A week ago I installed a used M2 rotor on my new 65' tower. Yesterday it
stopped working.
Here's the history. In March 2004 I took down a guy's tower and antenna and in
return he gave me the antenna and rotor (M2). I know it worked then because he
had to rotate the antenna in order to lower the tower. He never mentioned there
were any problems with the rotor. It apparently was only 2 years old at the
time.
It sat in my garage for a year before I finally decided to hook it up and play
with it on the bench. When I hooked it up, it did what is described in the
manual as "bumps the motor a few times and quits". After going through the
programming and checking all the connections, the rotor mysteriously started
working again. I figured I just had something programmed wrong. I disconnected
it and it sat in the shack until last week when I got ready to install it on my
new tower. I took it outside, connected it on my work bench and had the same
problem as before. The motor would bump and that's it. I played with it for
two hours and again, it mysteriously started working again. Again, I figured it
was just something I was unfamiliar with. I installed the rotor on the tower
and again checked it and it worked. Yesterday I installed a D40 on the tower,
hooked up the rotor outside so I could see the antenna rotate and the rotor
worked fine. Ran the cable inside the shack, reconnected the RC2800P-A and
again, it worked. Turned it off and went to dinner. After dinner the antenna
would not work again. Again, I went through all the set up procedures and then
went through and read most of the archives of this group to see if I could find
any help. None found.
All my cable resistances check OK. The total cable length is probably about
100' if that. I get the correct voltages out of the controller with the
positioner disconnected. I've gone back to factory settings and through the
programming a hundred times. I'm confident of my connections.
The one thing that puzzles me is that with the positioner connected I see a
short (1-2 ohm) between terminals 5 and 6. When I press CCW or CW, the
resistance seems to change to about 6-7 ohm, but never any DC voltage between
these terminals. I don't have an O-scope to check the pulses. I can bump the
positioner in each direction, but that's it.
Any suggestions other than calling M2 tomorrow?
Thanks,
Don AA5AU
_______________________________________________
See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless Weather
Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions
and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|