CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2016 4:05 am Post subject: Enough to make a grown man cry..

-2 new old stock 2006 VDC 9500 Ultras, 0 hours
-in transit across the USA
-LUG tubes
-HD10L lenses
-both hit so hard that all 6 tubes smashed.

F**k me! Thumbs Down

the only good thing that may come of this is that I'll sell the working chassis (I tested them, they are untouched and not torqued.. I'm still not sure how the tubes got smashed) for dirt cheap for someone to upgrade. even the neck boards are late model, but not the very late ones with the different transistors that have bandwidth issues..

Need to fight with the shipper tomorrow, as I'm sure not paying the $1000 bill..

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2016 4:34 am Post subject:

Faaaaaaaaakkkkkkkkkkkkkkk........!

anthonywong123 · Joined: 26 Feb 2014 Posts: 35 Location: chengdu,China

o, fight with shipper, hard work.

what a good CRT projector except the lens.

redfox001 · Joined: 16 Mar 2009 Posts: 2257 Location: The Netherlands

I just had a smaller problem of the same kind and insured heavy. But what they did not tell me upfront that as sender you have to make pictures of everything including packing material before you send. Else insurance is useless. Anyhow the sender is responsible unless aproved otherwise.

mp20748 · Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2016 11:01 am Post subject:

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2016 2:35 pm Post subject:

Fortunately I do have before and after pix. Smile

I paid almost nothing for the projectors, so as long as they null and void shipping, I'm OK with it. Since the chassis are fine themselves, and other than the top and side panels being destroyed, I can either sell the chassis as complete and working, or, I've got at least one set of NOS tubes left from 2011 that I'll drop in, and sell it as a 'new, other' old stock projector... for cheeeep!

koldby · Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2016 10:34 pm Post subject:

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2016 12:12 am Post subject:

2006 build date, so it's definitely a later set, not sure if it's the latest though. Over the weekend I'll put a set on one of the 909s, and will check for good edge focus. If they changed it from 72" diagonal maximum for the HD10L, it will be interesting to compare them to the HD10F I have on them now.

anthonywong123 · Joined: 26 Feb 2014 Posts: 35 Location: chengdu,China

koldby · Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2016 9:22 am Post subject:

[quote="anthonywong123"]

koldby · Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2016 9:23 am Post subject:

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2016 2:47 pm Post subject:

Koldby, do you know when that change was made? My older 10Ls are finished in shiny black, the later ones are dull matte black. My assumption is that's when they changed, but definitely some experimentation here is in order, maybe this weekend.

koldby · Posted: Sat Jan 30, 2016 10:42 am Post subject:

No I have no idea when they changed them and I have not had a set of old HD10L designed for small screens, but someone told me that it probably was when they changed name from Delta to VDC , that marked the change in the lens geometry.
But others are much more knowledgeable than I am regarding this.

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

Guys

When US Precision exited the lens business, production shifted to Elcan Canada, and someone decided to change the spec for HD10L.

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Sat Jan 30, 2016 4:09 pm Post subject:

Now THAT makes perfect sense!

BTW, if these compare favorably to HFQ900s, then I have about 4 sets of the later HD10Ls available..

draganm · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 8990 Location: Colorado

the problem I remember with the old HD10L was not that you couldn't get the center or corners sharp, it was that there was an area between the center and corners was was out of focus. Like a blurry ring zone

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5643 Location: Comedy Central

Interesting, as I met Scott around '05 and I don't recall him ever saying the lenses changed to accommodate larger screens.

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

So Elcan got to make the lenses after 3M so rudely left the room and didn't even give VDC advance notice and an opportunity to make a final buy order?

Interesting.

Elcan is a division of Raytheon and they are a first rate optics manufacturer, making many defense qualified optical products.

I am not at all surprised that their lenses are superior to 3M's lenses.

I'd LOVE to know what Elcan was charging per lens, though. I heard "about twice as much as 3M" mentioned once.

Guessing...4000 to 7000 dollars per lens. Compare CRT projection lenses to any other lenses you can find and you'll soon realize that they are probably the biggest lens systems you can lay your hands on without getting into the highest range of camera lenses, which cost even more, or telescopes, which are mostly based on mirror based optics which are cheap to make.

When you understand what you've really got, it seems like sacrilege to toss out even a mostly plastic HD-8B lens. It's quite a piece of optical engineering and it was NOT cheap to make.

I can't look at any lens without wondering what its potential for use might be if adapted for telescope or camera usage. The huge aperture implies that it would gather a LOT of light and thus have potential for use in night photography or astronomy, IF you could adapt it for that use in a cost effective manner.

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 12:32 am Post subject:

Well, I think the final price of a 9500 Ultra without split pack mods and stuff was $47K USd. I did find a price of $3,400 per tube and magnetics in the lot of 9" tubes I got a couple of years ago..Mind you, that is retail pricing.

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

So, assume about 37K for the PJ minus the tube assemblies. That leaves a LOT of room for the lenses in the remaining value.

Yeah, I would not doubt AT ALL that the lenses account for perhaps as much as 20K of the list price, leaving 17K for the chassis and electronics. Which I think is a fair estimate. Just bouncing around numbers, there are two power supplies, a backplane board, what, three boards on the rear heatsink, the CLM, the FM, the HDM, three neck cards, contrast modulation card, yeah, I think that leaves a reasonable cost per board out of what's left.

Granted, all those boards are relatively expensive due to the low production numbers, so economies of mass scale production don't apply.

I'd be shocked if a set of Elcan HD10Ls cost anything less than 12 grand per set, and not at all surprised if they listed (VDC's list price) for 6 or 7 grand per lens.

How much better are they, really, than GT17s?