Is there any receiver better than SF8008 Supreme? I have had two and they both died

There are 3 replies in this Thread which was already clicked 1,501 times. The last Post () by supwiddiss.

    I loved my Octagon SF8008 supremes for their signal quality and blind scanning and nvme slot. What I did not love is that despite having proper surge protection and lightning arrestors and good grounding, both of them died during thunderstorms. My Zgemma H7S is still doing fine and has had several thunderstorms pass while in use. I suspect the Octagon SF8008 has a design or shielding flaw.


    I tried to return one to Octagon (I am in the US) and it is currently lost by DHL Germany. I am very likely out of luck and thus out $200 for the receiver.


    For blind scans and signal processing quality, is there any other E2 receiver that compares to the Octagon SF8008? I know that some of the Ustym units are Octagon clones or made by the same factory, and I suppose this may be an option but if they are the same board, they probably have the same flaw.


    I am looking for an E2 box that is as capable or more capable than the SF8008, specifically for blind scanning and signal processing quality, without the flaw that causes it to die from wireless EMI - I don't care who makes it. Any suggestions?


    Thanks!

    I had to ponder over your post a few times before replying. I've suffered a few surges that wiped 2 ASC-1 dish movers.
    You can never be 100% sure you're protected from lightning or close strikes. My osmio4k shares the same tuner chipset of the 8008.
    You probably wont find a better tuner for blindscanning than the Availink chips.

    I would like to question the lightning/surge suppression you have currently. I can list mine for comparison after the fact. Assuring that at least I;ve done the best I can. Short of divorcing the receiver from the dish. And I'm surprised you didn't mention a fried lnb. Which seems a bit strange.
    The wall wart power supplies themselves are inherently separated from mains in and dc out. And the internal circuit protects very well against surges.

    At the dish. There is an 8' copper clad ground rod. The dish pole is bonded to it. After the polar mount pivots, the dish is bonded to ground.
    At the scalar/lnb fixture it is also bonded to ground.

    Right off of the lnb I have a spark tube lightning arrestor. An ebay item good to 3 GHz. Bonded to ground.
    I am currently using a twin c band orthomode feed. Requiring a multiswitch. It is bonded to the ground rod.
    And I run a sidecar ku lnb. So the c band and ku run to a diseqc switch. Which is also bonded.
    The linear actuator is also grounded to the copper rod.

    I know you mentioned lightning arrestors and good grounding. Can you give me an idea of the components and how they are arranged?
    And your lnb setup. What brand? Type?
    I have not heard of many 8008's dead from surges, etc. Perhaps so. But not a buttload.
    Your Zgemma is the same as one I have. Bummer blindscan. If it resides on the same coax your 8008's did. Yet survived similar hits, I would be surprised.

    My assumption is that European receiver owners are not as concerned about blindscanning and feed hunting. Not like dvb card or the US hobbiests are.
    The Uclan receivers do look tasty as an alternative to the SF8008's. Except there is limited E2 image support. And running SF8008 firmware on them? Who knows. Probably not. And apparently the 8008's deficiency of low symbol rates has been fixed in the next model stated for release.

    What descriptions of the failure mode of your two receivers could you state? I do understand that they have a front panel display connector issue.

    For lightning in the RG6, I have gas tube surge suppressors with their own grounding lines, grounded to the house. I've checked the resistance between my RG6 and the house ground and it's well below even "acceptable" ranges for voltage differential in the ground.


    The house has a whole house surge protector with noise cancellation, and then the mover, tv, htpc, and satellite receiver are plugged into a sine wave UPS which also has built in surge suppression.

    My dish is on a steel pole, 3 feet in the ground. Because I can test the ground between the house and the dish using the RG6 shielding, I know that it is all properly grounded. I have not (yet) put a separate rod at the dish itself because it doesn't seem very necessary. I also read it is better to put the arrestors on the house side instead of the dish side.


    I have a quad LNB mount on my 10 footer, all 4 of the LNBs connect to a switch that is bonded to the pole and thus also grounded. I could put an arrestor between the switch line out and the coax, but since there is one on the other end, I don't see the point?


    I'm using the same arrestors you are, though mine have the grounding connector and are grounded to the shared house ground...


    The Ku LNB is an inverto pro, the C lnb primary is a Titanium Red. The other two LNBs are cheapos, one is so I can still try to get the ones lower in the spectrum, and the other is for circular feeds.


    My Zgemma is on the same coax, and has survived similar hits, but I didn't even have actual lightning strikes upon my dish - just lightning overhead and around the area - there are plenty of taller things around and the lightning has yet to even hit the huge oak tree in my neighbor's yard. This is why I believe that the actual EM fields generated by the lightning flying around is what's doing this, and not any actual current through any of the wiring.


    I do have a TBS card and have partially gotten Neumodvb working with that, but not fully yet. In addition, the Zgemma can blindscan, albeit slowly, and not at as low of symbol rates as the Octagons, at least with the dev builds of OpenATV...


    My two receivers didn't have any front panel issues; in fact, they were working fine one minute; then during a storm they'd suddenly power off entirely and never come back on again. I got them both from Rick and even he tried to revive one of them without any luck.


    Because Rick is very close to me I'd love to find a way to declare my setup safe enough to buy another SF8008, but because I think they may be flawed or that perhaps their wall warts don't like US wiring with the adapter (though I did use a normal US power brick once too and it worked fine...and all the power bricks still worked after the SF8008s died so I guess not)...

    I sent one to Rick, and he shipped it back to Octagon. I shipped one back to Octagon myself but because DHL in Germany is awful, it is currently lost and they aren't responding to my inquiries. The Octagon guys are certainly friendly and do want the unit to look at, but at this point I have no idea if it will ever make it there or if I'm screwed.

    Edited 2 times, last by ilikenwf ().

    While waiting for receiver suggestions to roll in. It sounds like you've handled surge suppression well and very similar to my home in the country.
    I have previous industrial electrical/electronics background. And had to adhere to NEC and local codes. BTW. I lived in Florida and never personally suffered lightning damage for my personal electronics. None of my amateur radio stuff ever got as much as a tickle. Of course when I could, disconnecting coax and power was the norm. Something my workload would not allow. APC honors surge damage claims very well. Square Trade is a no BS insurance method.

    An argument or two. 3 feet of steel pole in the ground is not an approved ground. Neither is 8 feet of rebar. A multimeter is not a megger. To properly test earthing, I believe in a megger. They simulate actual voltage conditions.
    I thoroughly believe in quenching surges at the source. Lightning has a nasty habit of oscillating over wires/cables. Creating transients that may exceed the surge suppression device(s).

    My personal experience here was during a sudden thunderstom. Lightning hit close by. Close enough during the summer when my windows in the house were open. I heard a zap. No crack. Right after there was a very strong smell of ozone. Then noticed my ASC-1 dish mover display was blank.
    It died. My osmio4k was working. Bypassed the mover and no signal. Went to port 2 on the Titanium C2W lnbf. Still nothing.
    Bypassed the 8X1 diseqc switch at the dish. And after a few tuner setup changes in the receiver, got a signal.
    All of that before grounding the components. The dish always had a proper ground rod driven a foot or so beside the pole. But was only bonded to the pole.

    All of that has been brought up to snuff. A new ground rod. Every section of the dish assy. is bonded as well as common sense tells me. It's a 12' fiberglass dish.

    Now. If as you stated. None of your feed components got zapped. But two SF8008's did. And the H7 made it okay. Could be the Octagon is prone to surge damage. My osmio4k has the exact same tuner as the 8008. It lives still just fine.

    I forgot to mention now that I'm thinking about it. I also have an F connector grounding block where the coax enters my home now. Bonded to the 2 copper rods. Code states two grounding rods, so I added the additional one. Had my electrician friend come by with his hammer drill with attachment to hammer them in. He took a look at the bonding and said it looked fairly wise and proper.
    But. Nothing is 100% with lightning. I was focused on an SF8008 Supreme until I read your post. Now hearing about the successor to it that addresses symbol rates. Guess it's on the back burner. And who knows. Perhaps other receivers will come out with great blindscan capabilities.

    A fellow sent me his osmio4k+ with no hdmi output. But the webif and receiver still works just fine. His problem was caused from hot-swapping the hdmi and bent pins that shorted the receiver pins. The port is protected with transient suppressors. The same as gaming consoles. I am in the habit of powering my stuff down before swapping or connecting any cables. Should be safe and is safe is two different animals. Square Trade don't care.
    Electronics and mechanical things has been a lifelong passion and was my career for a good deal of my life. No soapbox here though.

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