the entire assembly so I just amended my longitude in the USALS settings to compensate.
I replaced the J bracket with a proper set of T and K brackets about 18 months ago and changed to a Stab HH120 motor. It's been absolutely solid since, but I found that the Stab motor did not have the same range of movement east and west and is much slower than the Moteck.

Zardoz

fat-tony wrote: »

I used to have a Moteck SG2100 motor (I still have it, but it's in the shed!) and a 1.1m steel dish mounted on a J-shaped bracket which was fastened into a block wall using M8 coach bolts. I found that the motor U-bolts would move on the J bracket after a strong wind, no matter how much they were tightened. The dish never moved on the motor at all. The adjustments were straightforward enough as it was a simple east or west movement of the entire assembly so I just amended my longitude in the USALS settings to compensate.
I replaced the J bracket with a proper set of T and K brackets about 18 months ago and changed to a Stab HH120 motor. It's been absolutely solid since, but I found that the Stab motor did not have the same range of movement east and west and is much slower than the Moteck.

Thanks for the reply Tony.
I think my problem is the bracket and clamps .
Did you find that the Stab bracket and clamps were made of better quality metal ?
I've read that the Stab is very slow to turn .
It seems the best quality motor is the Clarke-Tech HH390 ,its the same as the Dark Motor .
I find it odd that the dish is shifting eastwards as the vast majority of the winds are from the Sout and West and the strongest too.The dish is slightly exposed on the East side but not that much .
I might have to modify the bracket and get new clamps something like this guy did.

fat-tony

That's a serious bit of strengthening on the motor clamp! I never had an issue with the clamps bending - more like the pole crushed slightly into an oval shape. In any case, it hasn't shifted since. The Stab is very slow in comparison with the Moteck - about 25% slower, I'd guess.

Zardoz

fat-tony wrote: »

That's a serious bit of strengthening on the motor clamp! I never had an issue with the clamps bending - more like the pole crushed slightly into an oval shape. In any case, it hasn't shifted since. The Stab is very slow in comparison with the Moteck - about 25% slower, I'd guess.

Out of interest why did you switch from the Moteck to the Stab ?

fat-tony

I probably believed the publicity blurb too much! With a 1.1m steel dish I though I was on the margins of the capacity of the Moteck motor with its plastic gears. The fact that I had some movement in windy conditions made me think that I needed a "beefier" motor, so I bought the Stab. Thing was that I replaced the mounting brackets and pole at the same time so that might have been the issue.
I did take the Moteck apart and checked the gears and found that they were perfect after about two years of use, so I greased everything up and re-assembled the motor and it now sits in my shed. In the interim I have been using the Stab. It's absolutely solid - no movement. Bit noisier (due to the metal gears), good bit slower and will not reach 57E, which I used to receive with the Moteck.

Zardoz

fat-tony wrote: »

I probably believed the publicity blurb too much! With a 1.1m steel dish I though I was on the margins of the capacity of the Moteck motor with its plastic gears. The fact that I had some movement in windy conditions made me think that I needed a "beefier" motor, so I bought the Stab. Thing was that I replaced the mounting brackets and pole at the same time so that might have been the issue.
I did take the Moteck apart and checked the gears and found that they were perfect after about two years of use, so I greased everything up and re-assembled the motor and it now sits in my shed. In the interim I have been using the Stab. It's absolutely solid - no movement. Bit noisier (due to the metal gears), good bit slower and will not reach 57E, which I used to receive with the Moteck.

Interesting.
My Superjack is similar to the Moteck,in fact I believe the Moteck of a clone of the Superjack (Jaeger).
Apart from the bracket and clamps it performs well ,its noisy though .
The 1m Gibertini ,while made from aluminium has a very heavy housing on the back,made from steel,its almost 6kg I'd say.
Hopefully I can stop the assembly moving on the pole,if not I think I'll just get a T90 ,no more worries of realignment then.