CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[gjaky]

[Rattanee]

I'll check up on that in the manual soon as I'm done with the C board.

Does anyone have a decent, up close picture of the solder side of a C drive PWB by chance ?

[gjaky]

I have one spare (cannibalized) C-drive board lying around, tomorrow will soot a picture of it...

[Rattanee]

Thanks, but I figured it out! I thought I had soldered one of the bottom resistors back in the wrong place. But no... it was probably a little solder under there molten into the damn hot-glue they used to attach it... cleaned it up and the PJ fires up.

The jumping however I'm not at all sure is a digital problem! It will happen occasionally a little while after power up. I will try to make a short video of what exactly happens. When it happens, it's like something's killing the high voltage or the powersupply is being overtaxed somehow as even the fan speed decreases!

[Rattanee]

I'm willing to bet the Point PWB is going to have a dud RAM chip on it and not corrupt data... we'll see after I telnet into the board... it's supposed to have self-diagnostics via a serial connection... should be interesting.

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Its quite possibly the pots on the DEF board causing the jumping, mine did that, and the pots up near the top right were an issue.

Also if the screen is shrinking and expanding rapidly, the H-OUT pot is out of adjustment.

If you dont have a source connected, you cant really do much here yet, you need a source connected for proper operation on an NEC.

[Rattanee]

So... I've zeroed out all adjustments. Could someone verify that I have my setup tactics in more or less the right order? I'll also insert some numbered questions where appropriate, if someone could chime in, I'd appreciate it!

This is how I plan to do my adjustments:
-Set -all- software adjustments to 0 or their midpoint.
1) Where should I set blanking to? If it's set to 50% all around, I know that some resolutions can get parts cut off and it might interfere with any horizontal positioning adjustments... should I just zero them all completely?
-Use centering magnets to make sure all three rasters are centered on the CRT face as much as possible.
-Stretch rasters to maximum possible size to use as much of the tube face as possible
2)Am I right in thinking that I do this with blanking fully zeroed in all directions with the built in test signal?
-Install optics
-Aim red and blue optics for best possible mechanical convergence
-Set mechanical focus
-Set electronic focus on deflection PCB with trimmers
-Recheck mechanical focus
-Recheck focus with trimmers
-Finalize focus with software controls
-Check astigmatism and correct whatever can be done fith the rings on the tubes
-Recheck all previous focus adjustments
-Project green crosshatch, adjust geometry to perfect square
3)Does anyone have any methods for making sure linearity is as good as possible when setting up geometry?
-Recheck mechanical convergence of blue and red optics
-Finetune static convergence in software
-Adjust blue and red dynamic convergence to perfection from software
-Correct whatever tiny faults may remain using point convergence once my board is running
-Enjoy

Does that sound about right ?

Also:
I can now adjust edge focus on the upper and lower edge from software, but the right and left edges -barely- change. Is there a trimpot I may be missing to pre-adjust edge focus with? Like with regular focus?

Also, the range of the blue and green focus trimpots doesn't seem to be enough. With the red tube, I can go from soft, to sharp, to soft again. With the other two, it will sharpen until they're maxed out, and I suspect I should be able to get better focus on those two tubes... am I missing some adjustment?

Thanks for any help guys!

[Rattanee]

[gjaky]

Set blanking to 100% in all directions during the setup.
Otherwise, take your time and read through the guide that is already on the main page, all of your questions are answered.
http://www.curtpalme.com/CRTSetupGuide.shtm

[CasetheCorvetteman]

No, there are some anomallies there, but i dont feel up to typing out the whole procedure right now. Just a brief one. You may find where i have typed it up before, ive done it a number of times. Gábor may have it saved or know where to locate it.

Firstly you dont want to maximise tube face usage on a PG, theyre not really designed for that.

Set blanking to 100 all around, then set it last thing when youre done.

Set PHASE before anything else. If you dont, youre wasting your time.

Setting linearity on red and blue will give you reason to re-center the image on the tube face. Set static at zero for all three tubes. Once you do the re-center, you will need to re-aim the tubes, then check linearity, recheck centering, and aim again. When youre done, all three tubefaces will have an image spot on center, and youll have static convergence set to zero. No excuses because its easy to do this right, and once its done you never touch it again unless you move the set.

The red and green images will move when you open and close the DEF board and the lid. You need to set the centering rings so that the image is dead centre when everything is closed. Its not hard to do.

Move the zone focus to zero on all, set the center focus to -10 on all three, set the blue defocus switch to off. Set the focus pots on the DEF board to their mechanical center. Move the focus yokes back and foward ton the neck until you see the sharpest focus in the center. Tighten the yoke, the electronic center and focus trimpot should allready be spot on, adjust the zone focus as best you can for all three colours. When finished, flick the blue defocus switch back on to defocus the blue.

[Rattanee]

I did read the guide, the point here is to see what I missed

By blanking at 100 you mean fully open in all directions right? (left and bottom blanking do that at 0 and top and right at 100%)

Also, the guide says nothing about moving the yokes to change focus, but seems obvious now... the main problem is that pretty much all of the rings on the tubes are loose, so I'll need to set up each tube pretty much from scratch.

I did notice that opening and closing the def board changes the position of the raster yes.

I'm uploading some various pics and a video in a bit.

[Rattanee]

Okay so the image is just wherever it landed so I could show you what is going on in this one:
http://youtu.be/6r8Y9oJ954Y
The image jumps to 'normal' soon after I open the input list.
Cussing and stupid language alert!

I moved the image somewhat so the tearing is better seen, plus at one point I switched off the gamecube so you can see what happens without an input when this is going down....
Also, the image pops over to normal during the RARE logo show.
http://youtu.be/-dnEJd-pfqM
Same alerts as above

Various pictures to follow soon too.

EDIT:
Here's some pics of the Sony's tube faces. Pretty nasty burn... I don't think there's much I can do about it but live with it until I find a tube donor. The Barco I got, oddly enough, has pretty much the same kind of burn... except on all three tubes and looking much worse... I was going to swap in some tubes I have from RPTVs, but these are fat-necked suckers... :\ Owell. The Sony's picture is passable.

Possibly stupid question: if the lenses are colour filtered on a PJ, but the glycol isn't, would adding coloured glycol be desirable, or superfluous?

[CasetheCorvetteman]

The guide is very vague compared to the ones ive written. It leaves a hell of alot of important info out. Especially about the re-rentering images on red/blue after linearity, if you follow the guide you will likely skip that critical step, which will mean youll unevenly wear your red/blue and your edge focus will suffer too.

From memory i think they failed to state the extreme importance of PHASE before anything else.


Yes blanking completely open in every direction.

Set mechanical astig before you go too far then since itll need doing and will affect raster centering.

The PG series has a convergence system second ONLY to the XG, whether people here like that or not, its a fact. Set it right and itll be stable for ages.

[Rattanee]

Yeah don't think it says anything about phase... do you mean phase as in the horizontal position of the image within the raster? (Older CRT monitors often use H-Phase where they move the image within the raster, instead of a H-Position where the entire raster would move... it gets confusing sometimes...)

Also, a curious question... I've seen Curt's room being built and from what I saw his PJs are not perpendicular to the screen? Doesn't that mess with the optical focusing of the image? It would be ideal for me if I could project at an angle, but I thought that would really screw up focus?

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Yes it does, project straight. His are like that for a good reason.

PHASE is not setting the image within the raster on an NEC, that is called POSITION which moves the image within the raster, PHASE is different.

[Rattanee]

Hrrmm.... So I should insert a step where the position is still set to center all around, and use phase to set the test pattern to center... is that correct?

What do you think of the video tearing? I know the vids ain't the best quality but that's what my phone can do... plus it's a gamecube... 50hz

(I just don't get how the two pjs projecting from a slight angle end up with a usable stacked image... weird.... I might soon be in the position to try and stack another PG9 with this one... If I try it though, I was going to place them one under the other... )

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Yep, something like that.

50Hz is fine, nothing wrong with that on Gamecube.

Im not sure why you cant understand that??? Those are 909s, they have the ability to focus perfectly from an off axis install, and in Curt's case theyre both doing the same image, hence they need to still aim direct to screen center. Obviously they cant both occupy the same space, so theyre side by side.

I wouldnt bother doing it with a 9PG, unless you have the exact lens flapping spaces for the given angles...

[CasetheCorvetteman]

PS, there is nothing wrong with those Sony tubes, hardly any wear there.

[Rattanee]

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Should be no need to re cap the Sony. There is a fair bit of mechanic work to be done to get good alignment on them though, and using the width coils to make everything as close as possible.

The lens flapping on a 909 is significantly more advanced than that used on a Plain PG, so even at big angles, even focus is still possible.

When using over/under stacking, the lenses are still at offset angles. The problem with the Plain PG is that they used preset spacers for lens flapping, and getting it right for installations other than normal will be tricky. The PLUS, XTRA, and AC XGs all use adjustable tabs, which are also designed for straight on projection rather than off axis.

The 909 ( as well as a few others ) uses a continually adjustable method of lens flapping, which allows adjustment of the tube/lens assembly in every dirrection at a continuously variable rate, so while it is harder to get it right for basic installs when compared to preset tabs as used on the NECs, it is generally possible to get it right even when the projector is off axis.

The HFQ900 lenses also seem to have a reasonably large range of adjustment, much like the HD-145s do.