CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[bengalfan]

Been a while since I posted a real post here (jokes don't count).
I moved to St. John, USVI after my house burned down a few years ago, losing both my Barco's. So, now I'm leaving USVI to move back to Ohio next week. Yes, poor timing weather wise, but it's time to go back. It's been a good retirement tho' !

I picked up an older house last summer when back for a visit and had some renovation done to it, and will finish that work myself and plan to include a home theater in the lower level. Bought Warren's e-book to help plan for it. I hopefully will have a bar included - kind of like Kal's old set-up. Unfortunately it has a low ceiling (6'6") so will likely need to do a floor mount.

Just before I moved here, I bought an NEC XG1100LC that appeared to work quite well for only $400 (the guy had no idea, it was from uncle's estate). It's been in storage all this time, and I don't know what to expect when I get it out. Should I vacum it, blow it out with compressed air, or what before I plug it in and try it. Any idea's what I should do and look for? I'm sure I'll have to make accomodations for new input to use HDMI. Used HD Fury previously on old theater. I'm used to the Barco's, so this NEC is new territory for me. Frankly, I'm considering selling it, and getting a digital due to my room height confinements.

Any suggestions on getting the NEC up and running are welcome; same on the digital idea.

Good to be back!

Van (aka Bengalfan)

[gjaky]

Well, from an XG110LC you can still get a good picture, in the buy&sell section Curt posted a few days ago that he sells internal DVI cards for the NEC, that is the way to go. On the other hand with standard 1080p timings out of a standard Bluray player probably will still get unstatisfactory results as a good amount off the edges will be cropped horizontally due the small porches.

If the machine was stored in normal conditions, in a relative dust free environment, you should power it up right away, maybe you should check if there isn't any animal nest inside If it has good tubes I wouldn't change it to a digital, but Kal and Steve will surely chimne in and say the opposite, you know how it goes

As for selling, I guess you will be lucky if you got any takers on it.

[CasetheCorvetteman]

You dont want to do 1080p with an XG, stick to 1080i, itll be fine.

Better off with the HDMI 1.3 card over the DVI if you can get it, but with a PC, the RGB input will be just as good.

[bengalfan]

Thanks for replies!
It is set-up w/ composite card currently plugged in, and was thinking to use an HDFury to run HDMI into it. Moome used to have HDMI card for it, but hasn't had them in stock for awhile. 1080i or 720p either is fine by me. My BD808s could do 1080p, barely, so it and BG800s were set for the lower resolutions. Hope to use a 96" -> 108" screen. I need to read manual, but assume it has a switch to flip the image.
Storage was clean and dry, mostly worried about dust, spider nests and webs. Take the cover off and look around.
Any other suggestions are welcome

[CasetheCorvetteman]

There is a setting in the menu and you flip the deflection yoke plugs around to flip image.

Id use RGB over a HD Fury 3 if it was me, but if youve got no option thatll be fine.

1080i at 60Hz is fine at standard timings, however 1280x720p will probably leave you struggling for width. I found 1920x1080i to look quite exceptional.

When it comes to setup, its much more simple on a Barco but no where near as accurate, best bet is to go through every setting in the alignment menu and see exactly what the all do. Gábor or myself can tell you what they all do, but trying them for yourself would be of greater benefit to start with, since youre not completely new to CRT setup.

Set everything to mid point and use as much mechanical correction as you can. On your primary source you should have zero static convergence.

The most important things to remember are set the PHASE before anything else because this tells the convergence system where the center is, do some rough keystone, pin, and amplitude with the source image showing just the green image, then go to the crosshair and get that perfect. From there, go for the others in a logical order, using the source image of things like keystone, pin, amplitude, key and pin balance, as this will ensure the image lines up with your screen perfectly. Once you get the green image to fit the screen nicely using all alignment settings, use the cross course pattern and make it perfect with POINT, there are two ways to go with that, RGB POINT will move all three colours, and green will move just that. If youre adjusting an area where the colours allready align perfectly or near perfectly, use RGB POINT. If they arent really that close just use green and then do red and blue on their own after using the main settings.

You will need to do tube angles twice to be perfect, because the image center is not the center of the red and blue tube face, adjusting linearity will make the image slightly off center. Best way i reckon is get it all aimed, images all centered, linearity correct, then go back into raster shift and move the red and blue images so they have equal unused phosphor at their face edges. Then re-aim the tubes. You may get it perfect in one go, but probably not, and if you dont, youll have slightly uneven focus ( both optical and electrical ) which for blue will mean uneven brightness, even if only just a slight touch. You will probably find good results re-aiming with the crosshair pattern, from there re-adjust linearity, should be only very minor, and re-check that those images are perfectly centered on the faces. If not, raster shift them, then re-aim mechanically.

It sounds like a big effort, but its not. Once its done, every time you do a setup itll allready be aimed perfectly, and a completed perfectly converged image should show all three images dead centered on the faces every time.

[Curt Palme]

Check the heat sink compound on the chips under the HV and deflection boards. About 1/2 the NECs used compound that would harden, and become useless. If so, the chips overheat, and if the V board fails, it can implode a tube. Since NEC tubes are now discontinued, you want to avoid that.

There's always a bead of heat sink compound at the edge of each of those big chips. If it's tacky and sticks to your finger, you're good to go. If it's hardened, it's wise to pull each board out and replace the compound, or send me the boards and I can do it for you.

[Curt Palme]

Check the heat sink compound on the chips under the HV and deflection boards. About 1/2 the NECs used compound that would harden, and become useless. If so, the chips overheat, and if the V board fails, it can implode a tube. Since NEC tubes are now discontinued, you want to avoid that.

There's always a bead of heat sink compound at the edge of each of those big chips. If it's tacky and sticks to your finger, you're good to go. If it's hardened, it's wise to pull each board out and replace the compound, or send me the boards and I can do it for you.

[bengalfan]

Thanks again for all your help!
This Porsche guy may be definately seeking some Corvette help!
Curt, thx for the heads up, I'll be checking them!

[CasetheCorvetteman]

No worries mate, happy to help