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Thread: how to make home-made dish?

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    Default how to make home-made dish?

    how to make home-made dish?

    hi to all
    i want all users to help me how to make home-built satellite dish.
    my prefered dimension is 180 cm.
    i used parabola software to generate curve.
    now i printed this curve on the paper in real scale.
    my bigest concern is how to transform this curve on the iron petal or woods or aluminum petals.


    i need ur help
    best regards.



Look Here ->
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    Might not be the best solution, but maybe start by tracing out the curve, or sections of the curve, on some wooden blocks and then try and cut them as accurately as possible. Try and file and smooth them further. You can then use these as forms for shaping metal sections perhaps or whatever other material you want to form/shape. Remember the shape is actually a paraboloid in 3 dimensions, not just a parabolic curve in 2 dimensions (which would simply yield a half-cylinder kind of shape in three dimensions, almost like a skateboard half-pipe kind of thing, lacking the curving part in the other direction). That curve on paper is only one thin section (like cutting a thin section out of the centre part of the dish), the dish is curved in not just one "direction", but in two at 90 degrees to each other (a simple dish).

    So, maybe it's good to start with making the petal-shaped wooden forms, which eventually will fit like pieces of a pizza, starting with wooden blocks whose lengths are as long (or more) as the radius of your dish (90 cm), whose breadths will be big enough to accommodate the widest part of your "pizza slice" and whose thicknesses are as large or more than the "depth" of your curve (i.e. that change in distance from the ends of your curve to the point in its centre, change in "y-coordinate" if you speak in mathematical terms).
    Last edited by irritant; 19-10-16 at 01:55 AM.

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    is there any pic to illustrate it better?

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    Just buy one. Not worth the effort
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    Quote Originally Posted by porkop View Post
    Just buy one. Not worth the effort
    Agree - just hunt around and pick up a second hand prime focus 1.8m dish.

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    I agree, much easier to buy one, which will have a far more accurate surface, therefore perform better.

    However, I also like to make things, so if you are more interested in experimenting, here's a dish made from timber.

    It's an offset type, not prime focus, but it may give you some ideas.


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    I also agree with the sentiments expressed by others. It will be less of a headache and far more efficient simply to buy a C-band dish.

    That said, go to and you will find several links relating to DIY satellite dish projects.

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    Yeah, I also wanted to say, perhaps it's easier to just buy (an old) one, but the OP sounded very interested in making one.

    Rayman, maybe you can meet yourself half-way by buying an old rusty one without an LNB just to get the shape right, and then shape your materials according to that. You can even buy a smaller dish (cheaper), and sort of extrapolate the shape perhaps.

    But, it will be very difficult to get it perfect, it's a labour of love sort of thing with lots of mathematical calculations, etc.

    Are you actually wishing to build one for the pleasure of making one?

    Sometimes you can find old mesh dishes that have lost the mesh and all the important bits, but the frame (ribs) is still there. That will also give you the shape you are looking for.

    Unfortunately, I don't have a picture to illustrate, but it sort of looks like the inside of an open umbrella, very approximately. So, imagine you were tasked to cut that curved shape out of a solid, cubic, block of wood. The wood will have to be long enough, wide enough, and deep enough to take all the extremities of each dimension of your shape. Almost like making a mold of something in a cubic piece of clay - the whole shape has to fit in it, in all dimensions.

    But, seeing as a 2m x 2m x approx. 0.5m block of wood would be enormous and extremely heavy, it would be easier to use smaller blocks and do 1/8th "slices" of the dish, like pizza slices. So, a point at one end, with a radius (90 cm) length on each side diverging outward to a round/circular edge which is 1/8th the length of the dish circumference (2 x pi x 90cm = 565 cm, 1/8 of which is 71 cm).

    It may help to also print out, on paper, a circle of radius 90 cm.
    Last edited by irritant; 19-10-16 at 03:52 PM.

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    This may be a stupid question but would a dish made from fibreglass or even carbon-fibre work?

    It would probably be easier to make one "pizza slice" mould and then just lay up however many pieces of the dish are required, at least it should be easier if you have most of the materials and have done fibre-glassing before?

    Would it have to be painted with some kind of reflective coating?

    Andrew

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bigfella237 View Post
    This may be a stupid question but would a dish made from fibreglass or even carbon-fibre work?

    It would probably be easier to make one "pizza slice" mould and then just lay up however many pieces of the dish are required, at least it should be easier if you have most of the materials and have done fibre-glassing before?

    Would it have to be painted with some kind of reflective coating?

    Andrew
    Oh yes, I would imagine so. I guess it all depends what he has available to him.

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    All dishes require a metallic-type surface to reflect the signals.

    Eg: fibreglass dishes have a metal sheet embedded.

    Materials that do not permit satellite frequencies to be reflected must incorporate a reflective material (eg: metal sheet/mesh) that will reflect the signals into the feedhorn.

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    If you are in Sydney I have a nice 1.8m solid aluminium dish I would like to sell

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    I have to make such a dish.
    no big dish here.
    even small dish is disappearing.
    so i need ur instructions.

    you are great people and your comments is excellent.

    i used parabolic software to generate x and y coordinates for 160 cm dish.
    i draw them in autocad file. so the curve is ready.
    i want to make this curve by cnc.

    my biggest concern is how to curve aluminium sheet according to this file.

    i want full curve.

    how to avoid flat surface.

    just answer this question.

    how to avoid flat surface.
    Last edited by rayman1366; 20-10-16 at 12:02 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by rayman1366 View Post
    I have to make such a dish.
    no big dish here.
    Where are you located?

    What satellites are you hoping to receive?

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    Quote Originally Posted by mtv View Post
    Where are you located?

    What satellites are you hoping to receive?
    a country with restricted law about sat.

    i am about 500 kilometers out of reception area.

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    If you have access to a 3D printer I would imagine that would be nice solution, given you have the shape modeled digitally already.

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    Quote Originally Posted by AdrianR View Post
    If you have access to a 3D printer I would imagine that would be nice solution, given you have the shape modeled digitally already.

    Two problems with that.

    The size of the 3D printer required for a 1.8m dish (even for segments) and they don't print metal, which is what the OP needs to form.

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    Quote Originally Posted by rayman1366 View Post
    a country with restricted law about sat.

    i am about 500 kilometers out of reception area.
    Is this for C-Band or Ku-Band?

    If you're 500km outside of the satellite footprint, a 1.8m dish will probably be insufficient.

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    Quote Originally Posted by mtv View Post
    Two problems with that.

    The size of the 3D printer required for a 1.8m dish (even for segments) and they don't print metal, which is what the OP needs to form.
    Make the dish up from whatever material the printer uses then line it with Aluminium foil or a metal mesh like a fly screen but the foil/mesh would have to exactly follow the shape of the dish.
    Then you would have to work out the 'Focal Point' for the LNB to be mounted.

    Correct me if I am wrong but I am sure I read that if a number of dishes of the same type were put together, they would make a sphere ?
    I stand unequivicably behind everything I say , I just dont ever remember saying it !!

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    To make curves in sheet metal, you have to roll it.

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