CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

perisoft · Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 2920 Location: Ithaca, NY

Yeah, that's right. Two more projectors. Unfortunately they're not 808ses with minty tubes, but they only cost $30, so I'll take what I can get. My wife even went with me to check one out before I got it.

So now I need to know what to do with them!

Example number one is a Barco Vision 600. It's in really good shape (case is perfect aside from a missing fastener, but not yellowed or even dusty) aside from a cosmetic chip on one of the lenses' plastic rims.

And it's even got the little switcher thingy plugged in back, so it's usable, too. But Curt says these only do 480i, which limits its practicality.

What about the tubes, though? Well, it's kind of odd. They're color corrected, which I kind of didn't expect. The red and blue tubes have this kind of smear / spotty bit in them, both in the same place. But it's obvious it's not in the phosphor. It doesn't look like 'fungus' though - I'll post some pics when I have a chance.

The tubes themselves show absolutely no sign of wear; I'd even go so far as to describe them as mintlike, mintalicious, mintacular, or mintabulous. Great - I've got minty, ancient tubes. Smile

I think they're SD187s, though, so maybe they're worth something?

Example number two is a Sony VPH G90... no, no it's not. Damn. But it is a 1271q in reasonable condition cosmetically - case banged up a bit, no remote, and I had to pry the outer edge of the R BNC connector because the people who had it before decided that the rear connection panel would make an excellent kind of stand for the projector to prop on.

It works just fine, except one of the two fans on the LVPS doesn't like to start up and has to be prodded to life lest the PJ die with error 01, which the manual helpfully describes as 'FAN'.

The tubes in this case aren't really minty, but they're minty's first cousin once removed. I'll let you guys be the judge:

(in case you're curious, I'd done the spacer mod already by the time I took these pictures...)

So, what should I do? I don't really have a 'good' use for two more PJs. I might stick one in my office to run winamp visualizations or something eccentric like that. But if the tubes or whole PJs are valuable they might help finance a new blue for my 808s. Any ideas?

(By the way, curt.. that 1/10 tube on your rating chart could actually be used; you could set up a 2.35:1 image under the burn!... that's not a blue 07MFP2, is it? Wink

)

Dave Lister

perisoft · Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 2920 Location: Ithaca, NY

I don't think it's on the outside of the glass, but since I gain a kind of perverse joy from messing with CRT projectors I might be convinced to clean the tubes up under the right circumstances. I'm not sure whether that should raise the price due to the work involved or lower it due to the risk you'd incur having a n00b fix your tubes. Smile

What's weird is it doesn't really look anything like the 'fungus'. And when I ran the test patterns briefly before taking the lenses off, I didn't notice anything at all in the images I saw on the tubes through the lenses. I'll have to post some pics.

As far as brightness, I haven't run the 600 through a full setup, but I'm used to the brightness on the 808 and the 1271, and when I looked into the tubes at the 600's test pattern, I went, "Gahh!!" in surprise and then watched an inverse grid on anything I saw for five minutes. It was somewhat shocking.

Both the 600 and the 1271 *seem* a lot brighter than the 808s; to some extent that makes sense since the 808s has a lot of wear, but I've also been trying to run both of the other PJs at small screen sizes, because as it turns out I really haven't got a lot of free wall space in my house to test the things! Very Happy

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 11:38 pm Post subject:

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 11:41 pm Post subject:

Tom.W · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 6635

jask · Joined: 17 Mar 2006 Posts: 10187 Location: kamloops BC

perisoft · Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 2920 Location: Ithaca, NY

If it was the stripper from Sin City smoking a cigar with a mouse, I'd never have bothered posting.

OK, I'm not sure what that implies, but it's not good. Anyway...

So, I did a quick calibration on the 1271q. It's no Barco 808, I'll tell you that... Very Happy

But the basics are similar. The focus is pretty awful, 1440x960 text is barely readable - but apparently that's close to the limit of what the thing can resolve. That said, optical focus isn't really right as it's just sitting on the floor and the lens setup is haphazard at best. Still, that one was actually free, so I can't complain. A few months ago I was just hoping to get something on that level of performance period... now I'm trying to figure out how to get ToastyBarco to resolve 1080p. Razz

Then I did a quick calibration on the Barco Vision 600. Holy jesus christ on a sailboat! One step back and I'd have to stick kitchen magnets on the side of the yokes!

Actually, it wasn't that bad. After a little bit you get so you can run two knobs at once, for edge linearity and mid-edge linearity, and watch stuff wobble until it's right. It makes for entertainment, in a way. Focus is predictable not stellar, and the odd funky patches in the B/R tubes make focusing in those areas a hopeless proposition, but considering the vintage the thing is impressive.

That said, it does rather consistently, even after running for a good hour, make a fairly continual snapping/popping sound, a bit like gently frying bacon. Do I have a gently frying Barco Vision 600, or is that par for the course? It's not the environment as the 1271q doesn't do it in the same room.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 4:49 am Post subject:

Probably a HV leak.

I was going to post a hooker smoking a cigar in your living room but the mouse just sounded funnier. Thumbs Up

Dave Lister · Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 11:48 am Post subject:

perisoft · Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 2920 Location: Ithaca, NY

So, being a relative CRT n00b, is an HV leak a nasty proposition, or is there a fairly easy fix? And is it something in the tubes themselves (which are probably the only really valuable part of the 600) or in the Barco's HV bits?

By the way, if anybody has any advice about the bum fan on the 1271q I'd appreciate it. The fan doesn't appear to be connectorized, and the wires disappear nearly immediately inside the LVPS unit, and thence, to my horror, likely through the spinal-cord like mass of wires going back to the main bit of the PJ. Common sense tells me I'm better off splicing a new fan in at the LVPS rather than trying to disentangle everything all the way back, but maybe it's connectorized inside the LVPS and I just don't know it.

Also, I find it odd that giving the fan a kick will get it going, and I'm wondering if the problem isn't the fan itself. I put some light oil in its bearings, and it has no more resistance when I hand-turn it than the other one nearby, which starts up just fine - but it just jiggles a bit (usually) instead of starting up. Any ideas? I'd like to get that squared away so I can do a real setup with the lenses properly seated and aligned, since the machine looks to be in nearly perfect condition aside from that.

Sonynut · Joined: 08 Aug 2006 Posts: 367 Location: Bradford,PA

The fan is has a connector inside the power block itself. Remove the block from the PJ(lots of connectors but they are all at the power block), remove the PA and K boards from the top, and open the power block up. you'll see the connectors inside. The problem definitely is in the fan, and not just any fan will work, either. The rotor lock sensor is different than those in computers, so the Pj will keep crapping off from a fan stop. Since it as a free projector, I doubt you want to sink much into it, so just take the fan completely apart, clean and re-oil the bearings, and you might be good to go.. Not that the fan will be any quieter, but it might just start itself anyhow.