Sky magic eye issue

emmbaasee · 07-09-2014 8:00pm #1

Hi there.

I had a Sky magic eye hooked up to a TV in the master bedroom to control my secondary sky box. It has worked no problem for the last few years.
I then moved the magic eye and TV into the kids room and hooked it all up as i had done previously.
My problem is this. The picture and reception is perfect but the red light on the magic eye is not lighting up. Can't change channels in the bedroom

The magic eye is calles SLx link and it's definately working as i have plugged it directly into the back of the box. I have read through various troubleshooting issues but none address my problem. Not that i can find anyway.

Can anybody help ?
I've been messing about with this for hours, checking and rechecking connections. Even brought the tv back into the other room and it worked straight away in there

swoofer · 08-09-2014 9:24am

i am only guessing but you may be using a different coax cable for the new tv and its not connected directly to sky box, ie may be going through a loft distribution point, or its from rf1 on sky box. you can buy a passthrough gizmo that sits in loft but i have forgotten its name.

galvo_clare · 08-09-2014 9:31am

As well as carrying the signal from the sky box, the rf cable must also carry a DC voltage back from the magic eye to send the control instructions back to the sky box. A few things can disturb this signal.

Most reliable way to do that is a straight coaxial cable run from RF2 at the back of the sky box to the remote TV.
If you have a Coax socket at the remote TV, you must make sure it's compatible with the magic eye i.e. digital pass through.
If you're using a loft amplifier or similar, this must also be compatible. Any
break in the chain will cause the symptoms you describe.

emmbaasee wrote: »

Hi there.

I had a Sky magic eye hooked up to a TV in the master bedroom to control my secondary sky box. It has worked no problem for the last few years.
I then moved the magic eye and TV into the kids room and hooked it all up as i had done previously.
My problem is this. The picture and reception is perfect but the red light on the magic eye is not lighting up. Can't change channels in the bedroom
The magic eye is calles SLx link and it's definately working as i have plugged it directly into the back of the box. I have read through various troubleshooting issues but none address my problem. Not that i can find anyway.

Thule · 08-09-2014 10:53am

emmbaasee wrote: »

I had a Sky magic eye hooked up to a TV in the master bedroom to control my secondary sky box. It has worked no problem for the last few years.
I then moved the magic eye and TV into the kids room and hooked it all up as i had done previously.
My problem is this. The picture and reception is perfect but the red light on the magic eye is not lighting up.

The cause of your problem (which nobody has actually yet mentioned, only skirted around) is a lack of power from the Sky box to the "magic eye". The fact that the picture & sound is present in both rooms would suggest that either both rooms are connected to the same "magic eye" compatible splitter or amplifier & the problem is with the TV point in the kids' room or, the kids' room is hooked up to the Sky box via the Sky box RF1 socket, which doesn't carry power. (This was already mentioned.)

galvo_clare wrote: »

As well as carrying the signal from the sky box, the rf cable must also carry a DC voltage back from the magic eye to send the control instructions back to the sky box.

The DC voltage comes from the RF2 output of the Sky box (or IO link on the latest boxes, some of these only have 1 RF output) & powers the "magic eye". The control signal is RF, around 7 mHz.

galvo_clare wrote: »

If you have a Coax socket at the remote TV, you must make sure it's compatible with the magic eye i.e. digital pass through.

You mean "Digilink" compatible? ("Proper" name for magic eye.) Not digital, the wallplate should pass DC power & also the 7 mHz control signals.

Mattie500 · 15-10-2014 8:09pm

I have a problem where the magic eye for a sky + hd box works for most of the day and then stops around 8 every night. Will be fine again in the morning. I am completely at a loss as to how this is happening.

steveon · 15-10-2014 10:00pm

Mattie500 wrote: »

I have a problem where the magic eye for a sky + hd box works for most of the day and then stops around 8 every night. Will be fine again in the morning. I am completely at a loss as to how this is happening.

Have seen problems like this occour with Samsung and Philips tvs in particular, what make tv have u? Try moving the magic eye away from the tv...

Mattie500 · 15-10-2014 10:29pm

I have a Sony and a Bush. Funny thing is that this is only after happening since the upgrade to sky+ HD. I actually have a 2 box setup (sky+ HD and regular Sky+). The magic eyes work both but the problem is only with the HD box. Previously I had regular sky + and an old regular sky box and it worked without a problem.

Irish Steve · 15-10-2014 10:58pm

Mattie500 wrote: »

I have a Sony and a Bush. Funny thing is that this is only after happening since the upgrade to sky+ HD. I actually have a 2 box setup (sky+ HD and regular Sky+). The magic eyes work both but the problem is only with the HD box. Previously I had regular sky + and an old regular sky box and it worked without a problem.

You are not alone. I have recently upgraded to HD plus boxes from SD plus and the only change made to the system for the second sets was the addition of the IO link boxes to the back of the HD+ boxes to give the RF output signal, but one of the remote eyes was very iffy, and the other one was not good.

Ended up swapping pne of the magic eyes for a newer one that came recently with a spurious sky remote, and that's working fine, my suspicion that's not proven yet is that the new boxes are a lot more sensitive and a lot less forgiving of the magic eye tolerance, and older magic eyes may not be to the same spec as the newer ones. The IO link boxes are also suspect in that respect, I don't know if the non sky ones are genuine or spurious, it could well be that if it's not a "genuine" Sky IO link, it may not be so tolerant.

Some of the spurious Sky remotes are definitely not as good as the genuine item, if for no other reason than that they don't work with all the codes that they are supposed to, and finding out if it's genuine or spurious with things like E-bay suppliers is impossible.

The other possible to check is that the connections into the box at the box end are 100% good, even one thin wisp of outer coax touching the inner can cause problems, and having disturbed the boxes during the changeover may have upset the connections. It's worth a check to be sure.

the other outside possible, does another member of the family have a device that's not in the room or not powered on earlier in the day, but is there during the times when it's being obnoxious,

Jofspring · 16-10-2014 6:54pm

Having a similar issue to above.

Had a sky+ box with two other rooms using the eye. Today I got in a sky+HD box. Went into town; picked up an io link and and plugged it into the new box. Went into setup; turned on the rf output. Re-tuned the two tellies. I can see sky on the other two tellies but now the remote will not work with the eyes. The red light on the eyes are working and they are fed through a Booster box in the attic. The only thing I did really was plug the cable from the wall through the io link instead of direct into the box.

Any help to get the remote working appreciated.

Irish Steve · 16-10-2014 10:08pm

If the eye is going through a booster, it might be worth trying taking the booster out of the line temporarily to see if it works without it.

As far as I can tell from various comments on different forums, the IO link boxes don't have the same power as the old RF out had, and I'm not convinced that they have the same reception strength for receiving the signal back from the magic eye.

I tried swapping out the magic eye end on one of our boxes for a newer one that had come with a recent (spurious) SKy remote, and it seems to work with the IO link, but the older one that was in use with the old box is just not working with the same box, and the same cabling, which is confusing.

Not sure if any of the installers will be able to throw any light on this, it's a strange one, and not making too much sense at the moment.

Jofspring · 17-10-2014 12:00pm

Ya it seems the issue is just not enough power. There is an io link online that allows you to hook a power source directly to it so that is one option. The other option is to power the booster box in the attic from a mains.

steveon · 18-10-2014 12:39pm

Best I/O link to use is the triax one that you can power up directly from behind the sky box. It adds another 2-3 volts to enable it to power up an amplifier directly, or as rightfully said you can also power up your amplifier directly should there be a provision to already do so such as f140 you can add a psu to it, or change the amp for one that's mains powered however you will need a plug socket in the attic if you don't have one already in place

roshje · 09-03-2015 12:20am

Hi there,
Sorry if this is not the right thread, cancelled sky now have free to air but my magic eye does not seem to be working. Should it still work with free to air and if so what is wrong? Thanks

Thurston? · 09-03-2015 1:02am

roshje wrote: »

... cancelled sky now have free to air but my magic eye does not seem to be working. Should it still work with free to air and if so what is wrong?

Cancelling subscription has no effect on these functions.

Is it just the 'eye' part that seems not to be doing its job i.e. the remote control has no effect? You are still getting picture & sound at the TV(s) in other rooms?

roshje · 09-03-2015 1:28am

Thurston? wrote: »

Cancelling subscription has no effect on these functions.

Is it just the 'eye' part that seems not to be doing its job i.e. the remote control has no effect? You are still getting picture & sound at the TV(s) in other rooms?

Yes that seems to be the problem,

Thurston? · 09-03-2015 12:25pm

So it's just that the remote control has no effect? Presumably the remote itself is alright, you've used it directly at the Sky box?

What about the power indicator at the 'eye'?

roshje · 09-03-2015 11:41pm

Yes I just checked the led and no light is working

Thurston? · 10-03-2015 12:47am

Just to be sure, it's still the Sky box you're using for free-to-air channels?

Well, assuming nobody has got into the Sky box service menu & turned off RF2 power, then the next step would be to unplug the 'eye' unit from the cable at the TV in the other room, & plug it directly into the Sky box RF2, see if the light comes on then.

roshje · 10-03-2015 7:20pm

Well wonders never cease, went up last night after your previous post on led light and fiddled with cables on the tv and sky box, went up now to plug the eye into the Rf2 and led light was on. So tried it and its working:eek: i wouldn't mind but i did try connections on the tv before but not the sky box:mad:.Anyway Thurston? thanks very much for help and advice it was greatly appreciated.Cheers

Thurston? · 10-03-2015 8:41pm

Yeah, connections are the usual cause of problems, interfering with the DC power circuit while leaving the RF picture & sound signal unscathed.

Most times it will be the centre conductor of the coaxial cable from RF2 making poor contact with 'Belling-Lee' type aerial plug centre pins.

Sky magic eye issue

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