Titanium ASC1 or ASC-1: Read This Before Buying

[ArloG]

Think about it. The ASC-1 doesn't know if the motor is turning cw or ccw. Becuase the encoder is a simple switch closure. Not a quadrature encoder with leading/trailing pulse pairs.
Therefore. If it were true that you were able to simply put your Harley battery out at the motor. Unhook the to-the-house motor power wires. And give the motor juice. How could the counter know which way to move?
In the ASC-1 MCU. When it commands the relay pair to energize the coils and switch motor polarity and apply power out to the motor.
If it assumes that the actuator is going to move in X direction. The MCU flips into a counts up mode.
When the relay coils are activated to reverse and apply power to the motor. The MCU inverts counting. And down she goes!
You could choose to extend the actuator and have it count up. My choice. Or have it count down when extended just by swapping the motor polarity. The reed switch don't care.

[lme]

Think about it. The ASC-1 doesn't know if the motor is turning cw or ccw. Becuase the encoder is a simple switch closure. Not a quadrature encoder with leading/trailing pulse pairs.
Therefore. If it were true that you were able to simply put your Harley battery out at the motor. Unhook the to-the-house motor power wires. And give the motor juice. How could the counter know which way to move?
In the ASC-1 MCU. When it commands the relay pair to energize the coils and switch motor polarity and apply power out to the motor.
If it assumes that the actuator is going to move in X direction. The MCU flips into a counts up mode.
When the relay coils are activated to reverse and apply power to the motor. The MCU inverts counting. And down she goes!
You could choose to extend the actuator and have it count up. My choice. Or have it count down when extended just by swapping the motor polarity. The reed switch don't care.

Agreed, but just wanted to test EB's suggestion. I'm sure that the hole functionality of ASC is governed by the main chip response to the commands given to the unit itself. As long as an external source is operating the motor, it will not take any action such as to display a count or anything else.

[el bandido]

Think about it. The ASC-1 doesn't know if the motor is turning cw or ccw. Becuase the encoder is a simple switch closure. Not a quadrature encoder with leading/trailing pulse pairs.
Therefore. If it were true that you were able to simply put your Harley battery out at the motor. Unhook the to-the-house motor power wires. And give the motor juice. How could the counter know which way to move?
In the ASC-1 MCU. When it commands the relay pair to energize the coils and switch motor polarity and apply power out to the motor.
If it assumes that the actuator is going to move in X direction. The MCU flips into a counts up mode.
When the relay coils are activated to reverse and apply power to the motor. The MCU inverts counting. And down she goes!
You could choose to extend the actuator and have it count up. My choice. Or have it count down when extended just by swapping the motor polarity. The reed switch don't care.

The test I described is valid for most G box and V box type positioners. The G box and V box type positioners were 40-50 dollars a few years ago, but are a bit pricey today. The pulses or counts go up on these type of positioners anytime the actuator is moved or something else is done to trigger a pulse. The pulses are recorded as counts on the front of the poaitioner when it is powered ON. The counts will be added all in one direction regardless of how the actuator is polarized. The pulse counts may be changed to add or subtract by pressing the east - west buttons on the front of the receiver or by using the positioner remote.

I remember my ASC1 performing the same way where the counts would be added or subtracted anytime the unit was powered on, but apparently my memory is flawed or I had an unusual software installed in it. Pulse counts need to be recorded at all times so any errors in the dish moving may be seen. Cutting the pulse counts off once the positioner has supposedly stopped is a dis-service to the user as any extra pulse count errors will be "unseen" and the operator will be left wondering what the hell is going on.

A stock ASC1 will produce about 100 watts if it is pushed hard enough. You will see this wattage at about 5 amps of draw and 18-20 volts dc output going to the actuator. This amount of power is a bit more than the V box or G box which can produce around 60-80 watts of motor moving power.

I have a Prodelin commercial with a dish weight of about 320 pounds. The dish is in 8 sections, and each section weighs a bit over 40 pounds when put on a calibrated refrigerant scale. The feed and other items puts the weight up to about 350 pounds without the mounting skeleton or polar mount included.

It takes more energy to move my type of dish as compared to most anything else a person will find in a backyard. A 10 foot mesh dish has a dish weight of 60-80 pounds, and some of the homeowner fiberglass will double that mesh dish weight or maybe a bit more. 12 foot home owner dishes will have a bit more weight than the ten footers, but hardly any of them will come close to the weight of a commercial Prodelin. In other words, you can make power modifications to any of the positioners mentioned in this thread, but in most cases, they are not really needed.

The parts shown in post 4 of this thread were installed in my ASC1. These two parts provide 180 watts continuous, with the transformer only being used to supply the low dc voltage needed power the ASC1 The small power supply provides a rated 180 watts continuous power, and provides a steady 35 volts dc while doing so. Peak power is 240 watts, which I have seen a time or two.

In normal operation, it takes a brief surge of about 180 watts to get the dish moving if it is 40 degrees or further from center. But this 180 watts immediately settles down to 100 watts or less. When the motor is moving across the center of the arc, around 40 watts of power is all that is needed. The dish moving is done with a 36 inch ball screw actuator by Venture.

I don't really suggest installing the parts shown in post 4 because they are not needed in the ASC1 unless you want to try to improve the dish moving speed. The ASC1 cannot hold its advertised 36 volts dc when powering the actuator with a ten foot dish attached. It can move the ten footer with east though, but a bit slower than a postioner that runs 35-36 volts dc all the time.

So my opinion here is LME should either fix the ASC1 or simply replace it with a V box. The ASC1 has great advantages when used with a corotor, but for just day to day dish moving, a V box will do that task with ease on most homeowner type dish systems. IMO, the V box type postioners have better software than the ASC1, but they also have less features. I don't recommend modding the ASC1 as shown in post 4 unless there is a reason for it. The only thing most people will see with these mods is an increase in dish moving speed.