CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

Rattanee · Joined: 18 Jan 2015 Posts: 193

Okay, update time. I spent a little time with the PG9, and a little with the Sony.

PG9: Convergence Drive, and Focus Drive now have all new caps, started on Gain CTL, got the decoder board and the power supplies to go. Man that's a lot of wires... I may be missing a connector though, as I'm pretty sure that there's somethign wrong with the focus drive board, or the enable connector was not installed... not sure yet. Anyone know if the SS marked connector on the focus drive board is supposed to have anything connected to it? Based on what I saw from the quick-setup of the sony, the focus drive of the PG9 is either completely dud in it's edge focus section, or just not enabled? The SS connector is supposed to have an enable signal or somesuch... I'm not at all sure. Time to check how things are interconnected according to the manual.

Sony: Hooo boy... was in a smoking place for sure... the mouth-drying smell of nicotine and pub-dust is strong with this one... anyone who has bought a pinball machine from a bar knows how that smell is so strangely appealing... Very Happy

Anyways! I need to get a new socket driver for the lense bolts, as they're in a really tight place and my current driver is too 'fat' to get in there... so removing the lenses, which do need a through cleaning, will have to wait a bit. However! I did a -very- shallow quick setup of the PJ, and oddly enough, I could set better edge focus then on the PG9!!!! (TAC3 lenses on it btw.) This just confirmed that there's something very wrong with the focus section of the PG.
Light output is decent, not near as bright as the PG9 obviously, but there's more than a little dirt on/in/between the lenses, and thus now I think I know what is referred to as haloing... pretty nice colours on this set when tweaked though!
Turning the set off I noticed that there was some afterglow of the image on the tubes, and if I leave the input signal conected, the image can be seen for a few seconds after the set is turned off if I look into the lenses. And then I saw it... I'm pretty sure that the line is going to be a scratch or some sort of dirt between the lenses or between the lense and the crt face. When the affterglow of the tubes comes up as I'm looking into the green tube, I can see tiny 'rubble'... like the little plastic dust you get when you scratch a plastic or glass surface deep enough, just along the line... it is also too straight to be a crack...

were I not so damn tired and busy this week, I would've already gotten a driver and popped it open.... anyways... I'mma pass out for now... if anyone has any tips regarding the PG focus, I'd be more then happy to hear your ideas!

Cheers guys!

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

Dont take the lenses off the frame yet, take the 6 screws out and remove the whole lens assembly.

Not sure about that connector without getting my PG out and looking, which would normally be no issue, but ive been slapped with a 5kg lift limit for 6 weeks post operation.

Rattanee · Joined: 18 Jan 2015 Posts: 193

I don't have the exact manual for this model I think. I think I see two on each side... and the whole lens assembly is possibly hinged? I'll have to check that.

I got the point board with me for the PG9 too... and the problem is definitely not capacitor related... (no burnt traces of any kind) I'm hoping it's going to be eprom related. It's a 27c512m and I -have- seen these go bad even just from sitting around.... tossed quite a few that refused to read, or just had garbled data after programming... I'll have to break out the TopMax and see what's in there. I've also seen GAL chips go bad, and there's plenty of those on this board... and I don't think there's much hope to get the data for those... so... fingers crossed it's gonna be the eprom... (or the ASIC socket!)

Take it easy then. What happened? Back problems?

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

Should be able to get the data for the GALs, ive got all the gear here to read them. I think mine is a TOP3000, been a while since i used it. I have repaired loads of CPS2 and NEO•GEO carts with it, even swapped games on some CPS2 boards by ripping up all new chips and then swapping the PALs with GALs.

Not back problems no, ive been really quite ill on and off for many months, and it all came to a head last friday and i spent four days in hospital. I am feeling much better now that im not being internally poisoned and infected!! I had an operation which is what's stopping me lifting.

Rattanee · Joined: 18 Jan 2015 Posts: 193

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

Not always, loads of chips ive read are full of the same thing for miles or a ton of FF... They may not have needed the full space on the chip.

Rattanee · Joined: 18 Jan 2015 Posts: 193

Well yeah but generally code doesn't get interrupted with random lengths of FF (except for the rare cases when different parts of a circuit read different memory spaces of the same chip) then resume a mile below. Also, there seems to be a tendency of 512 chips to fail in a way that when read back, most or all (most commonly) of the contents are nothing but alternating ones and zeroes. But even more obvious is when you get a pin error. And the TopMax has not steered me wrong yet Smile

But we'll see... entirely possible that it'll all read back flawlessly... and then I'll need a new board...

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

Ive had loads of 27C1024s that i could never completely wipe back to FF, even after 20 minutes in the blanking box!! Sometimes ive gotten away with just writting them with small data amounts though too, none of my bootlegs or repairs have failed or glitched!! Ive been quite lucky there.

Rattanee · Joined: 18 Jan 2015 Posts: 193

This may be easier to ID then I thought... the eprom has SUM=491B hand-written on it.... checksums are useful Smile

Got to assemble my shop puter here at home to test it though.

Edit:
It's a shame, but it seems I was mistaken... removed the optics from the Sony. Seems to be burn-in after all... or a really -really- straight line of dirt in the green tube's coolant reservoir... the latter being highly unlikely... also, it turns out there's something with the red tube as well, though it's not as noticable. It's a real shame as otherwise the tubes seem barely used... only the blue tube has the faintest of even burn... We'll see how things go with the Barco tomorrow... worst case scenario, I got tubes to swap into the Sony Smile

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

Show some pictures.

Rattanee · Joined: 18 Jan 2015 Posts: 193

I'll snap some tomorrow, I'm just about to pass out.

Anyways, I have the high voltage pcb and the low voltage power supply left with the PG9... now only if I could figure out how to remove the LVPS without having to dismantle the entire PJ... I managed to get at every board bar the LVPS without having to remove the tubes or the optics or pretty much anything really...
It was a miracle in itself that I still had a picture from the composite input of the machine... the decoder board had caps that didn't just leak, but were actually rotting away... black legs and everything... quite a few of them...

As for the Sony, I'll snap some pix, but even if it's a dud, the Barco is supposed to have the same tubes so... I'm just debating wether to attempt subjecting all the parts of it to a nice warm dishwasher treatment or if I should play it safe and use my trusty method of mild detergent and a paintbrush, combined with running water... Never did the dishwasher method though and I'm not sure how trimpots would take the treatment... hurrmmm....

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

Ive done the dishwasher heaps of times. Brings them up like new.

What Barco?

Rattanee · Joined: 18 Jan 2015 Posts: 193

Picking up a possibly faulty Barco Vision 600 s today. Though I'm pretty sure it's just not working cause of the lack of an RCVDS or whatever the video switcher is called. It should be the same category as the Sony except bigger in size... so I might go for a tube swap. I'll take some pics of everything once I'm back.

Rattanee · Joined: 18 Jan 2015 Posts: 193

So I've finished replacing all of the capacitors on the PG9, and lo and behold, I must have missed something during reassembly. I'm suspecting I'm having problems with the powersupply. First the PJ would fire up, then flash the image a few times, then shut down with F8, which should be convergence drive problems... well that seems to not be the problem, as I was about to measure the voltages arriving to the C-Drive board, but now the center LED on the deflection board stays lit, and I get an FA reading (it is either backwards, saying AF in the manual, or the code is bogus) on the display, then in a few moments 00 and it tries to start again...

What does the center LED on the deflection board indicate?

Also, what's a good place to host pictures nowdays?

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

if you have a yahoo email addy use flikr. Works well with iPhone app as well.

Nashou

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

The LEDs on the deflection board show if the corresponding deflection is stopped, the center LED is for the Horizontal deflection.

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

BTW error code FA means overload on the +/-35V line.

Rattanee · Joined: 18 Jan 2015 Posts: 193

THanks!

Does the manual say that? It would coincide with the convergence error message, but can't see it in the manual...

Just about to bench-test the PSU.

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

The XG manual say that for +/-35V overload on Astig board, you don't have that obviously, but that is probably not a coincidence.

Rattanee · Joined: 18 Jan 2015 Posts: 193

Okay, error is on C-DRIVE board for certain. Removed power connector of C-Drive board and PJ fires up without any errors. I remember having a blob of solder spatter when I was working on a board that I was cussing like hell while I removed. Possibly that board and I possibly missed a spot I guess.

However, one of my original issues remains.... on first boot, the whole OSD menu and everything jumps around for a while... turn it off, then back on, picture's stable... hrrmm....