CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[JorisS]

Hi all,

have finally put the cinema room together and got the XG110LC up on the ceiling after our house move and swapping out all the fans etc.

Now I'm having problems that I don't believe I've had before, in that the projector appears to be losing convergence every time it's switched off and back on. I.e. I did a reasonably good setup, watched a movie and all was well - still far from perfect but good enough for now. But then when I turn the unit on the day after, or some days after, I find that the convergence is off; if I look at the test pattern I'm not greeted by a uniform white cross-hair pattern but instead I can see red and blue and green to varying extend in different positions of the screen. It's very hard for me to tell if it's convergence or alignment, what I do know is that none of the colours are perfectly converged with either of the other - i.e. it's not like blue and red are good but not on green, or just one colour is off - they all drifted apart a bit in different directions at different positions of the screen.

I've done slight readjustments on several occasions now, in most cases it's down to point adjustment (rough, medium, fine) to get the image aligned properly and because I lack time and motivation to start from scratch (and with point adjustment already done previously, I guess it's a rather hopeless mission to try and improve without further point adjusting). Then I can watch a movie and checking after wards its still good. But sure as heck the next time I power the unit up, alignment is off again, by a little bit.


What could be the cause of this? It appears to be a rather small offset every time, i.e. it's not like the pj completely lost it's alignment but sure enough the image isn't properly converged as I left it last time.


Extra information:

Source: Popcorn Hour A-100 clone
Input: Moome NEC XG-FULLHD HDMI 1.3 card
Cable: 5m HDMI cable


I might add that I've previously used a Moome DVI card instead, feeding image from my PC through DVI; the HDMI card was purchased and installed in the period the PJ was not in use.

We were very impressed watching Avatar on 1080i the other day, so once everything is functioning fine and properly adjusted the PJ does give an amazing picture. But if it comes down to having to fine-tune the convergence every single time I want to watch a movie, I'm afraid the age of CRT will soon be at an end in this house


Hope you guys can help me out here!

Cheers
//Joris

[dvh99]

the convergence takes a time to settle so you have to converge on a warm machine lets say 45 mins after you turned the pj on.
maybe the fans havent enough airflow so the pj overheats, or do like i did on the marquee and replace some resistors and caps that are know to run very hot in the convergence circuit.

my convergence is now spot on after 10 mins.

how far is convergence of?
is it 1 mm 2mm

a bad mechanical setup causes drift too.

dennis

[JorisS]

Hi Dennis!

Fellow countryman I see (I'm Dutch but living in Sweden)

I know the pj has to be warm so I've made sure such was the case - I don't think it overheats as the convergence is off by a bit when I turn the pj on, but still is after playing for 1 hour - changes little during this time. Perhaps I'm cooling too well

It's off with 1mm on some spots, it's on it others, it's off 2mm in even others. Basically it's changing in different degree all over the screen, some parts are good still. I really don't know what's causing it and wouldn't know where to start replacing specific caps and resistors :S

How would a bad mechanical setup cause drift? If pj/screen are moving?

Cheers
//Joris

[dvh99]

hoi een slechte afstelling zorgt ervoor dat de conv versterker te veel moet doen en aldus te warm wordt.
op dit forum zijn voldoende mensen met een nec die er veel meer verstand van hebben dan ik, maar in algemene zin komt het er op neer dat de pj zodanig moet worden afgesteld dat de conv versterker zo min mogelijk hoeft te corrigeren.

hoe ben jij trouwens in zweden verzeild geraakt, het lijkt me geweldig daar te wonen.

[JorisS]

I'll send a pm to avoid further silly language in here

Hoping for some more suggestions/solutions/advice here - I don't think what Dennis suggested is the problem, although of course it could be.... wondering if I should test with my PC hooked up to the Moome DVI again. Or perhaps even use the good old BNC and test if I still get the same phenomenon?

(that is me wondering if the Moome HDMI card could be the culprit?)

[Mark_A_W]

Sounds like a temperature issue.

It may also take a while to settle in.

[JorisS]

It's been hanging there for several weeks now and I've done about 4 re-convergences during past weeks... can it really take that long to settle in?

As for temperature - I started up the pj the other day and checked and convergence was off, then played a 1080p movie for 45 mins or so and checked again and it was still about the same - am I cooling it too GOOD then?

I might add that the convergence was always done on a machine that's been on for at least 45 minutes. I simply can't get my head around it

I did order a large 200mm fan that I'm going to mount on top to suck out warm air and see how that affects things.

[JorisS]

I can also add that we watched Avatar the other day - I did a convergence before the movie, then we watched it and as you know it's close to 3 hours with some short breaks included - I checked convergence afterwards and it was still good. So if it were a temperature issue I would expect it to affect convergence during watching?

//J

[Artinaz]

I had a similar problem where the projector wouldnt save the configuration when it was switched off. After a while it stopped powering on alltogether. Turned out to be a problem with the deflection and system boards. Curt did the repairs on mine.

When they are mis-coverged, are they always in the same position or do they appear at random locations ?

Azi

[JorisS]

They appear at random locations pretty much... and it's worse some times than others :S

Unfortunately it would cost me a fortune in shipping to get parts to Curt and back, besides that I wouldn't even know what part(s) to send
One thing I do know is that I have had the impression for long now that this PJ has never quite performed the way it can, always had some problems with focus on the green tube and now this.... bugger! That said I actually never had the privilege either to see one of these units in a (close to) perfect setup, only pictures online. So can't really be sure, but it's a feeling I have. But I was well impressed with the picture quality while watching Avatar the other night, so if only I can get the pj to keep it's convergence I'd be happy!

[JorisS]

Dennis suggested that there could be a problem with using the same memory block as previously used with another input, and the projector not storing the settings properly on it due to it being locked?

Last night I started from 0 again, that is I CTL + NORMAL the alignment and convergence. I then went through the successive steps to get a proper raster and convergence and we watched a movie. Remembering what Dennis said (vaguely at least lol) I copied the signal entry to another memory location after finishing the movie. I did make sure I'd stored the settings just before. Now the locations I'm using are 52 and 53, input B. I think I actually swapped places of the Moome cards if I remember correctly - used to have the Moome DVI in the middle slot but I pulled it out and moved it to the bottom (actually top one, considering the pj is hanging ceiling mounted) and so now the Moome HDMI is in the middle slot.

Now the morning after I just started up the pj again, had it warm up for a while and the image is (still) quite good, except for the lower right corner where actually the alignment seems to have drifted off a little - raster isn't straight but bends off towards the edges there. But both input 52 and 53 are equal, so it did store all settings I reckon.

Another question - are the original fans in the PJ somehow magnetically shielded? I purchased a 200mm fan and put it on top, but noticed once it was hooked up and I fired up the pj that the image was shaking a lot. Quite easy figured out that it was because of the fan - if I disconnected it the shaking would decrease in frequence along with the fan losing speed. It's a Coolermaster fan with blue leds, from the world of PC geeks So obviously the fan is affecting the image, but I recall having read from others that they mounted a fan in the top (pj's bottom with ceiling mount) to suck off hot air - it will have to be magnetically shielded then, I guess? One more thing I noticed - I took out the scissors to simply cut off the fan wires and remove it (I split up the cables from another fan) and while approaching the wires I saw the red raster shift severely - the scissors are somewhat magnetic. Is that normal? How sensitive is the pj to my fan mod and the fans I used perhaps not being fully/as shielded as the original ones? After all, fans have small magnets inside...


Hoping for some more feedback here, even if you guys think I'm an idiot that's fine, I'm simply one who does first and thinks after - but now that I'm thinking I could use some who think with me or simply explain things to me

Cheers
//Joris


PS I've been playing with the coils on the tube the other day, trying to work my way towards good ASTIG - there's no way to get "round circles" in the ASTIG towards edges and corners of the screen though (using remote) - should there be? I only tested for the green tube so far as I've always thought that one to be a problem child, not as sharp as the red and blue but a bit blooming. By now the only things I've not touched are all the trimpots in the back of the PJ, but I guess it's best to stay away from those unless one is knowing what he/she is doing and using a multimeter and all?

It's such a shame we don't have a real CRT-guru here in Sweden (anymore)

[Mark_A_W]

Did you have this projector running for an extended period of time, properly setup, before changing the fans?


And no, the original fans are not shielded. They are placed rather carefully I imagine, but their magnetic fields are not large.

But a friend put a bathroom extraction fan above his XG and it caused havoc. So he stuck a ~300mm plant pot between the ceiling and the fan.

[JorisS]

Cheers for the reply Mark - Yeah it's been running for longer periods before, amongst other things we've had "24" marathons on it - watching the entire season in one sweep

I've always used 720p as input previously though, running 1080i now so I can imagine it's pressing the electronics harder? Also as mentioned at the start this is the first time I've been using the Moome HDMI card, still wondering if that could have anything to do with things...

*edit*
I might add that it's been running longer sweeps before, but I've not really checked the convergence before - probably because I never felt it was needed, or perhaps because I - even then - should've had glasses, but didn't.

Last night watched a movie again - I had the image exactly on the white part of our (fixed) screen, yesterday the edges were slightly miss-shapen, causing the image to overlap the black border in places as well. Apart from this there were some minor convergence issues again - it's all fairly easy and quick to amend, but it means I'm doing more and more point convergence for every day, as it's by no means a "geometrical" shift of any kind. I could imagine this will only deteriorate the imagine in the long run

[stefuel]

As the projector has been moved, I would re-seat as many boards and connectors as I could get my hands on. Just the action of removing and re-installing a board and or connector cleans the contacts.

[Mark_A_W]

$5 on the fan mods.


I played with my fans and extraction, these mods, combined with mismatched 07 and 08 tubes, caused chaos with my colours - they would take 30mins to settle down. Fitting the hushbox evens the temps, and running the warmup screen for 5 mins has sorted it.

[donaldk]

CRT heeft helaas wat nadelen, daar weet jij inmiddels alles van Joris. Dus je bent verhuist, huisje of apartement? Stedelijke prijzen zijn nogal hoog, maar daarbuiten kun je voor weinig (anderhalve ton nieuw geld) een aardig huis kopen zag ik onlangs op omroep MAX (hebben nu ook zo'n droomhuis in het buitenland programma;-)).

[JorisS]

Sorry I missed the last couple of replies here - will check reseating all the boards tomorrow or this weekend, as well as test the BNC input to see if that makes any difference (I want to rule out the Moome card being the cause of my problems).

I think I'll make a new topic, just wrote that in another, older topic of mine as well, about the problems I've been having with focus on the green tube.

It's come time to make one final but full-hearted attempt to get this machine sorted, and in case of failure I'm afraid that'll be the end of CRT for me. I simply don't have the time and energy for it if I simply never will be able to get the best out of it, and with unfortunately no experts living here who could possibly help out in person.

//J

[jatelo]

did reseating help?

[JorisS]

I haven't gotten around to testing that yet... hopefully this weekend!

[JorisS]

Reseated all cards, adjusted the mechanical setup somewhat (angle of the PJ, it wasn't hanging fully horizontal but now it is) and did a new alignment/convergence setup. Will test today if it's retained convergence or if it's gone wandering off again or no.... fingers crossed!

A question to you other NEC XG owners - how accurately does your PJ keep convergence? I mean it looks good from viewing distance for the most part, for the most part the loss of convergence I'm referring to is only visible when approaching the screen and looking up close(r). Maybe I am being over ambitious?

Cheers
//Joris