re of 6 mos old Tic Ring, which has had truly, minimal
use...
The direction indicating meter follows the preset knob on the controller, as
you turn it back and forth.. It does not rotate the motor when the start
button is depressed, nor does the led glow to indicate that the motor circuit
is powered...
Measuring the shack end of the motor wiring harness shows about 4.5 ohms dc
resistance across the leads and no short to ground....
The direction pot wiring harness shows about 550 ohms across the pot and
about 230
ohms ccw end to wiper and about 320 ohms cw end to wiper (which approximates
the current NE heading of the beam)... there does not appear to be any short
to ground, or a short between the pot wiring and the motor wiring, with the
vom on X100,000 scale...
When I talked to Tic, they stated they did not know what would cause such a
problem, and that they would talk with their "technician"... 3 phone calls,
and a week and a half later, they had not managed to locate the
"technician"... at this point I threw a tantrum because it was only 2 weeks
to arrl dx contest... they promised to ship me a new controller by 2nd day
air... a week later, and another hostile phone call, it arrived by surface
shipment... it is now 4 days to the contest....
I just hooked it up... when powered up it indicated a 45 deg heading,
matching the beam heading... so far so good... I set the preset knob to
north and pressed start... the relays clicked and immediately dumped out..
and this unit now does the same as the other, i.e. the meter follows the
preset knob and does not work.... it is now obvious to me that the problem is
at the motor box.. but in looking at their schematic, it is not clear to me
at all what
could cause such a catastrophic failure of the controller, and still have the
motor and the direction pot show normal values with a vom and no short
circuits...
Another phone call with Tic, and now they blame the heading potentiometer in
the motor... Yet, it measures perfectly with the VOM!... They now want to air
mail a new pot and have me change it... That motor box is a long ways up in
blowing snow and wind chill that is way below zero, and it is 2 complete
round trips up the tower in these harsh conditions to change the pot and
reinstall the motorbox... I am willing to do this, if it is THE answer, but
I'm gonna be an unhappy camper if it is not....
Does anyone have specific experience or knowledge with the Tic Rotor doing
this?....Please drop me an Email if you have specifics to share...
Denny
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