CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 12:05 am Post subject: Strange Marquee CLM/remote issue

Throwing this one out here. Craig, Mike Parker and myself are all in the loop on this one, but extra ideas can't hurt.

Customer a while back buys a remote off me to replace one that's intermittent. Power button works, little else if anything does.

Emails me back, saying that the new remote didn't cure the problem. I tell him that about the only other thing it could be is the CLM, and he sends it to me. Craig had done a recent calibration on the set, so the customer didn't want to go reseating chips, as he'd lose all of Craig's settings. So I get the board, put it in my test set, and confirm almost the same problem, that the wired remote only activates the power on/off function, and nothing else, whereas the wireless does absolutely nothing at all.

I notice that the projector menu only has IR mode A selected, so I switch that to A or B as is normal. No change. Try another remote, convert my wired remote to wireless, still nothing.

So I download Marquee Librarian that I'd never used before, and successfully save the settings that Craig had done, and it turns out that Craig had a copy of his files anyway, which he sent me.

So I trace the IR signals, and it turns out that the wired and wireless IR signals are completely separate on the CLM board, right where they go into the main CPU chip. AHA, I figure, the CPU chip is bad. So I swap CPU chips from my test CLM board that has dozens of hours on it, and now the IR remote's power function also works, but nothing else does. So now I've copied the customer's complaint. So I switch CPU chips on his CLM, nada, same problem. At that time I swap CLM boards, upload the customer's file to the new CLM, and run it for 20 minutes. I confirm that all the convergence settings are the same as on the original board, and send it out.

Customer gets it, installs it, and reports that in the middle of touching up the convergence, the remote goes intermittent and dies, save for the power button.

NOw, I still have his bad board here that wasn't working properly in my test set, and my tested and working CLM has the same issues in his set. Two wildly unlikely suspects at this point:

-bad LVPS is sending too low or too high a voltage out to the IR sensor and keyboard. (never had that before).
-a glitch in the memory is causing the IR stream to act up. (I can't believe this either).

Anyone got any other ideas?

This weekend I'm pulling out his CLM again, and will compare it to another CLM I have. Then I'll upload his programming into yet a third CLM, to see if over time his programming will cause the CLM to act up. \
Am I missing anything?

BTW, the IR stream when scoped right up to the CPU chip looked just fine, the waveform is there, solid as a rock.

flipdog · Joined: 22 Dec 2011 Posts: 156

Which CPU ended up in the CLM you sent back to the customer?

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 12:42 am Post subject:

The one out of my test set. The only thing transferred was the programming.

flipdog · Joined: 22 Dec 2011 Posts: 156

Tim in Phoenix · Joined: 21 Oct 2006 Posts: 4409 Location: Phoenix

It's haunted!

Replace the IR sensor and the wired keypad cable in the customer's projector, and ask if he has anything in the room emitting IR

Did the replacement CLM have his Stig and DPB boards or yours?
.

CIR Engineering · Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 12:55 am Post subject:

Curt, did you load the calibration files that I sent you, or the ones that you read of the CLM? I would suggest using the ones I created at the time of calibration as the set had worked fine for months after the calibration. If something in the files is causing a problem, it could be from something that happened later after I created the files and that you may have now copied over. Use the ones I emailed you instead of the ones you created... but I still don't think it has anything to do with the programming.

craigr

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 1:00 am Post subject:

Flip- yes, I swapped CPU chips back. His CLM didn't work with either CPU, but mine worked with both, more or less eliminating the CPU chip as an issue.

Tim- can't see that being it, since his CLM's problem was duplicated in my test chassis with 100s of shop hours on it.

Craig- I did indeed download the files from his CLM, so youre right, if something was corrupted after the fact, I would have dragged that over. I haven't done anything with your files that you sent over. I'll do that this weekend.

And here I'd hoped I'd hang a G90 in my theatre. I Can't see that happening this weekend.. again. Smile

barclay66 · Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 1:02 am Post subject:

Hi,

When You mention the processor, are You talking about U16 on the CLM? If yes, then I dug up some information on it:
U16 is the slave processor (MC68HC711E9CFN2) for I/O and has three inputs for Remote signals (Pins 32, 33 and 34). It directly controls power on/off through Pin 41 and has control over one of the I2C buses through pins 37 and 38.
In addition it communicates with the main processor through a multiplexed 16-bit data bus.
So, in general, it's quite a busy device and it is the only active processor during standby.
Faults could be triggered through problems with the +5v standby line or spikes present at its inputs. Other than that, I only could imagine that it's on-chip programming either got altered (very improbable) by an external event or that the on-chip ROM (one time programmable in this case) is going bad due to age.
Does anything change when pressing the RESET button?

Regards,
barclay66

flipdog · Joined: 22 Dec 2011 Posts: 156

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 1:06 am Post subject:

Not in front of the manual, but yes, I think it's U16. I'm heading out for the night to check on the wood side panels for my RTR, and also that Peavey Nion DSP unit, but I'll dive into the CLM again tomorrow or Saturday.

Jeff (the customer), if you're reading this, try pressing the reset button on the CLM. I've never had to do anything with it, but give it a shot, and pls report if that changes anything.

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

One other thing I noticed about Remotes. The newer VDC projectors will not work with the older electrohome remotes and Vice versa Think. I know the former is true for sure.

He could try an initialization of the set as well and reload the calibration settings. Sometimes crap on the back plane chip messes things up
and its the only way to solve mystery issues.

Athanasios

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 1:16 am Post subject:

His is an older 9500 non Ultra, but I agree, a bad backplane, glycol leakage could also be the issue.

Craig, is this set floor or ceiling mounted?

jcoles · Joined: 17 Jul 2008 Posts: 40

Thanks for everybodys input. This a most bizarre problem.

Just to clarify things for everybody. The remote failure has been a gradual process over several mos getting much worse recently. Even when the remote fails, I can still always turn the PJ on and off with either the wired or wireless remotes. The rest of the buttons do work sporadically. I was doing a touchup convergence recently (when it worked again) and the grid disappeared and my underlying desktop from my HTPC popped up and would change colors as I continued "converging" as if the grid was still there. Of course at this point none of the buttons would respond again. Disconnecting the wired remote made no difference.

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 1:52 am Post subject:

Jeff, is it floor mount or ceiling mount? If floor mount, then it's indicative of possibly leaking glycol onto the backplane, under the main 8 pin memory chip. If it's ceiling mount, then that's not really a possibility.

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

I say he tries an Initialization and then reprogram the CLM with his saved settings if its not floor mounted.

Athanasios

jcoles · Joined: 17 Jul 2008 Posts: 40

It's ceiling mounted. Pressing the reset button didn't help unfortunately.

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

Jeff do you have the saved Files for your CLM? If Yes, then do an Initialization and then add the files back to the clm. But before you put them back in check the functions of the remote. then add the files back and try again.

Athanasios

jcoles · Joined: 17 Jul 2008 Posts: 40

To do an initialization, the remote has to work..... I also don't have the hardware to reinstall the files. Need a laptop running a 32-bit OS I believe, which I don't have.

Tim in Phoenix · Joined: 21 Oct 2006 Posts: 4409 Location: Phoenix

Hello

When pressing non-functioning buttons on either keypad, does the CLM "C" led flash?

.

jcoles · Joined: 17 Jul 2008 Posts: 40

Yes, the C light flashes red