Spidey 9000 or 9900??

[gman]

Right then, been out of the game for a few years (since moving out of the folks gaff!), and will very soon be purchasing my own set up. After all research into which receiver to go for, have decided on a spiderbox :) Now am just not sure which to go for, the 9000 or 9900? I know what the obvious differences are that are detailed in the tech specs but can you actually notice the difference? Is it worth paying the little bit extra for the 9900??

Going for a full 80cm motorised set up (would go for 100cm but it's going on the front of the house and don't think the neighbours would be too impressed!). Is the Dark Motor best to go for? I'm after something really quiet.

Next step will be to get a full set up price from Goldwafers and hopefully avin a bash at installing myself :/ !!!!

Thanks in advance!!..

[chris-k]

well its up to you both are good boxes, if you have the money i would go for the latest one...
i use (and still uses the same) darkmotor metal gear for years and im very satisfied with it..
Happy shoping:woohoo-022:

[echelon]

the 9900 has a problem playing mp3 using the latest patch afaik

other than that I dont think there is much between them as far as differences go, the 9900 may have better youtube capability or something similar

so sat box wise I think they do the same, its those extra features that may decide you

yes the darkmotor is excellent and quiet too, and works better than the technomate motor with the spiderbox as it doesnt "stutter" when using usals
both motors work fine using diseqc v1.2 however, but I prefer usals

I would also recommend using an inverto ultra black lnb, and T-K brackets with a bit of scaffold pole

so decide on which of the 2 you need based on requirements, add a darkmotor and installation is easy enough once you have patched the box, loaded a channel list and have a satfinder with beeper on it to tell you when you are pointed at something, using the spiderbox and a portable tv to decide which sat you are on and check signal and quality levels

[gman]

Wow, brilliant detailed replies!!! thanks guys. think i'll go for the 9900 and thanks echelon for the extra tips!! Hopefully have it all ready to go in the next 2/3 weeks and looking forward to it! will keep you posted in how i get on. i'm quite a technical person, so should be fairly straight forward..famous last words!

Cheers again fellas ;o)

[vamas]

I have both and must say that the 9900 is superior especcialy for CCcam - much more effective. Both have same provider.
The problem I have with both spiders are that they are not yet capable to handle P2P as its software is not OPEN - maybe spider poeple can sort this out some time (?)

[EXTRAFACTO]

i have a spider 9000...and use a darkmotor(metal gears)...very quiet...and reliable...

[gman]

Thanks again guys. Have ordered 9900 with dark motor and inverto ultra black lnb. Should be arriving tomorrow ready for me to install next week. Reckon i'll be alright with the physical install i.e getting the dish up, might struggle with patching the receiver and connecting to Ethernet or i may just have info overload as i've been reading/ watching tutorials all over the web. Hopefully it'll be easier once i have the 9900 menu in front of me.

One thing i do seem to be struggling with is registering at ***** (hope i can mention that here?) if anyone can help? i seem to have registered before but when i request a new password it advises that one has been sent but nothing ever arrives to my @ol email address, not even on junk....

[EXTRAFACTO]

I was used to useing a cam etc...box after 4 years blew up...so i asked advice on this forum about a new box.
straight away the great guys on here,started offering advice,based on what i had said as wanting do.
i purchased spiderbox 9000hd from sponsor of this forum...
then i used echelon easy set up guide(which is here on this forum to read)
after following the guide to the letter....stage by stage...i was useing my spider plus gift...in what to me seemed miniutes
just follow the giude...and enjoy your spider...
big thanks to the people who help people like me...to enjoy whats possible...

[gman]

Just thought i'd share my experience from a first time installer, me! This may hopefully help anyone with out any experience in installing a dish from scratch.

Cannot believe how easy this actually was! I did my research first from here (thanks to all the Pimps who helped) and elsewhere around the web, so i knew exactly what i had to do. I went for the SB9900, 80cm Dish, Inverto LNB, Dark Supreme Motor, and it was a doddle to actually fit the dish/ motor/ bracket and align it. Here's how i did it (bearing in mind i have never installed a full set up or even re-aligned a dish manually and i hate heights!):

Dish Assembly
Firstly I assembled the dish with the arm and LNB. Then the dish bracket, setting the angle to my latitude (Make sure you read up on your angle offsets in the motor manual as this confused me a little later on!), followed by the motor itself (actual motor, not the motor bracket). At this point i also attached the cable from the LNB to the motor and sealed the connectors at both ends with self amalgamating tape. Also tied the cable to the arm with cable ties leaving a 'U' shape in the cable at the LNB for any rain water to drip off. Tightened up all nuts and bolts (except for the motor and dish bracket angle aligners.
This all took approx 40 mins and did this the night before fitting.

Mounting the Bracket
I had a simple L bracket with 4 fixing holes in each corner, as it was going on the front of the house and so wanted the bracket to be as descrete as possible (otherwise would have gone for T - K brackets and a bigger dish, at least a metre :-( )

Firstly i climbed up the ladders to the position where the bracket was going (quite high, about 3 foot below the roof on a 1890's terraced house!), and checked out how plumb the wall was. Perfectly plumb in fact, not bad for a 120 year old house!

I then drilled just one hole, attached the bracket screwing fairly tightly so there was a little give in it. From here i tilted/ skewed the bracket slightly until the short vertical mounting pole was perfectly plumb. Once it was i then marked out the other 3 holes, removed the bracket, drilled and re-mounted the bracket through all 4 holes ensuring that the vertical remained plumb.
This took approx 35 mins.

Mounting the Dish
This was quite possibly the trickiest bit but luckily for me my bro-in law did most of the ladder work as he doesn't mind heights! We first attached the motor bracket to the vertical mount ensuring that the motor bracket faced due south. Then climbed up with the dish and somehow managed to thread the screws through the motor bracket and in to the motor.
I then attached the main cable to the motor (sealing the connector with the SA tape again), and fed down the wall (clipping in every foot or so) and into the pre-drilled hole.
Time took about a full hour as we were up and down the ladder a few times trying to work out how to keep the dish up there whilst screwing the screws into the motor!

Setting up Receiver and Aligning
I hooked the dish cable up to my 9900 and the 9900 to the TV (HDMI), plugged it into the mains and tunred it on.
Went straight in to the motor settings menu and input my longitude and latitude. Then went to satellite set up, Thor, transponder 11862 (BBC World) hoping to see some sort of signal....... and nothing! This is the bit where i was scratching my head for a good 20 minutes or so whilst trying to make sense of the angle offsets in the motor manual.
Anyway, eventually it clicked so i was back up the ladder and tilted the dish to the correct angle. Came back down, inside and VOILA! A signal!! I was then up and down the ladder about 6 or 7 times whilst i tweaked the dish tilting it up or down slightly until my signal/ quality was at it's stongest.
This took about another 35mins (don't forget i was scratching my head for 20mins of this!)

I patched the receiver etc and installed a channel list that i got from here. I then moved to each satellite and tweaked the dish one step east/ west until i got the strongest signals and saved each one. From there i manually did a blind scan on each sat (did this over a few days as a blind scan on each sat, took ages!) then amended the original channel list that i downloaded to my own preferences (still tweaking this after 3 weeks!).

And that's about it!! Really thought it would be much more complicated and would have taken a lot more time than it actually did especially to align the dish and get a decent arc. I get excellent signal and quality from 42e to 30w, could stretch further if it wasn't for the other houses in the way! I guess i was a little lucky in that my house wall faces due south and the mount was fairly east to get plumb. Only issue i encountered was registering my gift (in another thread).
I'm more than happy to help any one if you're thinking about doing this or have any questions ;o)

Please becareful though, as easy as this was to install, i had someone helping with the ladders and heights and even he was s**t scared at one point whilst trying to fit the dish. Take your time.....

Gman

[gman]

P.S. since doing this i've now been booked in to re-align my dads dish and fit a full 1 metre install at my bro-in-laws!!!! think i'll be using the sponsor this time though ;o)