CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

tri_joel · Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 646 Location: Northern Virginia

First let me say one thing. You all suck! Very Happy

I am in the process of building a HT in my basement and was looking for a projector when I stumbled on this site quite by accident. I spent several hours over the next few weeks reading the wealth of information and decided to give the CRT a try. I found an ECP 4100 for sale in my area, the price was right and I didn't need to pay for shipping. I knew the ECP had a horizontal hold problem, but thanks to Curt for responding to my email questions Thumbs Up

I decided to go ahead and purchase it. Anyway, combining the H and V Synch did not cure the problem so the boards were sent to Curt, and quickly repaired and returned.

SO I get the machine set-up and running. I get a video processor which had some issues at first but I got it figured out. This is the part where EACH and EVERYONE of you get a You Suck! from me. My entry level ECP throughs such a great picture that I can't imagine how nice it would be to have an 8" or 9" set. But I can't afford a larger set at the moment so I have been kicking back and enjoying movies on a system that I have less than $500 invested.

I can't seem to get the blue tube focused very well and noticed that the red capped allen head adjustment bolt was not capped. I'm wondering if a previous misguided soul messed with it. I printed out the instructions from this site on how to fix this problem but I just haven't had the time to work on it.

Then it happened. Right in the middle of the third quarter of the Redskins game. (Please don't give me grief about being a Redskins fan, the Skins make it hard enough to be a fan without help from you. Rolling Eyes

) First the picture went away. Then it came back on but was jumping. Like I was watching the game while doing jumping jacks. Then the horizontal hold went haywire. I turned the ECP off, connected my video processor to a computer monitor (just to verify it was not the source) and learned that it was not the source. I then connected a cheap VGA transcoder I bought some time ago, this didn't work. Back to the video processor, I tried combining H&V and un-combining H&V on all four RGBHV inputs (I have two input boards with two inputs each). I went back to my last known good configuration (do I sound like Bill Gates?) and hit the reset, none of this worked. I unplugged the ECP and let it set over night, still did not work. I pulled all the boards (one at a time) and checked that all the chips were fully seated (lesson learned from a previous episode). The ECP still does not work. When I hit the Menu button, the menu is all scrambled and un-readable.

I cannot afford a new CRT right now and am not very interested in putting more money in this ECP. Not sure if I'm looking for technical help or sympathy, but I'll take what ever I can get!

JustGreg · Joined: 07 Mar 2006 Posts: 3098 Location: Kenosha, WI

I don't know anything about ECP's so.....you get my sympathy and a shoulder to cry on. Laughing

Being the King of Clean that I am...I can at least say this....have you cleaned and reseated every socketed chip and board you can get your hands on?

Greg

EDITED BIGTIME: Speed reading fails me again. You already did all that. Never mind. Still more supportive than the following post. Laughing

emdawgz1 · Joined: 14 Mar 2006 Posts: 7949

GO DIGITAL YOU BASTAGE!!!

Only the strong and committed can climb to the pinnacle of HT perfection.

If getting a CRT setup is to hard for you, the GET OUT!

YOU ARE WORTHLESS AND WEAK!!!!!

GET OUT!!!!!!!

Wink

whats6x7 · Joined: 04 Oct 2006 Posts: 5924

Actually, the quote from Animal House is "worthless and weak".

Hi Joel Joel Joel! Sorry, all I can give you is sympathy. Good luck!

emdawgz1 · Joined: 14 Mar 2006 Posts: 7949

Clarence · Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 7:00 pm Post subject:

If you're a Redskins fan, you can't be too far away. The way you ramble, I'm guessing you're from around Mclean.

I have a couple of ECPs you can swap parts with if it'll help you troubleshoot. One's going in a friend's basement once he finishes it. The other one is a complete parts machine... I think it's got a bad ground somewhere.

And/or if you're close enough maybe I can check the connections. I'm in Purcellville... out past Leesburg.

tri_joel · Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 646 Location: Northern Virginia

I'm in Mclean.

JustGreg,

Thank you for getting me back on the right track. You treminded me that digityal is just to soft for me.

tri_joel · Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 646 Location: Northern Virginia

That waqas meant for emdawgz.

CRT_Ben · Joined: 28 Aug 2006 Posts: 1684 Location: Northern Virginia

Tri_Joel, there's an edit button on all your posts, just so you know Wink

tri_joel · Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 646 Location: Northern Virginia

Yes I know about the edit button but I am sitting on a construction site waiting for a concrete truck. I am reading and responding from a Motorola Q. I tried several times to edit but the Q is kicking my a**.

GEBrown · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 729 Location: Denver

JustGreg · Joined: 07 Mar 2006 Posts: 3098 Location: Kenosha, WI

You typed that entire thread opener with a Q? Shocked

I sell the things and can barely stand the time it takes to demo it to a customer never mind entering that many letters. Wow...that is some slow assed concrete delivery. Easy money tho eh? Wink

Greg

tri_joel · Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 646 Location: Northern Virginia

The opening post was typed from my desktop at the office. The poorly writen reponses have been from this POS Q.

tri_joel · Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 646 Location: Northern Virginia

I fixed it. Well, not exactly. I found an NEC 9PG on craigsdlist for 100 buks and it came with a Crystal View V2.0. The seller said the NEC wouldn't power up and he didn't know how to fix it. So I bought it, took it home, plugged it in and it wouldn't power up just like the guy said. I put new batteries in the remote, pushed the on button and it powered up. So I don't need the ECP anymore.

Clarence, you can have the ECP if you want it.

Curt, I'll send you an email to cancel the Dallas chips if you haven't sent it yet'

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

Zebu Fellenz · Joined: 21 Dec 2006 Posts: 2567

Nice Easy Fix

Andrew Low · Joined: 19 Apr 2007 Posts: 28

Not sure if you're still looking for help/advice. My experience with the ECP series was that they were very sensitive to the sync signal. They seemed to prefer a combined H&V (negative) sync. As well, it does need a correct external sync signal to work like you'd expect - I think you can do some amount of sanity checking if you disconnect any signal coming in - but a bad sync signal will cause havoc.

Try with nothing connected - does it give a help menu? If so, then you're in luck - its a sync issue. Otherwise - you're going to have to find some boards to start swapping.

Roo

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

Another satisfied NEC owner. Thumbs Up

If the tubes are good, then you got one of the best bargains in the pj world. You can do 1080i and 720p with ease while you wait for higher end CRT and digital pricing to come down. Hell, the new Panny 2000 looks to be a great pj for around $2500-$3000.