CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

stefuel · Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 12:01 am Post subject:

Don't pay any attention to me tonight. Right now, I'm washing down a quarter pounder with cheeze with a $200.00 bottle of wine out of a paper cup. How sick is that. Rolling Eyes

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

stefuel · Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 9:59 am Post subject:

OK, the Thomas tube hase been in service for about a week and is working fine. I do remember that one of the neck boards I had on the shelf did have some funky streaking problem. Perhaps this is the one I modded??? It's not bad and goes away with lowered contrast settings. I can't remember if I chose this neck board for a experiment or random selection. Anyway, there is another issue when mixing these with LCP's and it might be due to the tubes shape where the deflection coil butt's up to the tube. AmPros deflection circuitry does have enough power to do static geometry with the green Thomas tube. Raster size is slightly smaller so you have to pull the R and B to match it and the corners are the toughest. They require almost 100% of the available control to do. I have one corner that won't pull in exactly. Also, they warm up differently than LCP's and convergence is whacked for about a hour till everything settles in. I think everything would be fine if all three tubes were Thomas's. I can't comment on the ability to grayscale with a mixed set as my blue is also low output. I will try to zap it back to life this weekend.

Nashou66 · Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY

What shape are the Ampro tubes? the Thomas have the LUG bell housing shape. I know that the marquee deflection coils get the raster size the same.

Maybe try another neck card if you have one, i know that Ampros have specific card for each tube right? I really want to try a full set myself, its just i have no time with the blend set up and tweaking along with fixing some other issues with the longbows.

I bet a full set would work best and maybe a new green would work better mixed, Aferg told me the used tubes have about 5000 hours on them.
I wonder if that is causing the convergence issue? But not sure how a tube would cause convergence irregularities?

Athanasios

stefuel · Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 4:34 pm Post subject:

stefuel · Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2010 12:32 am Post subject:

Damn, damn, damn...
I have lost my cheat sheet that I created for modding AmPro neckboards to Thomas Tubes. I need the pin-out for the Thomas's so I can prep the rest of the cards for the new tubes. The layout of the red is different so I have to figure that one out.

Tom.W · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 6635

What the heck is the part or tube # on the Thomas tubes ?

stefuel · Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2010 1:21 am Post subject:

Tom.W · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 6635

Not good enough. Kinda like my Crestron programing skills................. Wink

Don't go there Chip !!! Mr. Green

stefuel · Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2010 2:03 am Post subject:

stefuel · Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2010 2:06 am Post subject:

All kidding aside, I don't know why you gave up. It sounded as if you were so close to completion. What triggered the white flag?

Nashou66 · Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY

Part numbers are

that is a blue tube the last number is the phosphor type used.

I don't have any new tubes open other than the blue, chip is getting a full set next week so maybe he can post the numbers for the red and green tubes.

Athanasios

stefuel · Posted: Sun Aug 22, 2010 12:25 am Post subject:

Well I've got about a thousand hours on these tubes and all is well. It is time for a recalibration though as I can tell that the color is off a bit. There is also a issue of blooming at higher contrast settings that was never there with the original tubes. I may try to tweak the magnetics some more to see if I can help it some. There may be some room for improvement now that they've settled in.