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Rattanee
Joined: 18 Jan 2015 Posts: 193
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Link Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 7:34 pm Post subject: Anyone with insight into the soul of NEC PG9 sets? |
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Hey guys,
first of all, first time poster, long time lurker, finally CRT projector owner!
I've been itching to get a CRT projector for myself ever since I got my first DLP projector, and in November of last year I finally got my hands on a PG9 with a brand new high voltage section, with only 440 hours in the set (according to the seller it's been sitting idle for a long time with a dud HV section until he bought it and replaced the entire subsection)! Tubes are pristine! (And bright!) I bought it, brought it home, and waited patiently for the day I'll have some time to start setting it up. Well that day has come yesterday. FINALLY!
Some background info about me: I'm a tech, I work with industrial metal saws (all kinds from manual to CNC driven) for a living, and restoring and repairing arcade machines is my hobby/passion/madness, call it what you will. I am very well versed in electronics and soldering, so please don't tell me to take my projector to a shop, I'd like to fix the little niggles I have with it myself. Thank you!
So... to cut to the chase... after calculating where to put the projector so I could fill my entire wall with the image, I started to set it up more or less following the manual. I'd worked with rear projection sets in arcades a lot, but those are a completely different breed as far as setup goes, the setup is easy, it pretty much goes: reset setting data--> adjust centering magnets--> adjust static convergence--> adjust point convergence. There's little in the way of astig control aside from the neck rings, and focusing is pretty straightforward. Hence when I sat down to adjust my projector, It took some headscratching figuring out how dynamic convergence is to be adjusted proprely, as all the rear projection sets had point convergence, not dynamic. Anyways, after an afternoon of fiddling with it, I got the hang of things enough to get a pretty decent picture (though I've not touched electric focus nor astig yet at this point), all it needed was the fine-tuning of point convergence.
Now here came the interesting part... from what I've read, this set is supposed to have point convergence, but pressing point on the full function remote does nada... and bringing up the adjust menu, it does not list point convergence at all. That is when I grew certain, that the manual I have is either a liar, or universal and lists all functions for the plus and extra versions as well... Well that really became obvious when I was setting the red and blue CRT "mechanical convergence" and focus, as this set has no focus rings like in the manual, nor the 'decorative indicators' for the angle of the red and blue tubes.
Anyways, I'd like to ask those of you who've fiddled with a PG9 for a few bits of info about some things.
1. Is the PG9 supposed to have point convergence as default or not? (It does have the S-video/video module, works just fine)
2. Where exactly is this module supposed to be? Is it what the manual refers to as 'point pwb' ? The parts section of the manual isn't very specific in some aspects....
3. The image flickers and is misconverged even with the proper input list option selected when the projector is switched on, and gradually gets better as it warms up. It stops jittering in about 10 seconds, and the convergence becomes what I set up after about 40 minutes of use. Is this normal, or am I one of the folks who are experiencing the slow death of capacitors in their machine?
4. I'm going to re-cap the entire set soon enough though. Any pointers? Any caps that are marked backwards on the silk screening that I should watch for?
5. Image positioning is acting funky sometimes. Moving the image horizontally, it will 'jump' a pretty big one at around -30% and about +30% in their respective directions. After this 'jump', I can still move the image even further away, but the image geometry gets screwed up, giving the whole picture a bow, and generally the image just looks like someone did the convergence setup, but not the geometry, causing uneven linearity or somesuch... is this normal and I'm using too extreme settings, or again, could this be down to capacitors?
6. Image will 'jump' a bit vertically once in a while... first I thought it was as I was stepping between menues, but even watching a movie, about twice in the three hours I've used it, the screen would just jump slightly for a moment. I'm stumped about this one... no HV arcing sound, just looks like the machine drops vertical sync for a fraction of a second.
7. 1280x720 won't sync horizontally, but 1280x768 syncs perfectly... what gives?
8. There is faint noise over the projected image. It is not video noise in the traditional sense, it is more of a faint dark flickering-rolling-lines sort of thing... looks a little like faint flickering you get when when blanking is set so that it eats into the image slightly. Or as if I were using bad quality cabling (which I'm not)... I'm chalking this one up to old caps in the signal path, but maybe someone else has met this issue and can confirm this for me? It is not noticeable only when the picture is viewed closely, and I1m pretty sure It would not appear on a photo.
And finally, if and when I dig around the set, should I find the point convergence board missing, does anyone happen to have one ? Also, if anyone has a ceiling mount bracket set that they're not using, I'd be a preeeetty happy camper to buy it off of you. Or am I better off doing some after-market mounting? (My ceiling is pretty low in the movie room as it's in the basement, so I'm not entirely sure what the best mounting option would be, but to get the picture size that I want, I can't have it on the floor as it'd be too close to a doorway.
As far as replacing capacitors... anyone has any advice regarding cap manufacturers? Would using high-end audio caps in the signal path improve image quality, or is it a waste of money? I was thinking of using Elna SilmicII in the signal path, and low ESR United Chemicon caps everywhere else for maximum life expectancy...
I realize this was a hefty post, so I thank you for getting this far, and also for any and all help folks!
Cheers!
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Nashou66
Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY
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Link Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 8:27 pm Post subject: |
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Id replace every cap on the PG`. I am not a use but many here have done that to increase stability. but unlike other PJ's where you can remove the caps and leads. Those who have recaped the PG all say to cut the leads on the old caps and solder the new one to the old leads. Something about the PCB being delicate and not use tot he abuse of reheating to remove old parts.
Nashou
_________________ Don't blame your underwear for your crooked ass~ unknown Greek philosopher
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Rattanee
Joined: 18 Jan 2015 Posts: 193
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Link Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 8:35 pm Post subject: |
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Nashou66 wrote: | Id replace every cap on the PG`...
Nashou |
That's what I plan on doing, but asking around never hurts What I learned in the arcade hobby, as far as CRT sets go, that a full recap doesn't always fix things, so if there's someone more experienced around... ask. But it's in the plans for certain as I've heard dud caps in these can dish out actual damage to circuit boards.
I'm not worried about removing the caps, but thanks for the warning. Old boards can be a pain to remove parts from I know... I've got my fair share of experience there, and thus the (not exactly cheap) gear to avoid such damage.
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Curt Palme CRT Tech
Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 24296 Location: Langley, BC
TV/Projector: All of them!
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Link Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 8:40 pm Post subject: |
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Welcome Rattanee, but consider that you might want to switch projectors before you spend a lot of time on the PG. You've probably read here, I've stopped supporting them due to bad capacitors, and I'm always loathe to stop supporting anything!
Where are you located?
As for the point board, it was stock on the 9Pg, but may be turned off in the menu, or it may have been pulled out at some point in time. if you have a spare slot in the CPU card cage, then it's missing.
Oh, and if you choose to work on the PG, I have a bucketful of boards you can have for a dirt cheap price plus shipping, like $10-20. Not sure if they work, it's the last of my PG boards, and they should at least be complete...Email me at curtpalme at shaw.ca
Don't buy expensive caps, get something from Newark, Mouser, or similar. Audiophile caps are a waste of money in this case. Just avoid the Chinese knockoffs, that will fail within weeks that are on eBay. been there, done that!
If you look on Craiglist, assuming you're within North America, I'll bet you'll find a Barco or Marquee or even a Sony CRt projector that will be more reliable in the long run..
thanks!
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Rattanee
Joined: 18 Jan 2015 Posts: 193
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Link Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 9:03 pm Post subject: |
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Curt Palme wrote: | Welcome Rattanee, but consider that you... |
Thanks, but to be honest I never wanted to spend the large amounts of cash that the really good projectors seem to demand, and I managed to get this one under $200 with very low hours on it. It's seen so little use I didn't even need to dust any of the innards! It will do 1080i and from what I've read can be made to handle 1080p too, so for the price, I think I'll roll with it If I wanted any better, I'd probably just save some cash for a few years and roll out the dough for a cine 9
Unfortunately I'm in Hungary, and there's pretty much zero places in a 1000km radius that actually know how these things work, much less know how to fix them :\
I'll check the cage for any empty slots tomorrow after work. Is there actually a menu option to turn it off? Going into the adjust menu, then convergence, it doesn't seem listed there...
I think I just might take you up on your offer for those boards. Always nice to have spares. I'll send you an email about them and a few misc little oddities I'm going to be looking for that I'm hoping you might have lying around somewhere
I'm placing an order of approx 2500 caps with Digikey early next month for an MCI mixing board restoration that I'm doing, so at those quantities, a few extra caps for the PG won't matter. I'll get good quality caps either way, I just wasn't sure if it's worth getting the really high-end ones. Think I'll go with the United Chemicon caps then... those things last forever and are, comparatively speaking, cheap.
(As a side-note, I've just found two Sony projectors that I can have for under $50, so I'll probably pick both of them up, to toy with, though they're video rated only.)
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Nashou66
Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY
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Nashou66
Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY
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Rattanee
Joined: 18 Jan 2015 Posts: 193
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Link Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 9:12 pm Post subject: |
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Email sent!
Also, I tried searching the member list but came up empty handed.
_________________ Watching atm: Barco Cine 8 Onyx (HD-18 modded)
Working on atm: Barco 808s --> Cine8 Onyx conversion
Retired/shelved units: 2xNEC 9PG, 2xNEC 6PG Plus, Barco Vision 600, Sony VPH-1021
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Nashou66
Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY
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gjaky
Joined: 05 Jun 2010 Posts: 2789 Location: Budapest, Hungary
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macgyver655
Joined: 22 Aug 2007 Posts: 8508
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Link Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 9:51 pm Post subject: |
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gjaky wrote: | So, I've already sent a PM to him |
And he probably lives right down the street?
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Rattanee
Joined: 18 Jan 2015 Posts: 193
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Link Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 9:58 pm Post subject: |
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macgyver655 wrote: | gjaky wrote: | So, I've already sent a PM to him |
And he probably lives right down the street? |
I'd flip lol but probably not
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gjaky
Joined: 05 Jun 2010 Posts: 2789 Location: Budapest, Hungary
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Link Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 10:08 pm Post subject: |
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macgyver655 wrote: | gjaky wrote: | So, I've already sent a PM to him |
And he probably lives right down the street? |
I am pretty sure this very machine actualy went through under my hands...
_________________ projectors in the past : NEC 6-9PG xtra, Electrohome Marquee 6-7500, NEC XG 1351 LC ( with super modified Electrohome VNB neckboard !!!)
current: VDC Marquee 9500LC
The MOD: VNB-DB, VIM-DB
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Rattanee
Joined: 18 Jan 2015 Posts: 193
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Link Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 10:30 pm Post subject: |
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And so it did! I bought it from the guy he fixed it for! Though I'm located in Miskolc, and I bought the PJ in Budapest... and I forgot to ask Gabor are you located in BP? Cause that's not too far but not next door neighbors
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Nashou66
Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY
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CasetheCorvetteman
Joined: 09 Nov 2008 Posts: 6319 Location: Australia
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Link Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 11:29 pm Post subject: |
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If you replace the bad capacitors and get the set working well, the 9PG is absolutely worth using, its a great projector.
_________________ Barco CineMAX, 120" OZ Theatre Majestic 16:9 screen, H/K AVR 7.1...
RUNCO DTV991 LC ( NEC XG 852 LC ) 100" 4:3 screen, H/K AVR 5.1...
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Zolzar
Joined: 26 Jun 2009 Posts: 252
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Link Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2015 6:11 pm Post subject: |
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Replace them. Go for it. I did all of them in my 10PG. Everything has been working for two years without failure.
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draganm
Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 8990 Location: Colorado
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Link Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2015 6:38 pm Post subject: |
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gjaky wrote: | I am pretty sure this very machine actualy went through under my hands... | no now we know what happened to the point board
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gjaky
Joined: 05 Jun 2010 Posts: 2789 Location: Budapest, Hungary
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Link Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2015 7:27 pm Post subject: |
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draganm wrote: | gjaky wrote: | I am pretty sure this very machine actualy went through under my hands... | no now we know what happened to the point board
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Actualy no I knew it was malfunctioning, and was disabled indeed in the menu, but Rattanee bought without the point board -as it turned out. This machine wasn't mine I just fixed the HV issue, and replaced a bounch of capacitors in it, though not all.
_________________ projectors in the past : NEC 6-9PG xtra, Electrohome Marquee 6-7500, NEC XG 1351 LC ( with super modified Electrohome VNB neckboard !!!)
current: VDC Marquee 9500LC
The MOD: VNB-DB, VIM-DB
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draganm
Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 8990 Location: Colorado
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Link Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2015 10:44 pm Post subject: |
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at one time point board were very sought after, they would sell very quickly for $125. I'm sure half that price now.
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