humax box power cycling in the van

[Scout]

I have a humax freesat recorder rated at 4 amps 12 volt

in the motorhome there is already the oyster decoder and tv on the 12 volt line, I fitted a 12 volt regulator to smooth the vans 12 volt output to feed the blue ray play and the humax box.

When I connect the humax box ( not at the same time as the blue ray) it seems to cycle on/off

I have read elsewhere this is a sign of not enough power?
Even with the dish down and the decoder off it does this
I took the box indoors and used it the same 12volt lead and a 12volt transformer and it works fine.
The power output in the van is a steady 12.6 volts after the regulator
And similar inside the house using the transformer

I’m starting to scratch my head a bit now

Any thoughts

 

[SandraL]

On the regulator is there a max output or wattage given?
Maybe not quite enough?

 

[Scout]

yes its 144w 12amp at 12 volts , however I must have had a bit of brain fog, as I never thought of trying it plugged into the mains , I will try again tomorrow. if thatworks I'll have find a way to get 240 volts to the area of fitting ,

this is the stabiliser, it giving out a steady 12.6 volts

 

[pappajohn]

The regulator has an input voltage between 9v and 36v so it's unlikely not to provide a 12v output unless your battery is completely knackered.
More likely a fault on the Humax box.

 

[Scout]

The regulator has an input voltage between 9v and 36v so it's unlikely not to provide a 12v output unless your battery is completely knackered.
More likely a fault on the Humax box.

The output from the regulator is 12.6 volt, the mains 240 is connected to the mo ho and the power supply is on

the humax box works fine in the house, both on its dedicated external 12 volt power supply brick

and with a 12 volt lead pluged into a 12 volt transformer .

tomrrow I'll try it on 240volt in the motorhome...

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[Just smiffy]

I plugged my humax box straight to the 12v supply in the van and never had a problem..

 

[Scout]

ive found in the past ( not this van or recorder) if the pump is run or the step is retracted it could cause power fluctuations and stop recording or playback, hence fitting the regulator

 

[ctc]

Had the same problem, found that none of 12v sockets gave a reliable supply so I gave up and used the inverter, works perfectly.

 

[Scout]

Had the same problem, found that none of 12v sockets gave a reliable supply so I gave up and used the inverter, works perfectly.

thats my train of thought, Ive have a "power all sockets 1.8 kw pure sine wave inverter " but no power to the area I need, a re think is on the cards

 

[Scout]

after a bit more testing, Ive come up with the following

The humax box works perfectly in the van when powered by mains using both its power brick and the 12 volt plug when inserted into a transformer. proving the 12 volt lead is ok.

it also works when plugged into a different raw 12 volt (showing 14 volt)socket at the other end of the van (powered only into "play recording" mode as my sat cables were to short) but it showed no sign of resetting so I'm presuming it will fully work in receive signal mode too.

I have emailed humax customer support and explained the situation and outcome of testing, but Im A: not sure if thier working and Bont know if they will offer support for this problem.

Ill wait and see for a while.

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[pappajohn]

It seems the fox in the hen house is the voltage stabiliser.
Try the Humax box directly into a 12v socket.... Disconnect hookup first so it's only battery voltage rather than on charge voltage.

 

[Scout]

It seems the fox in the hen house is the voltage stabiliser.
Try the Humax box directly into a 12v socket.... Disconnect hookup first so it's only battery voltage rather than on charge voltage.

seems your correct about that, I did try it in another scocket ( see above) but only with the mains on. Ive just reinstalled it in the house so that going to have to wait for another day......

 

[Lenny HB]

Probably down to the output of the voltage stabiliser not being smooth enough. They work by converting the dc voltage to an ac square wave then back to dc.

 

[Just smiffy]

As said before I had it plugged straight to the 12v in my hymer and I had 300w of solar and sometimes plugged into EHU and I had no problems with it at all for 4yrs, it’s now plugged indoors as I have no motorhome but I will do the same next time if I’ve got a sat dish..

I can only conclude from this that it was happy with the voltage fluctuations...

 

[Richard974]

Hi,
Can I ask where you got the 12v cable to the Humax from?
Thanks

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[Scout]

it came of of ebay a few years back, sorry its no longer in my "purchases" as it was ages ago....you need to make sure you get one with the yellow tip (or multi tip)

 

[Manic]

Hi,
Can I ask where you got the 12v cable to the Humax from?
Thanks

I bought something like this for my Humax HB1000s works straight of 12 socket but I do sometimes get flashing screen when battery gets low.

 

[Fallon]

Hi just came across this thread and realised this is the same problem that I have been dealing with over the last couple of days, I have a Humax HDR 1000s freesat box that would start up in the motorhome when connected to the 240 V stepdown transformer lead that came with the device, supplying 12 vaults and 5 A at the connector pin but when I plugged in my 12 V supply from The leisure batteries the device would try to start up and then stall into a looping cycle with the start-up screen coming on and then going off , I spoke to Humax support and explained to them that I had the 2x power imput leads one from a 240 V supply and the other from a 12 V regulated supply and that both were giving the same vaults and amps at the connector pins and yet one starts the box properly and the other one doesn’t ,
They said they were puzzled and they couldn’t help me any further
I then noticed that I could hear the hard drive trying to start up when on the 12v regulated supply but it would then stop and begin the looping cycle ‘so I opened the box up and disconnected the hard drive and sure enough the sat box started up properly displaying TV programmes as it should,this is fine apart from the fact that I now have to disable the hard drive to view television programmes when on the leisure batteries,so obviously the issue is with the existing hard drive , just to check if it was a faulty hard drive I then introduced a second one and tested it with the same results my conclusion is that there is not enough power on the 12 V regulated supply to power up the hard drive, I don’t know if this is down to some of the electrical issue in resistance I would be interested to hear if anybody else has any ideas on this, thanks

 

[Scout]

sorted my my problem by connecting to the vans 12 volt system before the regulator, so its getting more than 12 volts, around 12.8v on mains and has been fine since, the sony blu ray player on the other hand like to get 12 volts after the regulator , horses for courses

 

[Badknee]

Hi,
Can I ask where you got the 12v cable to the Humax from?
Thanks

I had mine made up by a local radio spares shop so I can run it straight into a 12v feed through a fused lead.

Further news is that Humax are no longer longer making freesat boxes but Pace are coming back apparently.

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[Fallon]

 

[Fallon]

This is the 12v to Humax lead bought from eBay , it didn’t power up my Humax box on its own until I cut the lead in half and soldered a 12v to 12v 5amp regulator into the circuit

 

[Scout]

I also got mine from ebay, no problems pluged into 12 ring, but I did fit a large 12 v regulator and then it didnt work, so back to square one, I originally fitted the regulator thinking it would stop power drop out when the pump or step was running drawing down the 12 volt line.