CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[Heywood Jablome]

Physical setup is just about perfect... the 'crossing tape measures' method puts the PJ at dead-balls centered and square.
Neutralized the 2-pole flare yokes then used crossing rubber-bands to center the test pattern on the tube faces by moving the focus coil cans.

Problem is, I can just barely get the red to line up with the green (at center.) This is with no source, using UTIL-Source-Internal-2. It just does not "feel" right.

PJ is the 9500LC from that ginormous RP set I scored this past March, re-bellowsed and with a red C element. PD is about 100 inches, with a 74" wide screen and HD10L lenses.

Any reason that the red should be hard up against the mechanical toe-in stop and not-quite-make-it in the center?

My next steps will be to remove the R&B lenses and re-center and re-neutralize everything (just to salve my nerves,) then try the HD10s I borrowed from Chip.

[Tim in Phoenix]

Hello

You should not be hitting any "stops", those being the bolt slots machined into the tube LC hardware, or the inside cabinet sides (sheet metal). You might be stuck on the foam under the tubes, try a bit more force in swinging the tube on its' pivot.


.

[tse]

Ignore the centers. Center the pictures on the tube faces while looking in the lens. Mark the left and right edges of the green image on the screen then pivot the red tube to match the left and right edges of the red picture to the left and right edges of the green. Tighten down the red pivot adjustments. Repeat with the blue. Adjust the convergence. When you are finished the unit will be converged AND the images on the tube faces will be centered with only one tube pivot adjustment.

Easy way. Select the internal white field test pattern. Adjust H size so image is overscanning. Adjust red tube pivot so left and right edges of red tube (you can see tube edges if you overscan) match position of green tube edges. Repeat with blue. Tighten down tube pivot bolts. Set H size to desired screen size.

This gets things very close. Scheimpflug might change it a little. If you make big scheimpflug adjustments readjust the tube pivots. It doesn't hurt the tubes to overscan for the few seconds that this takes to do.

It's the VDC way and was the Electrohome way before then.

Scott

[Heywood Jablome]

Thanks for the replies, guys...

I'm pretty sure I'm running into a hard stop (the metaphorical 'stop,' not an actual feature in the pivot mechanism designed to be a stop.) Besides, the neck card cage seems like it's just about hitting the inside of the side sheet-metal.

Scott: I'm pretty much doing exactly that, but concentrating on centers as NEC and Barco experience would dictate. I'll try the edge-align method tonight.

[Gino]

NEC's, Sony's and Barco's are setup fine aligning centres, but marquee's are an odd beast and work better by 'centering' edges. You'll see when you start using interpolated convergence how it all fits in just fine.

[Heywood Jablome]

Still does not 'feel' right... Toe in the red to the max extent possible (neck card cage hitting sheet metal) and the red still has four or five more inches to go before its' lined up.
I double checked the red and blue centering and they are fine... I can pull it in with the focus coil cans but would prefer to avoid any obvious hacks.
I did discover one interesting thing... the red C element ring has an OD that's oversize: It is a press fit to get the lens on. I swapped it with another ring but to no avail.

[Nashou66]

that is weird, I wonder if the Green is not square to the Mounting plate? Either the entire tube assembly is off or the green lens is not mounted correctly.its the only thing that I can think of....... But then again the red oversize c-element retaining ring could be pushing the red out away from the optical path the tube is set to throwing the image to far out , but since you swapped it out with another ring thats not it. . one way to check is theoretically the blue tube should have the same physical alignment in the chassis as the red or close to it. so in effect it too should be touching the side of the case. But check the green tube and lens to make sure it is square to the chassis.

Athanasios

[Heywood Jablome]

I've had the lenses off and on a dozen times... I'm pretty sure the green lens mount is OK but I'll be checking it tomorrow regardless.
The Blue & Red are toe'd approximately the same amount, but the blue lines up (not by much, tho... it's got perhaps 1" (on the test grid) of over-travel before it hits its' stop.)

I'm going to put eyes on it pretty hard tomorrow. Hopefully I'll see something subtle.

[tommo2]

If you cannot get the tube to line up correctly you have 2 options:

1. Shift the image on the tube face, or use other electronic controls to drag the image across.
This will probably lead to convergence problems etc.

2. Move the projector further back from the screen. 6 inches may do it, it depends how far out the alignment is. You say your PD is 100". This is close to the limit.
Moving the pj back will make the image bigger of course, so if your screen is a fixed sise, then you will have to use picture sise controls to reduce the picture sise, resulting in less phosphor usage.

Anyway, if you can use a bigger screen, just move the pj back until both red and green line up. Then move it back a little more to allow room for tweaking etc.

[stefuel]

[Nashou66]

[tommo2]

The PD absolutely must be correct to get a goog setup. Okay, he can pull the image across the tube face to align the images on screen, but it will just cause problems later in the setup.

Imagine you have a crosshair painted on the exact centre of the screen. Then you have a crosshair projected from each tube face, in the exact centre of the tube.
These 3 crosshairs absolutely must project onto the crosshair at the centre of the screen. Otherwise, if the 3 tubes are not facing this point, you will not have optimum setup.

And with the lengths people go to here and the time spent trying to get the last bit of performance from their projectors, I think it is a huge mistake to start setup with anything less than perfect CRT gun alignment.

Cut the frame if necessary, thats what I would do, or try to move the ductwork if possible. Or go for floor mount.

[stefuel]

I suspect he followed the NEC mentality for setup and out smarted himself
That said, looking at the E-home throw distance calculator and reading that he has a 100 inch throw distance, puts him on the ragged edge for a 9500LC.

[Curt Palme]

Post a pix of the test grids on the faces of hte tubes with the lenses off.

[Curt Palme]

Post a pix of the test grids on the faces of hte tubes with the lenses off.

[stefuel]

Also, he's done all the bellows, c-elements and fluid changes. I don't know if the starting points for the lens flapping (red caps) have been set correctly like you have to do with the ECP's???

[CRT_Ben]

100" is short but definitely possible. In my apartment my 9500LC is set up on a 67" wide screen and the throw distance is only 91". My rasters are centered and the guns are pretty much pressed against the side as Heywood says, but I can get them to line up. However convergence is hell and I have to push the sides to the max to get them to line up. Luckily I'm moving out soon and I'll be going with a much larger screen.

[Heywood Jablome]

I can't figure out why the lens table stated a min throw distance (with 10Ls) of 73"!

Floor mount is out of the question... I have a VERY inquisitive Great Dane who can almost reach the PJ on the ceiling, much less the floor!

I'm going down now with a big flashlight to see if I've F'd anything up. I'll report back in later today.

[tommo2]

[CRT_Ben]

[tommo2]