CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

Mad Mr H · Joined: 07 Mar 2006 Posts: 641 Location: London , England

Well Dave is right,

I have said this many times to Curt that the service manuals should be available here...........

CHARGE people for them, of course, why not?

You charge to be a member...........

"YOU" think service manuals will hurt your trade I feel different

Personally I think they might even increase your cash flow.......

First someone buys the manual from you.

THEN they realise its more difficult to repair than they thought and send it to you anyway - THIS means the person has in their own eyes "given it a go, cant do it" - that helps them justify spending cash on the repair.

People who can repair WILL and as Dave says for $14 they will get the service manual.

Curt, I think you are worried too much about a reduction of work/cash flow. Maybe your stint in the Audio industry has left a mark that means you are over sensitive to possible impact on your trade.

These are just my thoughts - you have lost maybe $100.00's from manuals I have bought on line.......

AND almost every Barco owner could do with the service manual just to remind them how to set the 17v, 48v etc. THAT IS WORTH $14 ALL DAY LONG from EVERY BARCO owner

Curt - You may even find that selling these means a guy can call you and say......

"Hi Curt, I bought a service manual from you I have checked the following items x,y,z these are the results a,b,c, it appears that the laughter shaft has fallen of the giggle pin - Can you repair it?" - well you get the idea..............

Curt - Lets be honest, you are posting more and more service memos - You could charge for ALL these items to be done instead you give the info for free and dont get the work - what the differance to them or a service manual ??? "I" dont see a differance.............

Others might have a different point of view, But I just thought I would add my thought s here (again..........)

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 2:06 am Post subject:

You know, you could be right.

I'll play devil's advocate though and will suggest the following:

1) I'm assuming it's somewhat pricy to get a secure server that's automated so that you can pay via credit card or Paypal, and then get a link to manuals that automatically download to you. I'd have to compete with the sites that already offer the service, so maybe I'd have to go $13 per manual.

Kal would probably know how long it would take to break even with the extra expense of setting up the secure server....

2) Let's say some guy is on the fence about repairing his set/board in the first place. He downlaods the s/manual and ends up butchering his board. He then sends it to me. I say : This board has been hacked, I can't repair it for my flat rate, there's a $XXX surcharge.

He then decides to throw out the set, I can keep the board.

Now, had I not had the manual online, MAYBE he would have sent it to me in the first place and had it repaired, maybe not.

3) As for the stuff I'm putting on the site, it all relates to stuff I CAN'T get people to send in. Such as a full XG setup, showing from start to finish how to set up an XG.

Do you know how many times I've gotten emails and calls about 'what is lens toe-in'? Dozens this year alone. I'm hoping that a few articles that will come on the site shortly will alleviate those emails and questions.

It's not practical for me to go to someone's place that's out of town to do a setup, nor is it practical for someone to send a set in for me to calibrate. THat needs to be done on site. I'll take things as far as I can in the field, then either boards or the whole set needs to be sent in.

Right now I'm dealing with two people that have tried repairing their XG and Marquee with no luck. THe NEC has an intermittent shutdown condition, the Marquee has no pix, and has MP, Tim and myself baffled. I'm swapping out the set, the customer is putting his tubes into the set.

(sorry, I digressed.. Smile

)

Anyways, yes I guess I'm protecting my future in some respect by choosing not to have the later model s/manuals available. Maybe it's not accomplishing anything, but I think for those guys that prompted the thread in the first place, I'm not giving him the satisfaction of downloading and getting anything more from my site than he already has.

Anyways, what is kinda humorous is that at least two techs PMed me when this subject came up and said I was doing the right thing by not posting the manuals. Again, there's a bit of self preservation underlying that, no question about it, but I'll keep putting everything short of component replacement info on the site.

LEt me ask this though:

If I were all of a sudden announce that I would list individual component information and failues they caused on a restricted section of the site, who here would pay $200 to get into that area? That's about the cost of 1 repair. I tell you what components I've had fail per board, it would allow someone decent with a soldering iron repair maybe 80% of their defective boards with a meter and a parts supplier.

I'll bet maybe 10 people here would sign up for that, 50 would complain that the price is too steep, and 200 would ask the people that signed up for the password.. Wink

It wouldn't be worth it for me to put all that info up there I don't think.

I know there's a lot of consumer sites that offer tech support like that to TV shops and such, right down to the component level. I wonder how many of them make money, and how many are still around? I haven't looked for them in years, but when I sterted on the net, I browsed, and found a bunch.

<edit>. It's timely that Graham has put together a setup DVD for the 1292. Now there's something that took time and effort, and I'm sure even I would learn something from it.

I'm going to ask him to see how many copies he actually sells, which will be a good indication as to pricing on my site. How many people will buy a DVD vs the amount of people that won't, claiming:

a) It's a homemade DVD, it's probably crap
b) It's too expensive
c) It's not a DVD specific to my set
d) Bah, I know it all already. (no you don't!)

BTW, once my Paypal account is back up, I'm buying one... Thumbs Up

mp20748 · Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 11:54 am Post subject:

I was one who had suggested way back that the manuals should not be posted on line, or sold. And for the same reason that he has the manuals, some came with that understanding from most of the various sources that he got them from to NOT list or sell them. I'm not talking about your general stuff (which can be had at Freebird, etc).

Also, you have to consider that the people who work on these projectors are doing so using test projectors (not their personal PJ). And we do that so to not damage tubes or create some other potential problem that could easily happen from working on boards and projectors.

Plus, in a lot of cases. Some repairs require test gear to finish. And in some other instances, experience is needed in knowing which part is not good for a particular circuit.

Some things on these very expensive beast are DIY, and in those cases that info can be found on the forums. however, there are areas where a better skill level may be required. And that should remain something for those who are really qualified to do the work.

I'm not into the projector board repair business. I only repair boards for a very few of my customers, and still I'm sending them Curt's way. I think we have a very good repair option with Curt, and that we should keep DIY away from what would require a really experienced person to perform.

having a service manual is one thing. Having the skill to make proper use of that service manual is special.. Wink

betel · Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 1:09 pm Post subject:

I don't think it's legal to sell a service manual without the manufactures permission. I suspect those are copywrited publications. It is equivalent to selling copied movies and CDs.

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 2:15 pm Post subject:

Joust · Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 2:32 pm Post subject:

...we should design and build better supplies to replace spellman

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 4:19 pm Post subject:

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

In actual practice, service manuals for equipment that is no longer sold or supported by the manufacturer are virtually never an issue.

In fact, here's an interesting example: Agilent Technologies, formerly Hewlett-Packard, the test equipment company, carries every manual they can find for the older HP equipment online in PDF format and they're all available for free download. And they get these manuals from people who choose to contribute their own copy to Agilent's database. But the catch is, if you have an HP service manual that isn't in the Agilent database and you want it to be added, YOU have to convert it to .pdf or have it converted. Agilent won't invest the time and effort involved. So every manual in the database is a result of the efforts of people who took the time to convert their own manuals.

Some other companies do the same thing. They give away the manual, at least if the product isn't current.

I've never heard of anyone being prosecuted for selling copies of manuals, in any event.

CJ

Tinman · Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 5:02 pm Post subject:

Why not for starters make manual downloads available for paying members (club members) only? I think it's WELL worth the few bucks a year to keep supporting this forum.

Even IF it belongs to a whiny tech up north.... Rolling Eyes

I'm actually surprised that not EVERYONE here is a club member. Come on, I spend twice that on a pizza!!!

Marc

dbaisey · Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 5:52 pm Post subject:

99% of you understand this, but there's a few people that don't. Myself, Mike Parker, Tim, Doug, Terry and select others MAKE THEIR LIVING working on CRT projectors. This isn't just a hobby for us, if we don't get some kind of income, we either get out of the industry completely, or go live in a box on skid row.

bluecrt · Joined: 25 Jan 2007 Posts: 20 Location: Australia

sh*t I spent my hole life studying electronics and understanding different types of architectures. They are paying for all those years of experience
not just a repair on one board.
Cheers Rod Shocked

Person99 · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 4899 Location: Flower Mound, TX

Z-Photo · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 5:29 pm Post subject:

To sum it up (in my own way)

ZPhoto Photography charge

HOT chick - free
Ugly chick - $$$$$$$$

(no small feet at any price)

CRT_Ben · Joined: 28 Aug 2006 Posts: 1684 Location: Northern Virginia

TomCat · Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 4:03 pm Post subject: My little addition

Just a note on Curt's behalf.. I had been having a problem with the green tube in my NEC XG-852 wacking out off and on for about a week. I have another XG I use for parts. I swapped all the "easy change boards" and still had the problem. I stumbled onto this site and read through a BUNCH of posts looking for an answer. I found a lot more here about everything CRT than I thought existed in the public domain. Anyway I went ahead and became a member. After a few more days of aggravation, I took a chance and e-mailed Curt directly about my problem. WOW!! he responded within minutes with first a BIG warning about running the set in this condition, what was needed to fix it. The V-Drive board was failing. This is one of the boards that is a little difficult to change standing near the top of an 8 foot ladder. We have 12' ceilings. I did change the board & ALL IS WELL. Curt quoted me the same flat rate of $250. to repair the board. I find no problem with this price. He didn't HAVE to help me at all. I didn't expect a reply for at least a day because going by what I read here he IS very busy. The fact he helped so quickly & saved a possible blown green tube says a lot. To hell with the 1%ers. Curt you ARE appreciated & I'll be shipping the 2 boards this week.

THANK YOU!

dbaisey · Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 4:23 pm Post subject:

Good save guys Thumbs Up

Usually the V drive wont give you that many chances before snaping the tube neck. Doug

oddgenetix · Joined: 29 Jan 2009 Posts: 23 Location: Orlando Fl.

All I know is I came to curtpalme.com and found more answers to my questions in 30 minutes than I did in a year of googling.

I fell into the tri-gun rabbit hole head first, and it's comforting knowing that there are people out there that know EXACTLY what they're doing. Considering how rare TRUE crt professionals really are, I think the prices round here are beyond reasonable. I hit Curt with some d50 remote woes and he helped me out for nothing, and I won't forget that.

When this d50 no longer pleases me, and I feel so lead to bump up to some sweet 9" action, I'll be buying it from CURT PALME.

Case closed. Keep doing what you do Curt and Company! There are alot of us that would be afloat amongst a storm of uncalibrated/non-functioning CRTs without this oasis of knowledge.

So, Thanks.

**kal** · Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 3:41 am Post subject:

"If the image didn't involve a cathode, then it shant be allowed to touch my retinas."

I like it. Wink

Kal

oddgenetix · Joined: 29 Jan 2009 Posts: 23 Location: Orlando Fl.

Thanks Kal,

I've been a crt enthusiast since I bought my first LCD projector, projected the image, and seriously wondered if I could eat as much as I wanted to vomit. (pardon the imagery)

I think CRT's are like a fine Italian motorcycle, needing constant attention to maintain peak performance. But when performance IS at it's peak..oh mama. Sweet pixel free glory. I removed the screen door from my house years ago, why would I want another one baffling the visual data in my films?

I wouldn't. The end.

Nice HT by the way, that's some sweet visual nectar.

DrKnow65 · Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 5:28 am Post subject:

I googled the manual for my vidikron one, found the electrohome marquee 9500 manual here.

I then gleaned bunches of good info. I love the site.

Decided I needed a multistandard decoder for the V1, googled it.

Found one on ebay ~$60 shipped, thought "wounder if Curt has one?"

Sent one email, got an imediate response (wtf??? someone still providing GOOD service?!?!), Curt wanted less than some schmoe on ebay who may know nothing about CRT's.

Curt got my business, and out of sheer gratitude the extra $$ I saved went into a membership to support the forum.

I will confidently say that having the manual available on this site, having an idea of who Curt is via this site, the quality of the people one this site, and a quick reply with an exceptional price, will net Curt my business for as long as I enjoy this projector.

Curt you rock. Any money anyone spends keeping you fed is a good thing Smile