We have recently purchased a Jayco Silverline which came with a Sphere automatic satellite dish. When initiated the dish lifts vertically from the roof of the van but fails to rotate to find the satellite. An error code " AZ Motor stall" appears on the In Door Unit and no signal is able to be received. Does anyone know what might be causing this fault
I was talking to a guy with one a couple of months ago and his was doing a simiar thing.
I dont know how old your van and the sat dish is but his had stripped the gears inside the unit.
They are apparently only plastic gears in the auto unit.
His happened because he forgot to lower it when he drove his motor home.
The repair agent replaced the damaged parts and all was well again.
You may very well have a different problem but the above is at least a start.
Oh! And welcome to the forum.
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"Seek the truth or bury you head in the sand, both require some digging"
Thanks JohnR,
I have contacted Coast to Coast and they think it is probably the AZ motor that needs replacement and have put me onto a couple of techs. I will see how I go with them and and post an update.
There seems to be a lot of issues with these high tech units failing and sometimes expensive and remote repair needed and i sympathize with Justgrey as he has inherited the problem possibly unknowing it was there... Maybe some dialog needed with previous owner ??
There seems to be a lot of issues with these high tech units failing and sometimes expensive and remote repair needed and i sympathize with Justgrey as he has inherited the problem possibly unknowing it was there... Maybe some dialog needed with previous owner ??
While I was talking to the chap with the problems as per my reply to the OP, he informed me that the repairer told him that the Auto Units had plastic gears and they are suseptible to breakage as compared to the manual wind up roof unit which apparently has metal gears.
if this is true ( and I dont doubt him) then couple the plastic gears with an electric motor and the tricky technology employed within the system to lock onto the satellite and it may be a formula for repetitive failure if compared to a manual unit.
I am only repeating a conversation with another traveller so can not be sure if all brands have this problem.
-- Edited by Dickodownunder on Friday 14th of July 2017 12:46:57 PM
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"Seek the truth or bury you head in the sand, both require some digging"
So my satellite is a Sphere SSA-850 automatic unit which is approximately 2 yrs old. As it was out of warranty I was encouraged by a service tech to investigate the problem myself. I removed the dish and the cover and again tried to activate the rotation. I found with a bit of a rocking back and forth the dish started to rotate. The problem seems to have been dry gears on the rotation mechanism. The mechanism is a steel worm drive which engages with a brass gear. Applying some grease and activating the dish a couple of times solved the problem. If it breaks down again I would have no hesitation in trying to repair it. The tech I spoke to said that if the dish fails to raise or rotate then it is usually one of 2 things, a burnt motor or a problem with the main circuit board in the indoor unit. Both are replacement items off the shelf from Coast to Coast.
One othe point, when I spoke to our local Jayco dealer, they said they would get a specialist in to fix the satellite anyway, so I could save money by dealing with a satellite tech directly. Hopefully smooth sailing from here.
I have had various problems with my Sphere SSA-850 but this time I may have encountered one I am unable to fix. I was of the view that it may have been a voltage problem, but am now leaning towards a failure of the AZIMUTH motor. We are currently on the Gold Coast. Do you know anyone in this area who is across these units.
The dish displays MSG: AZ COUNT. And the dish will not now go up or down.
A new one can now be bought for just under $2,000 so not worth spending a lot of money on repairs (parts and labour).
