CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[ccaddaddy]

Im having a hard time getting my convergence as good as possible without going crosseyed. Is there anything I could use for a reference like markings I could put on my screen. The edges are the worst to get aligned.

[Curt Palme]

Post a pix of the test grid, and a make and model would help....

[Curt Palme]

Post a pix of the test grid, and a make and model would help....

[ecrabb]

XG-750, Curt.

Are you trying to converge all three simultaneously? That will drive you bug nuts unless you're only doing tiny zone tweaks.

Geometry and convergence is an iterative process. The best process is something like this:

1. Put string on screen centers.
2. Start G geometry. Use size, linearity, keystone, pincushion, skew, etc. in an iterative fashion, per you projector's manual to get a nice, square green grid. The string on the screen's V and H centers gives you a frame of reference and gets your active image area centered perfectly and nice and square. Leave zone convergence all neutral, unless there is an obvious geometry error.
3. Move on to R. Same set of steps to align R to G. When you get it close to nailed, you'll see almost all yellow grid lines.
4. Where you see red and green, you'll know you need to adjust RED to compensate. Use the aforementioned controls to best align. Learn what each control does and iteratively adjust them to optimize convergence. For instance, you can work size and linearity together, key and skew together.
5. Once R and G are perfectly converged, turn R raster off.
6. Turn the Blue raster on and repeat the process. B is a little harder, but with B and G, you get a nice cyan when converged, and obvious green when converged.
7. Repeat the process. Sit in the chair of overall, and when you have convergence as nailed as possible with the geometry controls, you can walk right up to the screen to do zone for fine tweaking in a few problem areas. If you did geometry right, you'll only need a few small tweaks to zone.
8. Turn the R raster back on and wherever you don't have a nice white, use zone and adjust R or B only to nail it. Do it from right in front of the screen. If it looks good right at the scree, it will look awesome from your seating position.

Here's a post I wrote on putting string on the screen to get center:
http://www.curtpalme.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=135280#135280

Here's another post I wrote on general setup:
http://www.curtpalme.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=122549#122549

SC

[ccaddaddy]

im also having a bit of convergence drift. it seems like everytime i fire up the pj i have to make some adjustments. are xg75 and 991 parts interchangable?

[ecrabb]

Make sure you're letting the projector warm up fully (30 mins+) before you make adjustments. If you don't, you'll chase your tail. You'll adjust it cold, it'll drift as it warms up, then you'll adjust it again, shut it down later, then do it all again when you fire it up again the next time. If you adjust it good and warm, it should stay pretty close to that when it's warm again. If it doesn't, you may need to have somebody replace some caps.

These machines are getting old. Caps' values aren't what they used to be, and they're much more sensitive to temperature than they once were.

One of my old 12xx's would need a couple of clicks of red convergence all the time. Only took me a minute, but it was annoying.

SC

[CasetheCorvetteman]

The fact its drifting leads me to think maybe youve not set every thing back to zero before you started and then started with a mechanical alignment. You shouldnt be having an issue here, the XG is not at all hard to align if youve got the mechanical side of it as good as it gets.

So here is what i would do if i turned up to set up your projector, before i move on to eCrabb's items, which ill put into my own words...

*Go into the OPTION mode and set the on screen display to GREEN instead of COLOUR. You can read things better now.

*Press STATIC on the remote and make sure all 3 of them are set to dead center zero.

*Go to CONVERGENCE and set each sub menu within that heading to zero by pressing CTL + NORMAL on the remote ( when you do this, itll ask you to choose LOAD or CANCEL, you want CANCEL which will set everything in that menu to zero ) Dont do this with PHASE, ill get to that. Do it with everything else under CONVERGENCE, including POINT.

*Go to ALIGNMENT and press CTL + NORMAL to cancel the lot, dont need to do each one individually there. Check a few settings and make sure they are all at zero.

*Display the CROSS COARSE pattern and turn the contrast down a fair way, look into the lenses and make sure the pattern is in the center of the tube face. To make it easier, i go into ALIGNMENT and i increase the AMPLITUDE til the pattern is close enough to the edges of the tube that you can gauge it being centered easier. Use the RASTER CENTERING option in the REF ADJUST menu to make sure each pattern is centered within the tube face. ( be certain you have set the STATIC to zero before you do this )

*When all 3 rasters are dead center of their tube faces, display the CROSS HAIR pattern and turn the contrast up enough so you can see the pattern on your screen. With only the GREEN lit, adjust the deflection yoke so the vertical line is vertical, then go into the PHASE menu ( pattern will change to CROSS COARSE ) and adjust it so that the hump is lined up with the center, and also when you revert to the CROSS HAIR pattern, the vertical is dead center as well. If you were to look into the green tube face, the vertical line should be dead center of the tube face. If its not, you should check your projector's location and make sure it is parallel to the screen. Phase is now set for that input, so store that. Dont f*** with the green mechanics again.

*Now with the CROSS HAIR pattern still up, turn on the red and line up the vertical bar with the green by loosening off the screws that hold the tube housing in place and move the tube. When it lines up, screw it back up tight. Do the same with the blue. Use the deflection yokes to line up the vertical bars of the cross hair.

* Using the ALIGNMENT menu, get the green perfect by starting with TILT/SKEW and BOW while using the CROSS HAIR pattern. Follow this up with a quick visit to the KEYSTONE and PINCUSHION menus to get things close. Then when you move on to AMPLITUDE, turn the patterns off and adjust it with the image til it fills your screen, use the POSITION button above the GREEN CRT button to swap between the POSITION and the IMAGE SIZE ( which is the same as AMPLITUDE ) Adjust the KEYSTONE, PINCUSHION, POSITION SHIFT and AMPLITUDE settings until the image is pretty near spot on the center, then using the CROSS COARSE pattern, check the green linearity and adjust if needed. After you adjust LINEARITY, you will need to go to CROSS HAIR and make sure youre still dead center, and if not, you adjust that with the REF ADJUST RASTER SHIFT menu, making sure the pattern is dead center of the tube face. Then repeat all these in this step again to be sure your image is centered and your amplitude is correct.

*Continue with the rest of the alignment of the green by using the CROSS COARSE pattern, adjust the KEYSTONE and the KEY BALANCE, as well as the PINCUSHION and PIN BALANCE so the outer lines are parallel to your screen edge. These settings are for the outer portions of the screen, the TILT/SKEW and BOW will effect the whole screen, which is why you set them first, and set them with the cross hair.

*You should have it pretty near perfect by now, if there is any area that is not perfect and you know youve done what you can with the controls mensioned allready, use the RGB POINT to correct them. When youre done, green should be PERFECT.

*Moving on to the RED and the BLUE, start with the TILT/SKEW and BOW while youve got the cross hair up. Now it gets to be tricky. When you move the LINEARITY for the red or blue, you will move the sides of the image on the tube face, which will move the image off center. Set the linearity and amplitude til they are right, then go into the REF ADJUST and move the raster back to the center of the tube face. After you do this, you will then need to display the CROSS HAIR pattern, and MECHANICALLY RE AIM the tube. After you do that, recheck the settings, recheck the raster is perfectly centered in the tube face, and adjust what you need to adjust. If youre going to play with the ASTIG and FOCUS settings, do it while you do all this step.

Something i reckon is very important and probably overlooked a fair bit: THE CENTER OF THE RED AND BLUE IMAGES IS NOT THE CENTER OF THEIR TUBE FACES. The linearity will affect it because of the off angle of the red and blue to the screen, and it will depend on the screen size and distance from the screen.

*If youve done it this way so far, your STATIC settings should be at zero, or within a couple of zero, cause the RASTER SHIFT is a pretty coarse adjustment.

*Once youve got all that alignment out of the way, you should have the 3 colours dead perfect in the middle of the screen and over the entire cross hair pattern. The 3 rasters should also be dead center of the tube faces. From here, all you have left to do is the KEYSTONE and KEY BALANCE, as well as PIN and PIN BALANCE settings for the red and blue tubes. Line them both up one at a time to the green, with only the 2 colours turned on at any one time.

*Finish off with abit of POINT if you need to, but if you did what i said, you quite likely wont need much point. It is there to be used, so use it if you have to, but you shouldnt need much at all. Ive never once needed or used LINEAR BALANCE either.

*Display the CROSS FINE pattern and look at what a top job youve done.

Id be very supprised if it drifts after you set it like that.

[A Rogers]

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Yeah? I havent had my XG long enough to notice it drift, but i didnt touch my 9PG in 4 months and it was spot on every time from when i hit the power button. The only reason i did actually redo it was cause i played with the astig and made it abit better, then re did the whole convergence, never touched it again for about 2 months til i had a system board fail, since then it was set up for about another 7 or 8 months and i played with the focus yokes a couple times to correct an issue i had with the green.

At one point i did have an issue with the PG moving the picture to the right when it was first turned on, not the whole raster, but only the image position within the raster... Sprayed some circuit board cleaner into the horizontal position pot on the DEF board and that hasnt happened since. Convergence was always right where i left it though, cause i converge as far past the edges of the screen as i can. ( dead flat wall, painted black around the edge of the screen )

One thing i did notice and seems the same on the XG as well, some inputs require some static convergence to get them perfect, where as some others dont. There seems to be no real consistency to it either.

I also found i got best results by using the lowest input set as default too, which in my case is 15.75kHz RGB-S 240p res. Seems almost everything else will be very very close if i do that, and it takes some very minor adjustments to be done.