Titanium ASC1 being discontinued

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Re: Titanium ASC1 being discontinued

Post by Arion » Sun May 19, 2019 7:00 am

I have had a very good experience with the ASC-1 and direct contact with Brian as recent as this weekend. My mover didn't want to move to the east and after the troubleshooting I determined it to be the mover. I shipped it off to Brain in California and he called me back Friday night. A transistor or diode fried on the motherboard and he said it would of been voltage coming in from the big dish. He made sure that my dish was bonded to the service ground [it was] as well as the drain wire along with measuring the voltages from the sensor wires to ground, ect.

I wasn't aware of lightning, power surges or anything else that happened but even though his determination was that it wasn't a fault with the ASC-1 he is replacing the mother board for me at no charge and shipping it back to me in Michigan no charge. So this cost him a mother board and shipping so he is definitely losing money on this but he wants to make sure he takes care of his customers. I asked him about the discontinuation of the mover and the reason is regardless of where the mover is assembled there is a limited market in the U.S. for con-sumer grade hobby satellite gear and that mover is already priced [because it's quality equipment] as high as most people are willing to spend for such a device. A lot of people will pay $60 for a cheap V-box but balk at the price of his mover.

For him looking at the investment he would have to make for a new run of the movers as well as the price increases he would have to charge he doesn't believe it would be a viable option for him. Lot's of people badmouth others without having first person contact. They either read or hear that someone or some company isn't reliable. For me I've had first person contact with Brian from Titanium as well as with Tek our sponsor here and I find them both to be honourable and straight forward and have no qualms about buying from either of them and I have.
10' Tek C-band dish, 1.2 meter KU band dish, ASC1 mover, Octagon/Zgemma/Edison dual band STB's. Running OpenPli on all.

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Re: Titanium ASC1 being discontinued

Post by Titanium » Sun May 19, 2019 12:20 pm

dishcrank wrote:
Sun May 19, 2019 12:11 am
Have you considered doing the assembly in the USA? You'd need a pick-and-place machine and reflow oven. Parts could be sourced locally and PCB too. Isn't this the point of Trump's tariffs?
Yes, the build has been submitted to bid with several shops in the US. Even with major changes with goals to reduce case casting cost, minimize aluminum usage, decrease size and weight for shipping, every quote exceeded the imported cost including the current 25% tariff.

Without getting political, the primary goal of the trade negotiations is not to encourage "made in the USA".

As I suggested on another site, this might be a great opportunity for a hobbyist to develop a Raspberry Pi HAT kit solution for positioning and servo control with DiSEqC / IP connectivity, etc
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Re: Titanium ASC1 being discontinued

Post by Victoria » Sun May 19, 2019 4:34 pm

dishcrank wrote:
Sun May 19, 2019 12:11 am
For the record, I've never had any issues with Titanium products including the ASC1.

@brian: Have you considered doing the assembly in the USA? You'd need a pick-and-place machine and reflow oven. Parts could be sourced locally and PCB too. Isn't this the point of Trump's tariffs?
This would also have the consequence of rewarding bad behavior.

When someone abuses you, you don't do what they want you to do.

Let's call it what it really is: These aren't "tariffs." These are the Trump Tax.

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Re: Titanium ASC1 being discontinued

Post by fatso » Mon May 20, 2019 12:10 am

Sorry to hear about the end of the asc-1. :sad:
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Re: Titanium ASC1 being discontinued

Post by 4dtvfrank » Mon May 20, 2019 2:27 am

Titanium wrote:
Sat May 18, 2019 10:09 am
I never have said, nor have needed to say anything that was untrue or hearsay about Glen or Rainier.
:bullshit

:byebye :byebye :byebye

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Re: Titanium ASC1 being discontinued

Post by Dishman Dan » Mon May 20, 2019 4:14 am

Titanium wrote:
Sat May 18, 2019 7:15 pm
Hope to hear from you next week!
There is no reason to contact you now pertaining to the units because I no longer have them. I was posting in this thread that not everybody is sad to see the units end production and not everybody is/was happy with them! :wink:

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Re: Titanium ASC1 being discontinued

Post by Titanium » Mon May 20, 2019 9:07 am

Dishman Dan wrote:
Sat May 18, 2019 1:45 pm
I have 2 of your ASC1 units which are giving me problems. You will not help me out just because I am a C band subscriber to Rainier.

Ok??? I was confused by the usage of present vs past tense. Seems like your posts were more about your issues with Brian than the ASC1... :)

Great chatting with you Dan! 8-)
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Re: Titanium ASC1 being discontinued

Post by tvroadmin » Tue May 21, 2019 12:07 am

Dishman Dan, no bashing please. See our rules. 4dtvfrank, xee you've both been turfed.

I don't know what Dan's relationship to Rainier is, if any, but members should be aware that they (Rainier) are engaged in bashing FTA dealers, sponsors and forums on several other websites. If you come across any such posts, such as this antenna is bad or that positioner is unreliable, then you can be sure these are actually fine quality products. :mrgreen:
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Re: Titanium ASC1 being discontinued

Post by Arion » Tue May 21, 2019 2:15 pm

Perhaps not the same people but I had the same sorts of people warning me not to buy a 10' big dish from Tek;


'The dishes are flimsy'
'Made in China cheap crap'
'Can't get an actual name to go with the store front'
'Doesn't have a phone where you can call him directly'
'Don't know if you'll actually get your dish or not, ect'


I was coming up empty locally on dishes and wanted new and Tek was the only game in town as it were for consumer grade dishes at a price point I could afford. After reading a couple of reviews on Satguys that were fairly satisfied with the dish and in hearing that the later model dishes were beefed up I made the jump myself a few years ago.

I always had KU FTA and had DirecTv but once I got the big dish I kicked DirecTv to the curb and with losing over a $100 per month to DTV the dish and receiver paid for itself in about a year. There is no reason for me to go back to subscription satellite TV. The picture quality and variety of c-band is superior and after now going through two brutal U.P. of Michigan winters with this dish I have no complaints. Product enhancements have been done since the first generation dishes and I had a guy from Satguys who installed mesh dishes back in the 1980's and he purchased one to put up for someone else and he said the build quality now is as good as what it was back then.

You can't see everything on c-band and things can be hit and miss but there is new stuff popping up all the time and for many of us if we just have to see a certain something there is usually a way to do it even if you have to stream it or download it for later viewing. All in all this is a great hobby and I would never go back to pay satellite TV again.

Likewise the v-box is a great little cheaply made mover and they are inexpensive enough to have a spare but I got my ASC-1 because it's heavy and solidly made and near commercial quality for not a lot more than a couple of those v-box units. Looking at the build quality once I got it and considering everything that went into it Titanium wasn't making a lot of money off these things and considering that unfortunately most electronic parts are made overseas now I can see where he is coming from in not building more.
10' Tek C-band dish, 1.2 meter KU band dish, ASC1 mover, Octagon/Zgemma/Edison dual band STB's. Running OpenPli on all.

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Re: Titanium ASC1 being discontinued

Post by tvroadmin » Tue May 21, 2019 10:45 pm

Arion wrote:
Tue May 21, 2019 2:15 pm
Product enhancements have been done since the first generation dishes and I had a guy from Satguys who installed mesh dishes back in the 1980's and he purchased one to put up for someone else and he said the build quality now is as good as what it was back then.
They are designed and tested in Canada by an antenna engineer. They are built in an overseas machine shop according to the drawings and specifications they get from Canada. Improvements have been made over the years and button hook, powered declination, powered skew and azimuth add-ons will be available for the larger antennas later this year. They are top notch.

Arion wrote:
Tue May 21, 2019 2:15 pm
Likewise the v-box is a great little cheaply made mover and they are inexpensive enough to have a spare but I got my ASC-1 because it's heavy and solidly made and near commercial quality for not a lot more than a couple of those v-box units. Looking at the build quality once I got it and considering everything that went into it Titanium wasn't making a lot of money off these things and considering that unfortunately most electronic parts are made overseas now I can see where he is coming from in not building more.
Titanium is an importer of his product, which means he has to import a container full of 1,000 pieces or more to make it worth his while. That's at least $50-$60k in capital if not more, which is a lot of money for a small business man and quite risky, especially when trade is slowing down worldwide. The only other way to do this is to manufacture in your own shop and stock $5k worth of parts at a time. But you need your own shop and machinery and you risk operating in hostile country/state that is anti-industry / anti-business and hell bent on taxing/regulating small producers out of existence.
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