Hi, My first post here :)…
I had a problem with my own setup in that the elevation rotor was intermittent. It would always rotate upwards but down was troublesome, it would move down, then stop, move again after a few minutes then stop again. I assumed it was the elev rotor itself so got up on the roof (a rather painful process), removed the antennas off it and took it down. After stripping it down I discovered all was well, grease was still there after 3 years, gearbox was fine, motor and clutch were fine. There was a little corrosion inside and I suspected the capacitor was reaching end of life so I replaced that with a new setup posted on Ivo Klinkert’s page ( https://ivok.home.xs4all.nl/pa1ivo/G-5500.html ). I ended up totally ‘refurbishing’ the elev rotor seeing as I had it down and disassembled, new wiring, bearings, all cleaned etc. When I got up on the roof initially, I had the presence of mind to feed the elv rotor control cable back into the attic where I could then pull it into the shack for later testing.
While the rotor was apart I decided to hook it up to the controller for testing, same issue !! In hindsight (a great thing) I should have checked the controller as I discovered that the down elevation connection on the back showed an intermittent voltage when it was powered with it’s switch. Upon opening it up and having a look around, I discovered the DOWN relay, which has a sorta semi transparent, open-able case showed plenty of black deposits inside. I removed and disassembled it and found the contacts to be badly pitted and corroded… making a very bad and unreliable connection. I removed and cleaned out all the relays and lightly sanded the contacts to clean them up and re-fitted them to the pcb. Now they seemed worse, no power at all at the rear connections although I could hear them clicking. I decided to change all 4.
I found a suitable replacement on ebay in the form of a pack of 5 PanasonicJS1-B-12V-F from a vendor in Poland (I’m in Ireland). I didn’t wanna order from China due to suspect quality and delivery time issues. After they arrived I replaced all four relays and on the bench all seems to be working fine, even after prolonged rotation. I haven’t got the rotor back up on the roof yet as I’m waiting for a new UHF yagi in the post.
I’ve learned a valuable lesson… don’t always assume it’s the rotor, the problem might only be two feet away.
I never thought of using relay sockets, I didn’t know they existed but the pcb tracks seem robust enough to allow a de-solder and re-solder every few years if necessary. Funnily enough, when I had the controller apart I also replaced the old bulb setup with LEDs, I used green though.
Terry