CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

Artinaz · Joined: 15 Jun 2009 Posts: 110 Location: SF Bay Area

After my nec 6pg+ started having problems with the video board, I started looking on craigslist for a replacement. I first got a marquee 8000 and then a week later a 8110 and an 8500. The 8500 was from 1996 and the 8110 from 1997.

A big thanks to dragan who suggested that I use the good tubes from the 8000 on the 8500. He helped a lot over mails and with setup docs. Without that I doubt if i would have the guts to try this.

The final machine has tubes from the 8000, 6-pole magnets, neckboard nd vim from 8110, newer hdm board and clm from the 8110, focus yokes, focus boards, motherboard and chassis of the 8500.

The nec 6pg+, 8000 and 8110 in the garage- man they occupy a lot of space

8500 on ceiling with marquee standard mount on unistruts

Here are a few sample photos-

More in the next posts

CZ Eddie · Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 1601 Location: Austin, TX

Picture quality comparison opinion between the 6PG and 8500?

Artinaz · Joined: 15 Jun 2009 Posts: 110 Location: SF Bay Area

I like the picture far more with the marquee. The variable scheimpflug versus the fixed slots on the nec really helps a lot. I think for people like me who dont have the perfect setup (projector perfectly square to the screen etc), the marquee lets u adjust for that. Setting the lens flapping was so much easier.

However with the NEC I felt that colors and gamma by default was much better which is why I never had to bother with my lumagen settings. The marquee was worse that way (for me, YMMV), but once I had the first pass on the lumagen, I dont miss the colors of the NEC at all.

Also the NECs were far more difficult to setup, the marquee is so so much easier.

Artinaz · Joined: 15 Jun 2009 Posts: 110 Location: SF Bay Area

Back to the installation details.

Setting the astig was more difficult for me on the NEC, on the marquee it was more responsive for me, but rotating the focus coil is not. Anyway, so I had the astig dialed l in, once it was on the floor. Not sure if I can get the red and green any better- the blue needs some work.

Most of the astig settings were done using the magnetics. The 6-pole really helps in that regard. I felt that the electronic controls had far less effect. If you have an 8500, even a step-up to the 4 pole of the 8000 would be better.

Here are the 4, 6 and 2 pole from the 8000, 8110 and the 8500.

Raster centering is always a pain and I thought it was easier on the NEC since you a simple cross hair to align. On the marquee its a grid and u have to align the intersection of the 7th line from the side with the 8th line from the top. Staring at the tubes and counting was a problem. So, I took a photo of the grid, straight on to avoid parallax, opened it in photoshop, found the center by the intersection of lines. That also told me what the center was with respect to the grid. I then marked the center on the tube face at that intersection.

Thing is that with the parallax errors you are not going to get it 100% correct, so don't bother too much about it- you could as well have done it by eyeballing the empty space at the top and sides.

Artinaz · Joined: 15 Jun 2009 Posts: 110 Location: SF Bay Area

Other things to check- The p14 filament voltage. Mine was at 6.35. I also used the LVPS which had the blue trimpot as dragan had suggested. The HVPS is the 34.9 one.

I also made sure that the jumper was on P7 on the HDM (under the daughterboard)- this gives more width it seems.

Thing to do for future-

-Get the HD-145 adapters. I dont miss the focus and colors, but hey lets find out what the fuss is all about. I am not in too much of a hurry tho- getting this projector on the ceiling wasnt easy even with 2 other guys to help me. There is no place to attavh chains, else I would have gone with that.

- Get dragan's mods. Most of the components, esp the capacitors are now fairly old.

- Set the resolution to 800p@72 with active area for 2:35 movies and 1080i@96 for 1.78 and 1.85 formats. Right now I have my lumagen setup for 800p@48 and the flicker bothers me in full screen white screens.

Oh and my setup is

LG BD-370 (480p or 1080/24) ->emotiva (pass thru)-> lumagen vision dvi->hdfury-> marquee

Azi

Nashou66 · Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY

Nice work Azi !!!

For the raster centering i would use a full field pattern from the source and just center the edges of the image. Much better way of doing it as any
C-linearity adjustments needed will end up moving the center anyhow.

Athanasios

draganm · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 8990 Location: Colorado

nice work, good to see there's still folks out there who don't need instant gratificationcan and are willing to go through a CRT set-up for the reward at the end. Screenshots look great

macgyver655 · Joined: 22 Aug 2007 Posts: 8508

stefuel · Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 11:37 pm Post subject:

macgyver655 · Joined: 22 Aug 2007 Posts: 8508

stefuel · Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 12:09 am Post subject:

Artinaz · Joined: 15 Jun 2009 Posts: 110 Location: SF Bay Area

Thanks man Dragan. It would never have been possible without your encouragement.

Azi

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Artinaz · Joined: 15 Jun 2009 Posts: 110 Location: SF Bay Area

Gary, great idea. Thanks for the pic.

Is this regular plywood ? How thick is the board ? Will 1" be enough ?

Azi

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

It's regular plywood, 3/4" I think. That's more than enough to support 150lbs over a 3' span.

And here's an illustration (courtesy of Clarence) of how you use it. He hooked the chains to the Marquee itself, but that makes it a bit hard to get it right up to the unistrut. The plywood platform works well for that.