CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[Jimbo in phoenix]

I just got my first crt, a NEC xg 135lc, and I am having some issues setting it up. All of the internal test patterns are way left of center and the right side is cut off except for a sliver on the right edge. I have no idea what is causing the problem and it only seems to be an issue with internal patterns. Any help would be greatly appreciated. [/code]

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Put a source into it ( never bother doing anything without a source, its pointless ), delete all saved input stores, create a new one for the source youre on, go into the CONVERGENCE menu and select PHASE. Adjust that and see if it corects it all.

If the test patterns are off centre within the raster, the PHASE needs adjusting, and this should always be the very first thing you adjust on every new source.

By deleting all the previously saved sources, the image shift should be back at zero, although that shouldnt affect the internal test patterns, only the source image.

Use RASTER CENTERING in the REF. ADJUST menu to get the rasters centered on your tube faces.

When you get that much sorted, i will give you more information as you need it.

[Jimbo in phoenix]

Signal entries deleted, new signal stored, rasters centered, and phase adjusted. The test patterns are now centered but the right side of the screen is still cut off with only a sliver of the test pattern visable on the edge.

Here is a picture of the problem.
http://i.imgur.com/V8Okans.jpg


After I deleted all the signal entries, before inputting a new signal, I turned off the projector and when I turned it back on, it seemed to revert back to the same values as before.

I should also note that when I first got the projector, I zeroed all of the sliders on the PC control software when trying to set it up.

Thank you for your help

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Post it to photo bucket, i cant get to that site.

Why are you using PC control and not the remote? If you removed all the stored inputs, there is no reason to turn the machine off before saving the new input.

[CasetheCorvetteman]

[Jimbo in phoenix]

Aside from not being properly converged, the source image looks great. It fills the whole raster and doesn't wrap around like the test pattern

I was using the PC control because the individual that I got the projector from did not have the original remote. However, I recently put together a working solution on my android phone that allows me to do point convergence and raster centering.

Also, I am almost positive that the test patterns were working a couple days ago. The only things that I have changed are zeroing the sliders in the pc control software and mounting the projector from the ceiling.

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Craig or Curt should have a remote, itll really be something id rather use myself!!

Ok, so the image, if you put up the pattern does that missing piece of the pattern fall off the side of the image or is the missing portion over the top of the image?

It doesnt sound like there is an issue really, nothing serious anyway.

Maybe try taking a pic of the green tube face, lens off, both with an image and with the test pattern while the source is still connected.

When you moved to ceiling mode, did you flip the yoke connectors around on the DEF board?

[Jimbo in phoenix]

I didn't Curt was willing to sell individual remotes, I'll have to shoot him an email. The phone works pretty well though. I recreated the layout of the factory remote in a program called RCoid.

Here are the remote files if anyone can use them (you need both).
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m06sho5dmm89s5m/XG%20Ctrl%20on.rcf
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ttrmt21yoiowhlk/XG%20Ctrl%20off.rcf

The pattern seems to fall off of the side. It seems to skip over the black (missing) strip, then appears just barely on the far right, and then wraps back around to the left side.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZV1uY4uRzI

It would be kind of difficult to remove the lens tonight, but I was able to take a couple of shots through the lens. The contrast is turned down and the brightness is up.

Green tube being fed the source signal
left
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/ii522/jrb0184/20140527_213310_zpsy8cqoci8.jpg

right
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/ii522/jrb0184/20140527_213307_zpsd5txvcyx.jpg

Green tube being fed a test pattern
left
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/ii522/jrb0184/20140527_213159_zpsrhpprjcb.jpg

right
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/ii522/jrb0184/20140527_213154_zpspjuynuka.jpg


and I did flip the yoke connectors.

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Ill get back to this soon mate

[CasetheCorvetteman]

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Ok, looking at that i dont think youve got anything to worry about, it looks to me as though the test pattern covers the source image, although its a little hard to be sure.

The best way ive found to get it right is to display the full white pattern, get that centered on the green tube face perfectly and filling the tube face to either 5mm from the edges of the face or to fill the current wear area, then move the machine to the correct distance so the projected full white field fills the width of your screen, making sure youre shooting square to the screen and not at an angle left or right.

By doing this, you can then use the source image to fill the screen width, and looking at the tube face should show the image perfectly centered and using just the right amount of phosphor. Provided you do this right, you can safely run the amplitude up til the image fits the screen and not worry about over shooting the edges of the tube face. Your green raster should be centered on the tube face before anything else, and the pattern will be within that raster.

Nothing much else will matter at that point, just do a rough keystone adjustment, set the pattern to a good width, rough pin adjust so its pretty square, then from there you know where the projector should go.

Next youll start with phase, get the hump in the dead center of the screen, and get the grid to look as uniform as possible both sides, use the cross hair to make sure the center vertical is lined up with the hump.

Now youre ready for alignment, use the source image, shift it to the center of the raster using image shift, then roughly get the amplitude, pin and keystone reasonably close. When thats done, bring up the cross hair, adjust the bow and tilt/skew to get that as close as possible, if need be, use line distortion to get the horizontal line perfect. You will be able to get it 100% perfect, because the adjustment steps are quite fine.

You will now have a dead perfect cross hair. Bring up the cross coarse pattern ( you can use a pattern from the source for this ) use keystone and pin to get it as close as you can at the sides. You may not get those flawless without going to the key balance, line distortion and pin balance settings, but once done, bringing up the cross hair again should still be perfect, if it has moved, your phase setting was out.

Linearity should be pretty good anyway, but use that to make all the boxes equal size from left to right and top to bottom. Roll the blanking in til it just covers the very edge of your source image, then back it out a touch til you can see the whole image again.

By this stage bringing up cross coarse ( internal or external, wont matter ) it should look very nearly perfect across the entire screen. If it is out anywhere and you cant get it perfect by any of the above settings, go to point convergence, select fine point so it only adjusts exactly on the cursor, and make it perfect. Should only take a few presses.

Youre now ready to start alignment of red over green ( you can do blue first if you want, but i do red over green, then blue over red myself )

I will start on the next steps soon

[CasetheCorvetteman]

So the green is now set, and its perfect. No further adjustment should be needed there.

Brightness up, contrast down, red tube on.

Use raster centering to put the red raster in the center of the red tube face, set contrast and brightness back to normal levels. Bring up the cross hair. Loosen off the tube retaining screws and aim the red to line up as nice as possible with the green in the center, then tighten. Loosen off the red deflection yoke and make the horizontal line cover the green, use raster shift to get the height correct, retighten the yoke. Use tilt/skew and line distortion on the convergence menu to get the red cross hair perfectly over the green. Dont use static convergence, if you need to move the vertical line, do so by moving the tube, adjust horizontal by moving the raster centering.

Now bring up the cross coarse, adjust amplitude, pin, key, line dist, pin and key balance, and linearity, get them very close, no need for perfection yet. Then it gets a bit more tricky. You will now need to use raster centering to get the source image back to dead center of the tube face, because adjusting linearity will move it to one side. When you get it back to center on the tube face, bring up the cross hair, and re-aim the tube. Re-adjust the other settings so that everything is nicely over laying the green ( which should take hardly anything ) re-check the source image is still centered on the red face, cause it may take a couple goes to get it just right.

Whatever you cant get dead perfect here will be completed by using the fine point setting on red.

You should now have a dead perfect red image over laying your perfect green. If so, blue is the exact same as red.

Once you have done all this, you should never ever need to touch anything mechanical again, the three tubes pointed perfecly, lenses focused, and your first source is dialed in and saved.

More to come cause i skipped a couple steps that are either obviously required or not critical for perfect mechanical alignment.

[CasetheCorvetteman]

So the items i didnt mension, first of all and quite obviously lens focus and lens flapping, that needs to be done before you converge or align, because the focus adjustment will move the image slightly near the sides. Lens flapping is very easy, use tge settings on the sticker inside the front cover that best suit you screen size and installation angle. Binoculars are best for focus, set electronic focus to -100 and adjust center focusing of the lens til you see the grain appear nice and sharp, then do the edges using the front section of the lens, recheck the center, recheck the edges. If you dont have binoculars, just use the focus test pattern built in, it works well if your eyes are good enough.

Astig, doing this will move alot of things, but if the projector is perfectly placed you wont need to move it after astig adjustment. Zero all electronic settings, set the center using the mechanical rings, then finish off zones using electronic astig menu. Use raster centering to get the image back to the center on the tube face, it wont have moved within the raster.

Electronic focus is done after astig. Set all to zero, but set center to -10, turn off blue tracking, then use the focus pots to get the center perfect. Adjust the zones electronically in the menu. When blue is set perfect, turn blue tracking back on in the menu.

There should be most of the info you require there to get everything as good as you can, some of the others might see something ive left out and add it in for you.