CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 2:16 am Post subject: NEC PG 'no video' cure found!

A couple of people have posted about their NEC video projector not having any video. HV is OK, and the problem lies on the video output board.

I spent some time on the board today, and I finally figured it out. I have two more here with the same problem, I'll check to see if the other two boards are identical faults, but I suspect so.

If it is, I can fix them for $125 incl return shipping within North America, and I'll change up to 10 leaky caps at the same time.

The big thing was finding the root problem, which I believe I've now done.

barclay66 · Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 6:26 am Post subject:

Hello Curt,

So You don't need the NEC Extender Boards anymore? If so, the please reply to my email from Oct. 19th...

Regards,
barclay66

CasetheCorvetteman · Joined: 09 Nov 2008 Posts: 6326 Location: Australia

I dont spose youd care to share abit more info on this with me in PM would you? So i can possibly prevent it occuring in my PG. Very expensive exercise to send you a board from here, although i have 3 spares of that board too, and dont know if they colour balance pots have been touched on them cause ive never tried them.

Jeremy112 · Joined: 28 Sep 2006 Posts: 2649 Location: Fond du Lac, WI

Don't think Curt is going to give away his recipe for making $$, if he told everyone how he fixed all the issues that us commoners can't figure out, he wouldn't make any money Razz

The only reason I would be hesitant to take up the offer for the repair is because the PG sets aren't really valuable enough for me to justify spending loads of money on, especially when they can be had for less than the repair cost in mint condition (if your lucky enough to find a mint one that is Razz

)

In my case I got lucky on the 9PG Xtra, as for the 9PG plain... well ok I got screwed for what I paid for it, but its still a good projector, maybe ill finally send curt the power supply and deflection board so I ca get it working again... not that I need it, the 9PG Xtra just sits in the corner being stored, wondering if it will ever be used again Razz

CasetheCorvetteman · Joined: 09 Nov 2008 Posts: 6326 Location: Australia

Not trying to be rude here or anything Jeremy112 and with all due respect ofcourse, but im not asking him to tell everyone, im asking him to send me a private message. Telling me isnt going to cost him anything at all, what it will do is allow me to decide if i want to ship my spare boards over to have him repair them, or whether i can do it myself and save him and me both alot of effort, which he will likely make little or no money from anyway. He wont be giving away any money making secrets, cause im not about to start trying to drum up business in CRT projector repairs when im on the other side of the world, and allready far busier than i would like to be.

Im also not really interested in what you believe the value of the projector is to you, cause that is rather irrelevant to me. It is what i have, and i require CRT for certain gaming systems to actually work correctly ( ie anything with light guns which require CRT ) What will i do without it? Well i wont play my games or relive my childhood memories thats what, and i wont put a dollar value on enjoying my life!!

I dont really care if you or anyone else thinks the projector has no value, that is an opinion based on needs and expectations other than my own. They are not common enough here to find one in mint condition, and it is very rare any decent CRT projectors come up for sale here at all.

Jeremy112 · Joined: 28 Sep 2006 Posts: 2649 Location: Fond du Lac, WI

Case, you totally took what I was saying about the 9PG the wrong way. Sure it has no monetary value. A lot of stuff has no monetary value. This once $3500 dell XPS laptop is worth squat didly jack that I'm using, but it has a usable value to me.

As long as it has a usable value, who the heck cares about the price value. my NEC XG is worthless, I wouldn't be able to sell it to anyone because hardly anyone knows how to set them up. I understand that in austrailia stuff like CRT projectors are hard to come by in mint condition, or probably even in really good condition.

All I was really saying is that a repairman likes to keep a few things to himself. I'm not saying anyone would try to profit from him telling you exactly how to fix it or anything, but I have to beleive that if he did specify such information, which would allow people who are handy (and on here there are plenty who would dare to try anyway) to fix it without spending money.

I agree in your situation it owuld be best to have him tell you how to fix that issue because of where you are located and I hope he does tell you for your sake. As you said, he probably wont make much off of the repair if you had to ship it to him, then him to you and so on.

All I was doing was just saying what I guess needed to be clarified better. I wasn't trying to piss anyone off Smile

CasetheCorvetteman · Joined: 09 Nov 2008 Posts: 6326 Location: Australia

Yeah i know exactly what youre saying here, and youre not the first one to say it to me. I understood perfectly fine. But what youre missing here is i said send me a private message, i didnt say share it with me in open forum.

And yes, as you seem to agree, he wont make much off me sending him anything when it all comes down to the effort required for him to ship it back to me, so if it was something i could do myself, he would be saving himself the trouble.

You didnt piss me off, i wasnt offended or bothered by what you said, and i knew what you were trying to do, but i wanted to clarify to you my intentions behind my request, because i got the impression you missed my point. Im not asking him to give away trade secrets to those that have access to his services, and nor would i expect that. But i dont have good access to his services at all from here.

gjaky · Joined: 05 Jun 2010 Posts: 2802 Location: Budapest, Hungary

Hey Case, offer some money to Curt to share the information with you, so you don't have to ship, and Curt still would has some profit... It is like you buy a service manual... If you pay for it then it not a deal to you to give away the secret.

CasetheCorvetteman · Joined: 09 Nov 2008 Posts: 6326 Location: Australia

gjaky · Joined: 05 Jun 2010 Posts: 2802 Location: Budapest, Hungary

Personally I would also share any super secret electrical hint, but I can understand Curt too. He has to make his living, imagine how good is the CRT market now... more over he is the father of this site, I guess it is not cheap to operate a big site like this, and still there is a lot of valuable information on this site, from which Curt doesn't get a single cent...

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2011 2:56 pm Post subject:

We have hashed this topic out, in fact I think Corvette that you were involved in one of those threads.

The difference between me doing repair work and you helping others on their Corvettes is that you don't depend on repairs and CRT parts sales to pay your mortgage and to put food on the table. Right now, I do. I think this site has been really liberal with the board level technical info it gives out, although almost every time someone does (including myself), I'm pretty sure I lose a repair or parts sale.

So, right now I've spent about 6 hours on finding the problem with a 'no video NEC' board. I've repaired two of my boards with that issue, so I know that it's a repetitive failure. Problem is, I have nothing to recoup for that 6 hours of work as of right now.

Normally I charge $250 flat rate to repair any late model projector board. Sometimes it takes an hour to repair the board, sometimes it takes 6. With the massive learning curve on the BArco 909, I charge more. The client knows up front what the cost is, and can weigh out whether it's worth sending the board in for repair. IN the case of older sets like the NEC PG series, I've dropped my pricing, as I know not many people will spend $250 to repair one, even in mint shape.

Unfortunately I can't do anything about where you chose to live compared to me <grin> It does mean a repair for you would be closer to $200 incl round trip shipping. Again though, you know the costs up front and can make the decision whether to send the board in or not.

It has been tempting to put up a 'tech' section on each projector, where I discuss board level repairs for each chassis, and charge a one time flat rate of say $200 to access it. Problem is, that would take 100s of hours to put up, and I have no idea how many people would actually pay up the $$.

As CRT slows down, I am heading back into sound contracting as I did before the CRT thing took off. That's going to mean time away from CRTs, as I have already done this year, and some people are already feeling the pinch of my not-always-instantaneous responses. That sucks, but that's the way it goes, esp. when I have this massive elaborate lifestyle I'm accustomed to. <sarcasm>

Now where's my morning Cristal served to me by my favorite beeyotch! Smile

CasetheCorvetteman · Joined: 09 Nov 2008 Posts: 6326 Location: Australia

I was indeed, but if anyone cares to read what i asked for, youll see IM NOT ASKING YOU TO POST IT IN OPEN FORUM. Im not demanding it, im simply ASKING.

What you and the others replying here seem to thing, is that im asking you to type out the info here, and im CLEARLY not asking that at all.

Chances are, even if you DID share it with me, chances are youd be doing the job anyway.

Back when i did help people with their cars, i was indeed robbing myself of an income by doing it for free. Its not the only thing ive done robbing myself of an income to help others either!! But this isnt what im asking you to do.

Thats ok though, if the need comes up, youll be getting the job regardless of which one of us does that labour.

Now if i would stop working for free Curt, i could just buy a bigger better projector off you couldnt i....