I’m considering building satnogs rotator from instructions but I would like to place it on my roof and let it be scheduled constantly and kinda forget about it until something breaks down, my question is - assuming that it would be constantly scheduled - how much the current version is able to survive outside before it needs some maintenance?
Good question that I’d also be interested in hearing individual reports on. What type of load is attached and common issues.
My guess is you should be on the roof at least once a month, if not for any other reason than to inspect for small problems that might grow into BIG problems.
The worm gears are my concern. For the 3D media, I used PETG instead of ABS due to higher tensile strength, can handle UV better, better suited for temperature extremes etc. So far my issues have been due to brittle Cat5 solid conductors breaking at the limit switches solder points - but mine is a 3 week old v3.1 rotator (adruino/cnc shield) that’s still on a ground-based tripod. Also just a single small yagi attached it to, not much wind load on it (yet). Still tweaking the wire runs, control box @ rotator and fabricating a weather resistant housing (lexan/polycarbnate vs sheet metal vs ?3D printed?). So much to do still before it’s ‘autonomous’. 