CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

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

I found out, finally. A Marquee 9518 is just a minorly modified version of a 9500. That modification is just to allow the red and blue tubes to be angled inward more to better work with screens that are closer to the projector. The metal side shields have holes punched out where the neck card cages would touch if the tubes were angled enough, and they have a cover attached over the hole which gives a little more room. And there are little added covers on the plastic side covers, which cover the holes that have been milled out in the plastic sides as well, in the same location. It's all about getting the tubes angled right for screens that are really close to the unit.

There's also a Marquee 9540. I don't really know what is different about that except that the one I saw had a fairly large
diameter anodized rod screwed into the lower mounting plate between the blue and green tubes. A support bracket for something? I don't know.

I've also seen what an ACON Ultra camera looks like. The power supply unit is huge, in a box that bolts to the power supply bay, and while the camera (attached to the power supply case) looks a lot newer and high tech than the original ACON cameras,
this setup is really aimed at automatically aligning several ACON Ultra equipped projectors at the same time as part of a system. But it's not even a stand-alone system. You have to get the license keys from VDC and install the control software on a PC and it's a fairly elaborate affair.

Word from the users of that system I saw this in is that it also doesn't work, to the point that they have removed most of the cameras from the projectors and disconnected all the cables.

I bet it DOES work but requires a higher level of training than the on-site techs had for it.

gjaky · Joined: 05 Jun 2010 Posts: 2790 Location: Budapest, Hungary

I have a 2010 built VDC Marquee, the label on the front says it is a "9500 SIM w/ HD10L". The projector identification page tells however it is a 9518LC but there are no holes on the metal shields as you indicated.
Of course it is not very hard to rewrite the identification page, but why would someone do that?

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

Since I wrote that I got my own pristine 9518 with unbroken VDC tamper-evident seals on it and it does not have those extra side cutouts/vents. Apparently that option to allow the tubes to be aimed at a very close screen is just that, an OPTION, and not included as standard on any specific model.

Here is how VDC's top tech describes the 9518:

"As to the question about 9518 [(rendered on the information page by pressing
the * (asterist) Key] on the remote ... I think it just signifies that the
CRTs are LUG and the Neck Cards are either 03-270339-02P (obsolete video
neck board), or 81771-02 or 03-270340-02P (backward compatible VNB to be
used to be mixed and matched with the above obsolete 03-270339-02P video
neck board. I don't really remember what a 9540 signifies on the menu page.
I'll have to do some digging for that one. I wouldn't think that any major
differences would be in the chassis. The basic chassis has been in operation
since the early 90's as you probably know."

I note that the 9518 I got includes a newer VDC redesigned CMM board. Haven't actually
had a chance to try it out yet.

It did not include an ACON control board, and what's interesting is that the front power supply
bay cover is not drilled for a standard ACON camera mount, but is instead drilled for the four bolt
mount ACON Ultra camera system, which is a relatively huge box and which works with special
software (you have to buy license keys for that) which allows auto-alignment of every Marquee
that is equipped with ACON Ultra and is in the system. Reportedly it doesn't work as well as VDC might have hoped.