Did you charge him $85/hr just to set the appointment or the call to confirm?


No

Found this forum a few weeks ago when my unit started with the blue screen and power off problem. Found the forum to be very useful. I pulled out my ps board and re soldered the entire board. Put the board back in and everything has been fine for a week now. Last night as i watching it the screen went blank on me. Everything else seems to be working ok on it. Sound still comes through and the unit does not shut off, just the screen goes out. I turned the unit off and let it sit few minutes then turned it back on. It worked for a few more hours then the screen went again. I have since turned the unit off for fear of further damage. Not sure were to go from here. Should i go back over the ps board, or is there another issue that needs to be taken care of? Any help would be much appreciated as i would hate to loose this tv.

thanks
jon

Found this forum a few weeks ago when my unit started with the blue screen and power off problem. Found the forum to be very useful. I pulled out my ps board and re soldered the entire board. Put the board back in and everything has been fine for a week now. Last night as i watching it the screen went blank on me. Everything else seems to be working ok on it. Sound still comes through and the unit does not shut off, just the screen goes out. I turned the unit off and let it sit few minutes then turned it back on. It worked for a few more hours then the screen went again. I have since turned the unit off for fear of further damage. Not sure were to go from here. Should i go back over the ps board, or is there another issue that needs to be taken care of? Any help would be much appreciated as i would hate to loose this tv.

thanks
jon


You've missed something in your resoldering. You have prolly saved the unit from most hazardous possibilities by the resoldering you have done so far, but obviously something is still not right, and who knows which connection will go hinky next? Possibly a dangerous one.

When I resolder the boards sent to me - there are 5 here awaiting my loving attention as we speak - the set always works 100% again, as long as it has not been dropped on its head by the gorillas at the shipping services. Be sure and use an OVERSIZED BOX whenever you send a board to me! And the BIG bubble-wrap, the inch-sized type, NOT just the small bubble-wrap.

At any rate, if you have already done most of the soldering needed, I could prolly give you a discount off of normal pricing if you want to send it to me and let me finish it up, and enjoy sharing my 100% fix rate. Contact me directly, by phone or at my regular email address.

But stop using your set now for video viewing, until this sit is remedied. Don't let it warm up to cruising temp again, until fixed right. You don't want to have one of the conns you have missed take down your set, and make it substantially more expensive to fix.


Otherwise, good luck! You're obviously more than halfway there -


Mr Bob

thanks for the quick reply, i will pull the board out and take another look at it to make sure i didn't overlook something. i spent two days working on the board and made sure to split it in section so as to not miss anything. guess i did. If i cant find anything i will get in touch with you and have you look it over.

thanks
jon

Informative posts, thanks Bob et al. My Pro-520HD is shutting itself off, along with a loud pop from the built-in speakers, after a an hour or so of run time. I've pulled the power supply board and re-soldered the connections, but the situation has not improved. However, I did notice that one of the voltage test pins, TP207 was labeled for 30V, but was actually at 42V. The other test pins were a bit off, but within 10% tolerance. TP207 is 40% off. The voltage was high before and after my re-soldering, so I didn't do anything to cause it.

I'm guessing their must be a failing component on the board. Any ideas what the most likely culprit would be? An electrolytic capacitor? One of the IC's? Impossible to tell? None of the components appear to be damaged. I don't mind replacing components on the board, but would like to be able to focus my efforts, rather than ordering a bunch of random parts from Digikey and crossing my fingers.

Thanks,
Adam

Informative posts, thanks Bob et al. My Pro-520HD is shutting itself off, along with a loud pop from the built-in speakers, after a an hour or so of run time. I've pulled the power supply board and re-soldered the connections, but the situation has not improved. However, I did notice that one of the voltage test pins, TP207 was labeled for 30V, but was actually at 42V. The other test pins were a bit off, but within 10% tolerance. TP207 is 40% off. The voltage was high before and after my re-soldering, so I didn't do anything to cause it.

I'm guessing their must be a failing component on the board. Any ideas what the most likely culprit would be? An electrolytic capacitor? One of the IC's? Impossible to tell? None of the components appear to be damaged. I don't mind replacing components on the board, but would like to be able to focus my efforts, rather than ordering a bunch of random parts from Digikey and crossing my fingers.

Thanks,
Adam

In all the dozens of PS boards I have resoldered to remedy this problem, I have never had to replace any components on that board. I also have never taken any voltage readings while that board is operational. I resolder them with the thoroughness required, they work from then on and that's that.

Sometimes a mod on a board is put in without any notice at all, much less to the end user. That can change the voltages already silkscreened onto the board to different ones, with the new ones taking center stage and making the set work just fine. Yours is a 520, of the x20 series, and if it has the PS board mounted vertically to the bulkhead, it uses the same board as the x10 series of the year before and the central character of this thread, but with 2 gray wires each where the x10 used 1 each, and it's missing several components that were deemed unnecessary. Otherwise it SHOULD be the same board, but if they modified it, neither you nor I would know exactly how, just at a glance.

I think you are overthinking and overtesting this board. Examine your solder job. I think you missed something, possibly under one of the caulking globs, or where something LOOKS right as far as its solder joint goes, but is not. If you skipped any joints because they looked OK, but were not glossy and gleaming, like good joints are, those could be your culprit.

If your set is still exhibiting the same symptoms as before, those are signs of cold solder joint malfunctions, which are thermally related. Any time it takes an hour for something to go haywire in there, it is thermally related. The intermittencies of cold solder joints are definitely thermally related.


Mr Bob

adamkuj, I think the silkscreening/service manual has an error since the other printed voltages down the line are correct. I, too, have played around with the voltage testpoints to check for shorts/continuity and found that testpoint to be +40 something. I replaced the ICs, too, but those occur after the power supply board and will not affect those voltages. If you have the service manual, you can see that there's almost nothing between that testpoint and the transformer (a capacitor, iirc), so the transformer was probably designed that way and there's an error in the printing. I performed a complete resolder/IC replacement and my 720 has been plowing ahead ever since. Good luck.

I have received yet another damaged board. I repaired it and later today it will be back on its way to its owner, but I think I now know why this has been happening. I have stated for a little while now to pack it in an oversized box, but not everyone has seen that directive, so they keep arriving in relatively small boxes, with just enough room for the board and some packing.

What happens is that the box winds up getting something placed on top of it that is smaller than it is, or some corner of a heavy box hits it in the middle.

What that does is crush the board internally, without even showing up as damage on the outside of the box. The damage I just remedied came from such a crushing, where the big heatsink is forced down onto the metal plate, breaking something in there.

OVERSIZED BOX! Or double box. If you use an oversized box, place your board in there at an angle, NOT flat! This keeps it even farther away from the edges, whereas flat keeps the edges of the board closest to the edges of the box. NOT the best scenario, in case it gets dropped on its side. The transformer in there is very topheavy, and a long drop onto its head or side can cause the topheaviness to crack the board around the tranformer, when it hits. This has happened too.

Oversized means probably 10-12" tall, maybe 20" long, 15" wide. NOT just enough for an inch in all directions before hitting the sides of the box, in there!


Mr Bob

Hi, I purchased my Pro HD510 in 2001. I just got off the phone with Pioneer and they told me that the tv is out of warranty and that they don't recognize this to be a problem since the tv is so old and they can't verify the amount of use. I told them it was a manufactures defect in the soldering of the PS board, and they wanted to know how I knew that, so I told them it was all over the message boards. She said its not covered anymore. I told them that it was unacceptable for someone to pay close to $6000 for a tv 7 years ago to have it not work anymore, and that I wanted to speak with a manager. They told me to call back and I told them no I waited 20 minutes on hold, I told them to have the manager call me back and gave them my number. I know have a better chance of getting a seat at the last supper then I do of having someone call me back. I'm gonna make a follow up call here within the next 1/2 hour. But that being said:

Mr. Bob, I'm experiencing the exact same problem with my 510 that everyone else is, a light fading in and out, and then the picture goes out, I don't get the speaker pop thing cause I run my audio through an surround sound system. I took the PS board out the other day and looked at it and didn't see anything blaringly wrong with it so I put it back in. The TV stays on for about 20 minutes and shuts back off again. If I ship the PS board to you can you fix it, and if so what is the cost and the time frame for repair? I live in New Jersey.

Thanks,
Don

I just got off the phone with them again, and they told me that they do not have this logged as an issue or know problem in their database, and they pointed me to their upgrades and known problems link. I told them just because they fail to put the issue on a website doesn't mean that it doesnt exist. She was very adamant about not recognizing the problem, and when I said I left a message for a manager I was told that it would take 48 hours for a call back.

Hi, I purchased my Pro HD510 in 2001. I just got off the phone with Pioneer and they told me that the tv is out of warranty and that they don't recognize this to be a problem since the tv is so old and they can't verify the amount of use. I told them it was a manufactures defect in the soldering of the PS board, and they wanted to know how I knew that, so I told them it was all over the message boards. She said its not covered anymore. I told them that it was unacceptable for someone to pay close to $6000 for a tv 7 years ago to have it not work anymore, and that I wanted to speak with a manager. They told me to call back and I told them no I waited 20 minutes on hold, I told them to have the manager call me back and gave them my number. I know have a better chance of getting a seat at the last supper then I do of having someone call me back. I'm gonna make a follow up call here within the next 1/2 hour. But that being said:

Mr. Bob, I'm experiencing the exact same problem with my 510 that everyone else is, a light fading in and out, and then the picture goes out, I don't get the speaker pop thing cause I run my audio through an surround sound system. I took the PS board out the other day and looked at it and didn't see anything blaringly wrong with it so I put it back in. The TV stays on for about 20 minutes and shuts back off again. If I ship the PS board to you can you fix it, and if so what is the cost and the time frame for repair? I live in New Jersey.

Thanks,
Don

Yes, I have 3 boards that I just resoldered to go out today, and 2 in the wings.

Send me an email requesting the info and I'll fire back my emailout on the hows and wherefores.

STOP USING YOUR SET NOW! The next event may contain a lethal spike that will take down a board deeper in your set! I've seen that happen and seen units get totalled because of it. Do NOT let it warm up again to cruising temp until you have that PS board resoldered, to the comprehensive level it needs!


Mr Bob

I just got off the phone with them again, and they told me that they do not have this logged as an issue or know problem in their database, and they pointed me to their upgrades and known problems link. I told them just because they fail to put the issue on a website doesn't mean that it doesnt exist. She was very adamant about not recognizing the problem, and when I said I left a message for a manager I was told that it would take 48 hours for a call back.

I know this thread is long, but you need to go over it and find out how others here have handled it with Pioneer.

I can tell you right now, it's less expensive to send your board to me and let me handle it, than to have Pioneer on the case about it.


Mr Bob

Mr. Bob

I just wanted to let you know I sent you an email to both your email accounts, if you dont get it let me know and I'll resend.

Thanks
Don

Well, This is the 4th time I'm back into this thread.

the stk 392-110 only lasted 9 months this time :mad:

I had learned about the longer lasting stk 392-180 part after I shipped everything to a buddy last time.

I will not reorder from electonix.

but I need a link for a place for the better STK's !!!

I sure hope someone posts that link !!

Well, This is the 4th time I'm back into this thread.

the stk 392-110 only lasted 9 months this time :mad:

I had learned about the longer lasting stk 392-180 part after I shipped everything to a buddy last time.

I will not reorder from electonix.

but I need a link for a place for the better STK's !!!

I sure hope someone posts that link !!

Union Electronics, I believe Melissa is my contact's name there. The 392-180s have been working out very well with them. They are very reasonably priced, and I have never had a callback on them so far.


Mr Bob

Mr. Bob

I just wanted to let you know I sent you an email to both your email accounts, if you dont get it let me know and I'll resend.

Thanks
Don

Got it. Reply is on the way -

I took out the power supply board again and touched up two solder joints that I had actually made worse during my original soldering job. The shutdown problem is now resolved. I guess I should have used proper lighting and magnification in the first place, per Mr. Bob's often repeated advice.

It's good to know that the TP207 30V marking on the board is a red herring. I got my Elite Pro-520HD for free, and am glad to have it back in working order without having to spend any money on it.

Cheers,
Adam

adamkuj, I think the silkscreening/service manual has an error since the other printed voltages down the line are correct. I, too, have played around with the voltage testpoints to check for shorts/continuity and found that testpoint to be +40 something. I replaced the ICs, too, but those occur after the power supply board and will not affect those voltages. If you have the service manual, you can see that there's almost nothing between that testpoint and the transformer (a capacitor, iirc), so the transformer was probably designed that way and there's an error in the printing. I performed a complete resolder/IC replacement and my 720 has been plowing ahead ever since. Good luck.

I took out the power supply board again and touched up two solder joints that I had actually made worse during my original soldering job. The shutdown problem is now resolved. I guess I should have used proper lighting and magnification in the first place, per Mr. Bob's often repeated advice.

It's good to know that the TP207 30V marking on the board is a red herring. I got my Elite Pro-520HD for free, and am glad to have it back in working order without having to spend any money on it.

Cheers,
Adam

If you only did 2 solder joints, you will be having problems again soon, as other joints let go. Only a comprehensive resoldering job will fully restore that PS board and bring it up to the efficacy of all the other boards in the unit, which have never had any problems. And there are many boards in there.

This I have said also here, many times.

When you get something very valuable for free, you should honor it with putting some $ into it, if it needs it. After all, you are several thousand $ richer than the owner who paid retail for it.

Mr Bob

The first time I re-soldered the board, I did all connections (except for the heat sink mounts, which aren't electrically significant, and too big for my soldering iron to heat up anyways). The first soldering job didn't fix the problem, or perhaps it just shifted the problem to other contacts -- the second time I took the board out, I found that I two of my touch-ups from before were bad. I re-soldered them a second time, and the problem is resolved.

Thanks again,
Adam

If you only did 2 solder joints, you will be having problems again soon, as other joints let go. Only a comprehensive resoldering job will fully restore that PS board and bring it up to the efficacy of all the other boards in the unit, which have never had any problems. And there are many boards in there.

This I have said also here, many times.

When you get something very valuable for free, you should honor it with putting some $ into it, if it needs it. After all, you are several thousand $ richer than the owner who paid retail for it.

Mr Bob

The first time I re-soldered the board, I did all connections (except for the heat sink mounts, which aren't electrically significant, and too big for my soldering iron to heat up anyways). The first soldering job didn't fix the problem, or perhaps it just shifted the problem to other contacts -- the second time I took the board out, I found that I two of my touch-ups from before were bad. I re-soldered them a second time, and the problem is resolved.

Thanks again,
Adam

Awesome! Another CRT RPTV saved! I know I won't be the one to save them all...

I am currently watching the 710 I was flown to Denver to calibrate 2 days ago, with Hairspray on it. Looking absolutely fabulous!

Hope you do whatever it takes now, to bring it back to better than new performance, like I have done here in Denver.

Good job. You obviously know what you are doing, and as luck would have it, we are insanely lucky that these boards are so forgiving.

Keep up the good work, you are a man after my own heart!


:cool:


Mr Bob

PS -

Optics cleaning is the best thing to do now, with other things being optional later. Without optics cleaning making your light path crystal clear again, the other things we can do to improve the look of your images stay compromised. It is the one best thing to do for an 8-9 year old set that has never had it done before.

See my website for details -


Mr Bob

A testimonial to Mr. Bob's advice:

It is absolutely imperative that the ENTIRE power supply be re-soldered, not just a few key areas, even if the solder appears OK. This means everything, including some of the heat sink mounting posts (some appear to be tied into the ground or power buss). I had the blue flash problem several years ago, and fixed it by soldering a FEW areas that looked bad. I even posted some instructions in this thread's infancy on how to do this. Well recently, just a week after I installed new STK's, a new problem appeared.

While the set was in the first few minutes of warm-up, I would get random flickering lines of horizontal garbage running through the screen, about 2 min. after turning it on, then they would disappear 3 min. later. Set would be fine for the rest of the night. What scared me the most was the muted protesting (static) coming from the power supply board itself, not the speakers, during these episodes.

I re-soldered the board completely this time, and bingo, no more lines. I found a jumper that I had missed earlier that had a faint ring in the solder - my guess is that it was expanding laterally when heating up, causing contact on one side when cold , momentary loss, then made contact on the opposite side of the pad when warmed up.

BTW, for those of you having "convergence flicker" problems (one color will jump slightly to the right, then snap back), the problem lies in the convergence yoke connectors on the deflection board. A thorough explanation of this can be found here:

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/pioneer/14530-not-all-pioneer-connection-problems-solder-related.html

UNPLUG THE SET before attempting any repair!

Thanks, Dave. Hopefully between us we can save a few more of these incredible sets.

One exception would be that you don't have to spring for a higher-heat than normal soldering iron for those heat sinks. It's really not necessary.

I just checked again, on the board I am presently working on, and the heat sinks only connect on one end, at all points. They do not provide a connecting path between anything and anything else in there.

As such, they cannot cause erratic or intermittent ops if their soldering breaks down, as it usually has done by the time I have received a board for resoldering.

The most that conn does is clamp the sink to ground on one end. This can provide potential anti-noise properties, but that's only theoretical, and I really don't believe it carries any weight, electrically. I have never resoldered them on the boards being sent to me, and have observed no such noise to be worried about, in the ones I have then observed in operation afterwards. Heat sinks just sit there in the air, not connected to the devices they sap the heat away from - directly, inductively or any other way. They don't really need grounding on this kind of board, which is a relatively low voltage board and neither needs nor uses shielding around any of the components because it does not deal with RF frequencies. What frequencies it does deal with are very effectively eliminated via the coils and caps presently in the sys as it is.

Pioneer also soldered in a coil on one side of the board where if you study it, you find that it has a jumper right across from it within an inch of it, which directly shorts it, disabling it completely. Meaning it cannot attenuate any high frequencies, which is what coils do, because it's shorted out!

This coil is NOT on the boards used for the x20 series. Nor are several bigger coils in the incoming 120v. line. In the following year, Pioneer obviously found they were not needed, and eliminated them from the design of that board from then on.

So I would not worry about the heat sinks. I DO resolder the one grounding screw that solders the screw to the board, tightening it also as it gets soldered. But that only connects to a cap, so it's not really critical anyway either, as a source of the intermittent problems. On other boards I have seen that screw take down the entire ops of the set, but I didn't analyze why, I just resoldered it, the set worked again and I was outa there, because it was the third visit, where on each visit I had APPARENTLY fixed the set! So I do it as a matter of course now.

On all else that Dave said, listen up! He's trying to help you guys out there, just like I am!

Thanks again, Dave, glad you chimed in -

;)


Mr Bob

My pleasure, Mr Bob, still like the way these sets look. Regarding the heat sinks, I soldered 'em just in case - I noticed that some have insulators, and yes, soldering those wouldn't make any difference. But it does stop them from wobbling. And thanks to you for providing a heads-up about that one screw needed solder, probably would have overlooked that!

My pleasure, Mr Bob, still like the way these sets look. Regarding the heat sinks, I soldered 'em just in case - I noticed that some have insulators, and yes, soldering those wouldn't make any difference. But it does stop them from wobbling. And thanks to you for providing a heads-up about that one screw needed solder, probably would have overlooked that!


;)

Have you got your optics crystal clear?


Mr Bob

Yes sir, I usually pull the lenses and clean very carefully under them, and the coolant covers. (allows me to inspect the coolant)

The mirror is a bit of a pain, though, because I don't want to over do it. (already seeing some slight hazing) Really tempted to pull it out and clean it flat. BTW, I usually like to do "just in case" scenarios in case of major FUBAR's, I found a place in Florida that will custom cut a first-surface mirror to the spec's of your RPTV, provided you can supply measurements. I did this because I noticed that Pioneer doesn't sell the mirrors anymore. (as I said, "just in case...")

The link is: http://www.frontsurfacemirror.com/ in case anyone is interested.

Looking to put together a tour in the Mpls-St.Paul area soon. I sent Mr. Bob my Pioneer Elite power supply board for repair, but now I need him to come and clean and calibrate.
Does anyone out there in the Twin Cities area want to share in the cost of his travel?

Yes sir, I usually pull the lenses and clean very carefully under them, and the coolant covers. (allows me to inspect the coolant)

The mirror is a bit of a pain, though, because I don't want to over do it. (already seeing some slight hazing) Really tempted to pull it out and clean it flat. BTW, I usually like to do "just in case" scenarios in case of major FUBAR's, I found a place in Florida that will custom cut a first-surface mirror to the spec's of your RPTV, provided you can supply measurements. I did this because I noticed that Pioneer doesn't sell the mirrors anymore. (as I said, "just in case...")

The link is: http://www.frontsurfacemirror.com/ in case anyone is interested.

This entity is also known as www.highreflectivemirrrors.com, in Santa Rosa. He's a good guy, and made the one that is currently awaiting my having enough time to install it in my Mit 73" CRT, to replace the factory issue mylar one presently in there.

What have you been using on your mirror and how often have you been cleaning it? I have never seen any hazing on any of the mirrors I have cleaned.

If you pull your mirror for cleaning - don't see why you would, but if you do - do NOT go in from the back to do so. Heavy duty damage will ensue. Go in on a Pioneer Elite ONLY from the front, on ANY issues potentially involving the mirrror.


Mr Bob

I use Sprayway foaming glass cleaner (no ammonia). Cleaning is done in two stages - the first is light "wet" wiping, done in one direction, to remove residue from cooking (girlfriend does a lot of this), using a product called "Kleanwipes delicate task wipers" (basically a fine woven paper towel used in the printing industry for cleaning scanners, etc.).

Second stage, which is more difficult, is light buffing with a microfiber cloth and light misting with the Sprayway - cant seem to get all the streaking out.

I believe the hazing may have been caused from the first time I cleaned it, may have gotten over-zealous with the Kleanwipes. Anyway, I'm always open for suggestions regarding the proper way to do this. Usually clean it maybe once or twice a year. Kills my back, that's for sure.

I use Sprayway foaming glass cleaner (no ammonia). Cleaning is done in two stages - the first is light "wet" wiping, done in one direction, to remove residue from cooking (girlfriend does a lot of this), using a product called "Kleanwipes delicate task wipers" (basically a fine woven paper towel used in the printing industry for cleaning scanners, etc.).

Second stage, which is more difficult, is light buffing with a microfiber cloth and light misting with the Sprayway - cant seem to get all the streaking out.

I believe the hazing may have been caused from the first time I cleaned it, may have gotten over-zealous with the Kleanwipes. Anyway, I'm always open for suggestions regarding the proper way to do this. Usually clean it maybe once or twice a year. Kills my back, that's for sure.

I have found that I can never get it COMPLETELY streak free, esp. with the ultimate test - standing over the set with the front off and a very bright picture hitting the mirror from the CRTs and keeping my eyes off axis so I am not blinded by the light. That shows whatever is on the mirror. As long as I have it at least 95% clean on the mirror and 99% clean on the lenses I let the rest go, as everything is out of focus at that part of the light path anyway.

I feel it's best not to push it on these very fragile optics - if some swirling is still there, let it be. It's better to allow just a little swirliness/streakiness in there than to overdo it and wind up permanently scratching or scuffing something in there, which does not go away.


Mr Bob

Ah, good - at least I know I'm on the right track, because that's where I leave it. Another thing I find annoying about first-surface mirrors is the aluminum coating. It has a tendency to become highly charged with static electricity the more you wipe it, resulting in fine lint particles sticking to it, to the point that they can't be removed unless you do another wet cleaning. It's a vicious cycle....

Ah, good - at least I know I'm on the right track, because that's where I leave it. Another thing I find annoying about first-surface mirrors is the aluminum coating. It has a tendency to become highly charged with static electricity the more you wipe it, resulting in fine lint particles sticking to it, to the point that they can't be removed unless you do another wet cleaning. It's a vicious cycle....

Perhaps you might try skipping that buffing step. As I recall, cloth rubbed on ceramic or glass was known to produce static electricity many years ago, at the outset of electricity itself. The name Faraday comes to mind...

I never have anything cling to my mirrors when I clean them. Perhaps it's because I don't buff them.


Mr Bob

Anyone in the NY NJ area in need of their set being either repaired, calibrated, or cleaned. If so let me know and we can fly Mr. Bob out at a reasonable price, assuming there are enough interested.

Don

Perhaps you might try skipping that buffing step. As I recall, cloth rubbed on ceramic or glass was known to produce static electricity many years ago, at the outset of electricity itself.

I never have anything cling to my mirrors when I clean them. Perhaps it's because I don't buff them.


Mr Bob

Hmm.... perhaps you'd like to share your technique?

I have a Pro510. A few years ago, I had the PS problem and had the board resoldered. At the time, the wisdom was to focus on E3 and the 202 and 204 ICs. There were other connections that looked cold so those were touched up as well.

Last week, the 5A fuse went out. I ordered the Sanyo STK392-180 and replaced them last night.

I powered the set back up and it looked great. After about 20 minutes I noticed a blue flicker once or twice and suddenly it shutdown. The 6.3A fuse was blown. I removed the PS board and resoldered all of the connections and ICs (I did not do the entire board). I then powered it back up and it blew the 6.3A fuse again. The only board that has a light on it after the issue is the PS board.

Any ideas? Could the STK392-180 be bad or have a bad solder connection?

Thanks,

Paul

There are lots of bad solder connections all over these boards. While getting the common ones and the obvious ones solves most problems, just handling the boards can make others worse. When we have the boards out for service we usually resolder most of the connections.

That said, you could also have other problems with the convergence. I recommend anyone attempting a convergence repair read the first ten posts here very carefully:

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/service-support/5600-crt-based-rptv-convergence-repairs.html#post43725

Thanks for the pointer to the thread. I've rechecked all of the solder connections and all of the resistors on the board and everything appears to be OK. I'm still getting the blue flash that eventually blows the 6.3A fuse.

I'll tackle the connections on the PS board that haven't been soldered. Any other help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Paul

Check the connections to the deflection yokes.

Thanks for the pointer to the thread. I've rechecked all of the solder connections and all of the resistors on the board and everything appears to be OK. I'm still getting the blue flash that eventually blows the 6.3A fuse.

I'll tackle the connections on the PS board that haven't been soldered. Any other help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Paul

This thread is all about the blue flash problem and re-soldering the PS board. If you have time, make yourself a pot of coffee or grab a six-pack and read through it, if possible. A lot of good information here.

If you have any questions about convergence repairs, read the information from the link that icaillo posted above:

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/service-support/5600-crt-based-rptv-convergence-repairs.html#post43725

Excellent information there, quite helpful when I fixed my set.

When you work on the PS board, it is absolutely crucial that that the ENTIRE board be re-soldered - all connectors, jumpers, components and that one heat sink screw.

Hmm.... perhaps you'd like to share your technique?

Treat your mirror as if it were a window. It was never supposed to be there in the first place but the consumer was never going to accept a RPTV that was 5-6' deep in his viewing area.

As such, like in the Windex commercial it has to "seem to disappear".


Mr Bob

...that eventually blows the 6.3A fuse.

I'll tackle the connections on the PS board that haven't been soldered. Any other help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Paul

Until you do you're playing Russian Roulette with your set, and have been for quite awhile now, according to your last few posts. That 6.3A fuse does NOT go to your conv bd, the 4A and 5A fuses do. Chances are it goes to your defl bd, and you are flirting with having to replace it if a red LED suddenly goes off on that bd also - the defl bd - along with the one lighting up on the PS bd, and stays on from now on. It ain't cheap. If that happens, you've croaked your defl bd and it will have to be replaced, exacerbating your expenses by several hundred $. Is it really worth it to NOT do all the conn's on the PS bd, and keep taking chances on blowing your defl bd?

And I mean the FIRST time around, people. The very first time. The power supply board is the starting gate - THE most primary source of voltages and current going to the rest of the set. It all starts there, EVERYTHING in your set depends on it. The PS board HAS to be 100% efficacious - not 80%, or 90%. 100%, AT ALL TIMES. Like all the other boards in there, which don't have ANY problems. It takes a bunch of boards to operate a set like that, and they ALL have to 100% efficatious, at all times.

My advice on this has been here on this thread for years already, and has served me well on dozens of boards sent to me from across the continent, including Canada. If you have not perused enough of this thread yet, start reading some more. I spell out many times on this thread exactly what needs to be resoldered on this board: everything having to do with the original defective solder flow run, that has not already been resoldered as a post op to the original job. Except test points and heat sinks, which have no direct electrical connectivity between connecting points in there. That advice has been available here since dozens of pages back, and has been repeated here countless times.


If you don't take that advice as gospel by now, those of you reading this out there, you're on your own. And you're conducting Nazi experiments on your set. I wouldn't...

b

Wow, now I don't feel so bad, thought I was going crazy. Seems like my set has been having the same problems as you all are describing here in this forum.

Bought my Pro-510HD back in June 2001, $5000. Great set up until a few years ago when it started flashing blue then the picture going dim (low contrast), usually following a loud pop. Called my local Pioneer "authorized" service center, they came out and got the set, brought it back to their shop to evaluate. They looked at me as if I was crazy, said they had never heard of this problem before. Long story short, $250 fee (good toward repair) they had the set in their shop for about 3 months trying to diagnose the problem. Well I finally got fed up with the lack of progress and paid a surprise visit. There was my poor set in a room with about 30 other rear projection sets of various makes, all running with no one monitoring them. I don't know how they could diagnose the problem, since it was facing a wall. They said they could not find anything wrong with the picture, so hauled it back to the house.

Well, within two weeks the problem was back, figured just live with it even though it was annoying my wife and me to no end. After the experience with the local authorized repair shop (probably still think I am whacked) since they could not find anything wrong, so no solution there.

Now, after about 30-50 minutes the picture goes totally blank. Something heating up is causing the picture to go blank, hitting it on the side used to get it to come back on but even that doesn't work any more.

Fed up with Pioneer, and this coming from a guy who has spent nearly $20K on Pioneer Elite components since the early 1990s.

I stumbled onto this thread, via a Google search looking for an SH-D09 HD tuner. After realizing that they cost $2000 new, I'm glad that they were discontinued.

So that started me down the path of this thread because there probably was a brief mention of that tuner somewhere on page 35 of the thread. I felt like I'd just picked up a novel and started somewhere in the middle. I went back in the thread, then I went forward and was fascinated by the posts.

Realizing this thread has had a long life and starting with posts written in '06 and '07, I jumped forward to the last page, hoping to find the heros of the novel still alive and well. And to my amazement, it is indeed alive and well with the principal characters still passing out advice to the needy.

It is obvious that Mr. Bob has had a significant impact on a lot of 510/610/710 owners and that as tempting as the new plasmas and lcd's look, there is something truly beautiful about the picture quality of these old Pioneer rear screens, not to mention the handsome $5000 investment.

And so my small addition to the thread........I have a 510 that I purchased in January of '01 that experienced the same blue flashing soon after the extended 3 year warranty expired, as most Elites seem to exhibit . A local repair shop in Albuquerque worked on the set in '06 and the flashing went away.

But alas, the blue flash has returned. It has never stopped working completely. A power down at the main power switch will always get it to come back. Most recently however, I had to unplug it first to get it to come on.

Now I'm freaked because of all the comments about potential damage by letting this problem continue. I also realize that an optical cleaning would really make a big difference in picture quality, not to mention a serious calibration.

So the question is, where do I begin? I would gladly share Mr. Bob with anyone else who was considering a service call in Albuquerque, NM. I guess the back up plan would be to remove and send the power supply to Mr. Bob for re-soldering and then try to do an optical cleaning myself. Having not read the entire thread, are there step by step instructions on removal of the power supply and similarly instructions on cleaning the optics?

I am determined to not let this investment slip away in favor of a compromising digital image. Anyone else interested in Mr. Bob coming to Albuquerque?

Thanks for letting me vent. I feel a little better...

Any suggestions with what to do with this beautiful black Urushi box? Don't want to throw away any more money on this set.

I guess with a thread this long, you can't expect everybody to really get down in the trenches with me, read all the pages and thus automatically know what to do. So I will have to keep repeating myself, as the weeks and months go by. That's OK, I'll do whatever it takes to keep as many of these great sets alive as I can.

STOP USING YOUR SET NOW, even if it is turned on right now. The next intermittent could send a lethal spike down the lines, killing a board downline from the PS board. It could be only a minute away.

SEND ME THE PS BOARD. I will do the comprehensive resoldering job I do, and your set will last and last from then on without any further eruptions of questionable behavior. I restore the board to its original efficacy of 100%, and I never get them back weeks, months or years later because more of the soldering has now let go again somewhere new on the board, as is the case when the typical non-comprehensive job of other techs gets done. I do it all, and you never have to worry about it again.

And if done promptly as soon as you have even one intermittent event happen, and if the board is sent with the set working when you first turn it on and doesn't have any problems till it warms up, I can all but guaranty you I can fully restore your set for you.

Phone me and/or send me an email at my regular email addy in my sig, and I'll fire back all the info you need to know about how I work this. How much it costs - here's a hint, it's cheaper than getting a new board from Pioneer and and it keeps all your original voltages, which your display was originally set up on, preserving their high precision - where to send it, how to pack it, how to remove and re-install it... It's all there, as it has been for literally dozens of boards so far, which are even now as we speak performing marvelously for their owners, who are now no longer apprehensive about what to do about it.

I was just in Albuquerque a few weeks ago, sorry you didn't know about that so I coulda included you in that trip. But I would love to go back again, so form that cal tour and I will come.

Till then keep sending me the boards and I will keep cranking them out and back to you, properly soldered from then on, as I have been doing for owners across the continent for several years now. And I will stay available for phone coaching on optics cleaning. I will also stay available for cleaning and calibrating your sets on location, remedying the dimness that has crept into them all, rebalancing your usually now slewed grayscales, doing overscan reductions and tightening up your focusing, geometry and convergence, and just generally producing for you some of the best video images available.

All resulting in pix like the ones on page 45 of this thread, pix of the results of my MN tour of earlier this year.

Together we will save more and more of these great sets, which even if they hadn't cost an arm and a leg - which of course they did - are also still capable of delivering some of the finest HD viewing available. They are only at cruising age right now, there's ABSOLUTELY no need to toss them and buy new.

See page 45 of this thread to find photo evidence of that.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=402397&page=45


Mr Bob

It amazes me that with all of the Pioneer sets out there that have had the blue flash, the company is still "unaware" of this problem after all of this time. I am grateful that I came upon the thread in its infancy and was able to have it fixed as soon as I had the problem.

Now if some folks from the NC area would band together with me to get Mr. Bob out here for a full calibration/deep optics cleaning...

It amazes me that with all of the Pioneer sets out there that have had the blue flash, the company is still "unaware" of this problem after all of this time. I am grateful that I came upon the thread in its infancy and was able to have it fixed as soon as I had the problem.

Now if some folks from the NC area would band together with me to get Mr. Bob out here for a full calibration/deep optics cleaning...

The repair techs at Pioneer are definitely aware of it, I have talked to them directly in my capacity of being a repair tech, played dumb, and had them inform me of it directly without my ever asking them about it.

All aboard for NC...


Mr Bob

Now back to my original internet search about the HD ready aspect of the Pioneer 510. Not spending $2000 for the box even if they were still making them is where I'm at.
So how do you get the 510 to be HD? I have cable. Does Comcast have a box that outputs RGB or VGA that does the trick into the back of the 510?
Or do I need to get an aftermarket box to make up for the $2000 Pioneer box that no one ever bought?
As you can see, I'm confused by it all.

Now back to my original internet search about the HD ready aspect of the Pioneer 510. Not spending $2000 for the box even if they were still making them is where I'm at.
So how do you get the 510 to be HD? I have cable. Does Comcast have a box that outputs RGB or VGA that does the trick into the back of the 510?
Or do I need to get an aftermarket box to make up for the $2000 Pioneer box that no one ever bought?
As you can see, I'm confused by it all.

Use component and you'll retain the abiliity to have color and tint adjustable, and cable, sat and OTA STBs all put out 1080i HD on component.

So does HD Disc.

I find no discernable difference between component and RGB on Elites, except for having greater capacity for colorations with component. Component is what is used in my system, and also what was used to provide the delicious Elite photos I took in MN earlier this year on page 45 of this thread.

On my sys, which is a Mit, component looks MARKEDLY better than HDMI.


b

I just moved our 510 to the basement for DVD viewing and OTA HD broadcast. I am trying to avoid adding another DirecTV box charge by adding a STB for OTA HD reception. I would appeciate suggested projects from the 510 owning community. I hoping to get things up and running before the holidays. Thanks.

I just moved our 510 to the basement for DVD viewing and OTA HD broadcast. I am trying to avoid adding another DirecTV box charge by adding a STB for OTA HD reception. I would appeciate suggested projects from the 510 owning community. I hoping to get things up and running before the holidays. Thanks.

I have a "Voom" ( now out of business) receiver that I use for OTA. It works beautifully for my 710. I also have a Terk (looks like a tree) antenna that I keep in the closet with my equipment. I can receive all of my locals and I don't have a monster antenna on my house.

You can buy HD tuners that will work with our Elites for less than $200.

Thanks PamW. I'm already running OTA to other sets via my external antennae. I'm hoping to get some recommendations of presently available ATSC tuners. I used to have an old Zenith SAT-520 that I thought would work without the D*TV subscription, but it has come up missing!!!

Thanks PamW. I'm already running OTA to other sets via my external antennae. I'm hoping to get some recommendations of presently available ATSC tuners. I used to have an old Zenith SAT-520 that I thought would work without the D*TV subscription, but it has come up missing!!!

I have seen the Samsung OTA tuner used in stores, with splendid results. I think you can get one for under $150 at the right places. Try www.pricegrabber.com. Unfortunately I DK the model numbers to try...


b

I have a "Voom" ( now out of business) receiver that I use for OTA. It works beautifully for my 710. I also have a Terk (looks like a tree) antenna that I keep in the closet with my equipment. I can receive all of my locals and I don't have a monster antenna on my house.

You can buy HD tuners that will work with our Elites for less than $200.

I have a VOOM box also, was very sorry to see them go under. I heard that if it was set for OTA reception at the time it went down, that it would continue to work on OTA from then on. Glad to see that confirmed.

Iguana Grande - I you want my VOOM box, I will test it out for you. Contact me directly, not by pm please.


b

still looking to hear from people with this issue in the New York / New Jersey area. Mr. Bob is willing to come east to fix and pamper our sets if there are enough interested. PM me or post here if you live in this area.

Don

...and also the NC area!!!

Quick FYI... when shipping your boards for repair make sure it is COMPLETELY bubble wrapped with the quarter sized bubble wrap, and use a box that is 1' x 1' x 2', and try to put it in the box on a diagonal so the sides of the board are no where near the sides of the box.

My board was sent out in a fedex laptop box with all the padding and it still got a hairline crack in it. These boards aren't cheap to repair or replace, so don't skimp on the packing material.

Don

still looking to hear from people with this issue in the New York / New Jersey area. Mr. Bob is willing to come east to fix and pamper our sets if there are enough interested. PM me or post here if you live in this area.

Don


...and also the NC area!!!
__________________
Pam

I am excited about the prospects! Love to see different parts of the country while visiting y'all!

I won't be available between Dec. 23 and January 2, as I will be in Portland OR for the Xmas holidays. But my cell phone will be on while I am up there. Contact me directly - not by pm - and I'll get you that cell number -

For CES I will be in Las Vegas from the 6th to the 13th of January, won't be available for trips to elsewhere in the country during that space of days either.


b

Quick FYI... when shipping your boards for repair make sure it is COMPLETELY bubble wrapped with the quarter sized bubble wrap, and use a box that is 1' x 1' x 2', and try to put it in the box on a diagonal so the sides of the board are no where near the sides of the box.

My board was sent out in a fedex laptop box with all the padding and it still got a hairline crack in it. These boards aren't cheap to repair or replace, so don't skimp on the packing material.

Don

Don's was the 7th one so far - yes I am counting - of the many welcome dozens of boards I have resoldered so far, to have issues with board breakage.

When I say oversize box it, I mean just that. Or double box it, smaller inside bigger, with stuffing in between. Crumpled up newspaper works well.

Looking forward to more and more boards being sent. I am happy to know that literally dozens of Elites are now operating as they should again out there in the world, because of the diligence of their owners.

But let's streamline it as much as possible folks, and breaks in the boards don't qualify for streamlined status! The topside is very vulnerable, even if the edges are strong, on vertical pressures. And the sides have been hit several times, evidently from the boxes being dropped on their sides, which on occasion has literally crumpled the board in key areas. Sometimes at the edges themselves where they got hit, sometimes just because the transformer is very heavy - AND topheavy - which results in tearing of the board when the transformer has abrupt side trama. It tries to yank itself to the side because of this topheaviness, breaking the board on one edge of it, in response.

Whenever I have to deal with board breakage, I have to notify the owner and it usually costs the owner something extra for me to repair it, and it slows down the whole process. Don's was the first time I was able to fix the break without charging anything, because his was just a hairline fracture that only took out 2 runs. In other circumstances huge breaks have had to be dealt with, one on 2 occasions for the same owner, same board!

Oversize box it, people, please -

:o

b

Just received 2 more boxes in, and they are very healthily oversized. Great!

Will get them back to you just as soon as I can.


b

I just added some pix to the ones I showed in a post back on page 45, from Planet Earth, expanding its number of images by a few. You might want to check them out, as I have not posted them before anywhere.

Remember, any excess blue edging you see is a digital camera artifact, it's not showing up on the viewscreens involved when seated at any normal viewing distance.


b

Ok, discovered this thread a year and a half ago. Yeah, I have the exact same problems with my pro 610. So I did a cursory solder job a year ago and things seemed to improve quite a bit, but with color issues. But, a few months later, bingo! Same shut down problems. Pulled it out again, tried a resolder job, and reinstalled. Problem persists, and now the set will shut itself down within minutes of powerup. Disgusted, I pulled the plug and there she sits. 3 months now, just a big beautiful reminder of how ripped off I feel by Pioneer as I walk by it 30 times a day!!
Went to the Pioneer website today, found a place where you can order replacement parts right off their website. PS board is $352.95 plus $100 core charge that will be refunded when they receive the old part back in the mail. Website lists 2 parts (old vs. new). Called the customer service line, and told them I need a clarification on whether I need an "old or new" part of a certain TV. She asked what TV, I said a Pro -610. She then asked if I was interested in the PS board? Un-friggin-believable!! Yet they can sit their and say they know of no issues with this set. What a crock of ##$$##. She then explained that if you have the number 0 as the 5th character in the serial #, then you need AWV1795. But if the 5th character is a 1, then you need part # AWV1872. All explained like she does it all day.
Ok, so I check back into this site, to see if there is any more info that has been gleaned from the various good people that frequent this site. It looks like someone recently did a PS board swap out with a new Pioneer board, and after a short while, is now experiencing other problems. IC's, fuses, etc...
Not encouraging.

You can walk into any electronics store nowadays and see these flat panel LCD, and Plasmas priced well under a grand. Maybe not 58", but still bigger the usual large CRT's. So, should I spend $400 on a replacement part for this RPTV, with the specter of possible future issues. Or do I kick in another few hundred and get a new whiz-bang LCD set? On the one hand, the PRO-610 is much bigger than 42" LCD, has a beautiful picture when working, and the unit is actually very beautiful despite its large size. However, I want to pay Pioneer more money, like I want to shorten the length of my you-know-what!:eek: The more I think about what they did and are doing to their customers the more I want to burn this thing on my front lawn. Positively criminal.

My question is, and I know there is no real way to answer with any degree of certainty, but what is the likely-hood of me experiencing more problems after a PS board switch out for a brand new one? Are we talking 15%, 50%, or 85%? Anyone else out there with experience on swapping in a new board please share.

Thanks, Brett

Your problem may not be the PS at all. It also could be that you missed some important solder connections. The new board from Pioneer may still need lots of soldering to get it to work reliably. The best course of action is to fix what you have. It may take some skilled troubleshooting or just more diligence on your part.

Brett -

I can always tell when a person hits this thread and only looks at the last page or 2. Like you did, here. But I don't mind repeating what's been said before on this thread, it's VERY important stuff. I LOVE these sets, and am dedicated to saving every one of them that I can.

I have been successfully resoldering the faulty connections on the PS board for several years now, and as long as the unit is working properly when turned on while stone cold, then turned off promptly WITHOUT being allowed to warm up to cruising temp before being sent to me, I have never failed to restore stable ops on that board from then on. I stopped counting at dozens of boards, there are currently 4 in the other room awaiting my loving attention as we speak. The board had problems with the solder flow op when produced, ALL solder points on that board are affected. Luckily, it's the only board in there doing this, and there are many boards in there.

STOP USING YOUR SET NOW. Every time it experiences an event, you take a chance on a deadly spike travelling out of your PS board and down into the circuitry. We have had sets be totalled because of this, and it's all because the owner couldn't stand to be without his set, and kept on running it while it was obviously hurt! Which I respect the thoughts on, but don't advise doing!

Respect your set by unplugging it until fixed, and if you want to get it fixed permanently, you can send it to me if you wish. Locals will only resolder what it takes to get the set working again, then will be off with their pay and yes, the set will work past their warranty period. Then it will go out again. I get sent boards in that condition too, where critical points have been soldered - and soldered well, and professionally - but months later other conn's go out, as this is a DEGENERATION problem, plain and simple. That's why it took so long to surface. And it's board-wide. I resolder the whole thing on those boards that have already been repaired and gone out again, and I never see them again either. With my level of work - including multiple levels of magnification, fine solder tip, highly controlled heat level, comprehensiveness as my focus and multiple inspections, once re-installed by their owners they stay running from then on, as well as boards that have never been serviced before.

As this is a DIY thread, I also coach whoever wants to do their own resoldering - see 2 years ago in this thread, where I specifically spell out good soldering technique and how to achieve it. Or you can contact me directly for this coaching. But don't make this your initial entry into the world of soldering! It takes professional grade work to get this right.

You Elite owners have been blessed with a design on that PS board that is very forgiving, but not so in the case of other boards downline, which are very vulnerable to unexpected and highly inappropriate spikes. So don't push it. Keep your set OFF and unplugged till you get it serviced properly and permanently. Not a point-source problem. It's a board-wide problem requiring a shotgun approach, not a point-source approach.

My boards don't go bad again, and it costs you less than Pioneer is charging to have me do it for you, if you wish. Contact me directly if you want me involved, not by pm please, and I'll send you the details.

Once it's running again, I can also clean and calibrate it to being completely restored, if you wish. See page 45 of this thread to know what your set CAN look like, even at your set's age. There are screenshots there of my tour to MN earlier this year, just scroll down till you see them.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=402397&page=45


Mr Bob

Anyone in the NY NJ area in need of their set being either repaired, calibrated, or cleaned. If so let me know and we can fly Mr. Bob out at a reasonable price, assuming there are enough interested.

Don
Don, I'm NY area, any others up for a tri-state tour?

I was saying recently that shimming the CRT array forward towards the mirror and screen for o'scan redux could not be performed on the Pioneers because of a wood wall in the way, but I have now done it!

That wood wall is only about 4" tall and can easily be removed. It's only tacked in there with glue and some long staples, that only grab a slight bit. A pry with a thick screwdriver or a strong grip with some channellocks, and it comes right outa there. It is not needed structurally at all.

I just shimmed a 582 non-Elite - which is the same inside as the Elites in this area - and it worked great! I used 2 of the 3/4" thick 1x2 pieces of fir at each corner, glued lightly together and to the floor of the platform the array sits on, about half an inch wide, and angled to fit properly. 1.5" of shim/corner, for the 58" size. You'll need elongated screws to replace the shorties that have to come out, and they will keep the angle preserved.

Then I refocused and did a re-geometry/conv, then mopped up in the sm, and presto - no more objectionable overscan. I was able to get it down to just under 4% because the PS3 had anything lower than that blanked on one side. Mighta been able to go lower with another BD player. The owner is totally stoked! His o'scan had been cutting everything in half out at the edges, and he was just steaming to get rid of those limitations!

It CAN be done! And is an incredible mod, in terms of increasing your pixel count per square inch and thus heightening your resolution substantially, as it exposes more of each CRT face to the screen itself. I was afraid that Pioneers were out on this mod, and I am SO glad to say it can be done on Pioneers too now.


b

Hi all,
well i got my board back this past week from Mr. Bob, put it in on tuesday evening. Not one hiccup, not one shade change, not one pop, nothing, this thing has been running flawless since I put the board back in.

Mr Bob did a great job and saved my tv. If you are experienceing the the issues associated with the power supply board, I would highly reccomend you taking it out and sending it to Mr Bob to get fixed.

I'm still waiting to hear from people that want their RP's cleaned, calibrated, or repaired, Mr Bob will make a special trip to the east coast if he can get about 7-8 people to visit.

Don

Thank you, environmentalists, for making all the manufacturers first reduce, then remove lead content from solders...This has a lot to do with the problems, as Pioneer was one of the first to start reducing lead content.

If I could have a nickel for every solder joint I have repaired on a Pioneer...oh, but wait, that's about what I get...I suppose I'd be an electronics tech struggling to make a decent living, LOL. I have one ready to ship back to a client right now.

I'm still waiting to hear from people that want their RP's cleaned, calibrated, or repaired, Mr Bob will make a special trip to the east coast if he can get about 7-8 people to visit.

Don

I just heard from a guy in Long Island who wants in. If that's close enough by, contact me and I'll get you his contact info -

b

Westchester, NY here, 20 mins from NYC.

Thank you, environmentalists, for making all the manufacturers first reduce, then remove lead content from solders...This has a lot to do with the problems, as Pioneer was one of the first to start reducing lead content.

If I could have a nickel for every solder joint I have repaired on a Pioneer...oh, but wait, that's about what I get...I suppose I'd be an electronics tech struggling to make a decent living, LOL. I have one ready to ship back to a client right now.

Hope you did the comprehensive soldering job this repair requires, Len, not just the point-source job most techs do on it, where it always comes back later with further problems -


b

Hi all,
well i got my board back this past week from Mr. Bob, put it in on tuesday evening. Thanks for your repair" report. I've included it in the RPTV (Post#1) list that's linked at the bottom of my post.

Thanks for your repair" report. I've included it in the RPTV (Page#1) list that's linked at the bottom of my post.

Excellent. Thanks -

b

Anyone in the NY NJ area in need of their set being either repaired, calibrated, or cleaned. If so let me know and we can fly Mr. Bob out at a reasonable price, assuming there are enough interested.

Don

I'm in the NY area and would love to get a stop on the Mr. Bob East Coast tour.

I'm in the NY area and would love to get a stop on the Mr. Bob East Coast tour.


Have you contacted Don O'Neill directly?


b

I tried PM'ing Don, no response.

I had re soldered my board about 2 & 1/2 years ago. At that time the suggestion was to focus on a few spots which is all that I had done. The set worked perfectly until today. I was watching TV... well actually had my computer up on the display when the thing just shut off. Red light on front of display. Turned off main power and then tried to turn back on but the set would not come back to life. It was late so all I did was pop off the front speaker grill and I could see a red light on the board that lays flat in the front of the TV left side. I will look at it from the back tomorrow.

Will re soldering all the power board connections fix this or is something else wrong with my set?

I tried PM'ing Don, no response.

Contact me directly, not by pm, and I'll give you his phone number. Anyone in that area wanting to get in on this, you do too.


b

I had re soldered my board about 2 & 1/2 years ago. At that time the suggestion was to focus on a few spots which is all that I had done. The set worked perfectly until today. I was watching TV... well actually had my computer up on the display when the thing just shut off. Red light on front of display. Turned off main power and then tried to turn back on but the set would not come back to life. It was late so all I did was pop off the front speaker grill and I could see a red light on the board that lays flat in the front of the TV left side. I will look at it from the back tomorrow.

Will re soldering all the power board connections fix this or is something else wrong with my set?

Anyone who resolders just the bad points will prolly have this happen as well, sooner or later.

If yours is a 510/610/710, then the board you see the light on is prolly the defl bd, and if so then it needs to be replaced. But the damage to that board coulda been caused by new cold solder joints on the PS bd letting go now, years later, so that PS bd definitely needs the rest of its joints resoldered as well.

Contact me directly, not by pm, and I'll see what I can do -


b

If anybody is intending to send me their PS board from their Pioneer Elite 510/610/710, 520/620/720 or non-Elite series set for resoldering, please take note -

I will be going to Portland OR Dec 22, to stay till January 2. Any boards sent to my regular address in CA during that time will not be seen by me until my return, then I go away again on the 6th to Las Vegas for CES, to be gone until around the 13th, barring any unforseen calibration or repair jobs coming up there while I am away. I can do unforseen jobs while in Oregon while there, but can't put off the return travel flight from Portland because of needing to spend at least a couple of days in CA before I'm off again to CES.

This has to necessarily extend my regular promise of 2 weeks turnaround, for the board resoldering process once the board gets to me. Sorry, but when there are out of town trips to be taken into consideration, that has to be added to the regular turnaround time.

If you'd like me to work on your board while I am in Portland, contact me directly and I'll give you my brother's address, where I am staying there. I will get the board back to you before I leave to come back home, if you get it to me there in time.

I currently have 5 boards awaiting my attention here that I have to get out before the 22 during heavy holiday workload season for displays, so DON'T send any more boards to my regular CA address right now! Contact me and send them to Portland instead, where I will have the time to work on them.


b

...for restoring our Pioneer Elite Pro510 HD back to life!!!

Sent the PS board off to him a few weeks back. Mr. Bob did a complete re-solder of the board, sent it back. I was on vacation last week, got home and discovered the box had been badly mishandled by UPS (one corner totally crushed). My heart sank, but when I opened the box, Mr. Bob had packed it at an angle so no damage to the board.

Anyway, re-installed the board into the set, plugged it in and voila -- perfect picture! No more intermittent blue casts, no more contrast changes, no more sudden loss of picture. My wife even commented that the 1080i HD feed from DirecTV looks even better than before. It reminds me of the first time I saw HD on this set back in the showroom in 2001!

Thank you, thank you. We thought we were going to be left with a $5000 big black box that we did not know what to do with. But Mr. Bob's confidence and faith that there was indeed life left in these wonderful RPTVs has paid off.

So anyone in the the Southwest / Arizona area who would like to get Mr. Bob out here for a tour to do optics cleaning / re-calibration please let me know through this forum.

Randy O., satisfied customer, Tucson, AZ 12-22-2008

...for restoring our Pioneer Elite Pro510 HD back to life!!!

Sent the PS board off to him a few weeks back. Mr. Bob did a complete re-solder of the board, sent it back. I was on vacation last week, got home and discovered the box had been badly mishandled by UPS (one corner totally crushed). My heart sank, but when I opened the box, Mr. Bob had packed it at an angle so no damage to the board.

Anyway, re-installed the board into the set, plugged it in and voila -- perfect picture! No more intermittent blue casts, no more contrast changes, no more sudden loss of picture. My wife even commented that the 1080i HD feed from DirecTV looks even better than before. It reminds me of the first time I saw HD on this set back in the showroom in 2001!

Thank you, thank you. We thought we were going to be left with a $5000 big black box that we did not know what to do with. But Mr. Bob's confidence and faith that there was indeed life left in these wonderful RPTVs has paid off.

So anyone in the the Southwest / Arizona area who would like to get Mr. Bob out here for a tour to do optics cleaning / re-calibration please let me know through this forum.

Randy O., satisfied customer, Tucson, AZ 12-22-2008

Thanks Randy. Glad I could help.

There you have it, folks. How these sets SHOULDA - and WOULDA - kept on looking all these years, if that pesky PS board intermittencies problem had not cropped up, on that 1 pesky board per unit, always the same one.

The designers of these boards for these sets designed that PS board in such an incredible way that even tho the solder flow machine was badly set up, years later the boards still don't suffer any domino effects in response to that, which on other designs coulda caused them to go up in smoke at the first sign of an intermittent connection. No, they just keep in ticking, even after having full power to them while hurt for exceptionally long periods.

The design on that board is powerful, virtually bullet proof, and this hinkiness of the PS board is just a bump in the road, relatively inexpensive to fix. Even if your set HADN'T cost you $5-8K back in the day! Which of course it did, for most of you. Get it fixed. DON'T consider buying new and scrapping your big black box - the one with the amazing gleaming and glossy black piano finish that you can't get ANYWHERE anymore, at ANY price, and the excellent stealth grade electronics in it, capable of stunning HD! Even after all these years - and for years to come - these sets are - and will stay - capable of jaw-dropping performance.

Sure they can be made to look even better with cleaning and calibration. But even as is, Randy has said it even better than I coulda.

These sets rock!

You heard it here - and not from me!


:p


Mr Bob

OK, so I ventured into the back of my 510 over the weekend to survey the possibility of pulling the PS board and sending it to Mr. Bob for re-soldering. To my suprise, I found white rubbery gunk that looked like silicone next to what appear to be capacitors on the PS board.
I had warranty service done on it a couple of years ago when the dreaded "Blue Flash" appeared and am wondering if this white gunk came from the the factory or was used as a band-aid fix by the service tech? The white stuff is in two places on each capacitor (if they really are capacitors) and probably in a dozen places altogether. Will this affect a successful re-solder?
I am ready to send Mr. Bob my PS board, but the thread looks like he's booked up for a while. Still want to get him to the southwest for cleaning and calibration, but Tucson and Albuquerque are probably not close together enough.

Someone told me that HDMI audio allows you to have the highest qualtiy 7.1 Dolby Surround Sound. Since Pioneer in the 510-710 models don't have HDMI inputs, how have users dealt with kick-ass audio coming from satellite or cable? I love my 510 and the picture quality from BlueRay component out to the Elite is exquisite, but I don't want to be left out for good audio. Is it possible to go component for video and plug HDMI into an audio tuner/receiver for good sound?

Mr. Bob did a complete re-solder of the board, sent it back.Thanks for your repair report. I've included your "repair" report in the RPTV (Post#1) list that's linked at the bottom of my post.

OK, so I ventured into the back of my 510 over the weekend to survey the possibility of pulling the PS board and sending it to Mr. Bob for re-soldering. To my suprise, I found white rubbery gunk that looked like silicone next to what appear to be capacitors on the PS board.
I had warranty service done on it a couple of years ago when the dreaded "Blue Flash" appeared and am wondering if this white gunk came from the the factory or was used as a band-aid fix by the service tech? The white stuff is in two places on each capacitor (if they really are capacitors) and probably in a dozen places altogether. Will this affect a successful re-solder?
I am ready to send Mr. Bob my PS board, but the thread looks like he's booked up for a while. Still want to get him to the southwest for cleaning and calibration, but Tucson and Albuquerque are probably not close together enough.


Those are factory caulking blobs, probably there to solidify the gray wires they touch, or other solidification purposes. Every one of these boards has them, OOB. They are only there for mechanical purposes, are non-conductive and will not affect the ops of the board in any way. We just have to know about them, because on the underside of the board there are conns under them that have to be redone too, so they need to go away, in many instances, from the underside. They perform no function on the underside once the unit has been transported all over creation, as they sometimes are before they find their final resting place in our homes. Between the caps on the top side of the board is for solidification also, for minimization of the effects of vibration on those components.


On my Minneapolis tour earlier this year a couple of guys from Chicago wanted in, so I took a side trip there to service their 2 sets. On my Atlanta tour last year, one guy had me stop in St. Louis on the way back. I don't see any problem stopping in both Tucson and Albuquerque, for calibrations.


b

Someone told me that HDMI audio allows you to have the highest qualtiy 7.1 Dolby Surround Sound. Since Pioneer in the 510-710 models don't have HDMI inputs, how have users dealt with kick-ass audio coming from satellite or cable? I love my 510 and the picture quality from BlueRay component out to the Elite is exquisite, but I don't want to be left out for good audio. Is it possible to go component for video and plug HDMI into an audio tuner/receiver for good sound?

Yes.

You don't need your display at all for the digital audio, just run the HDMI straight from your BD to your AV receiver for the audio.

Having HDMI capacity in a display is strictly for the video, and in the case of BD, only for upconversion from 480i SD discs. The HD from BD - or anything else - is carried impeccably by your component conns to your display, and your pic is not going to be improved by having or not having HDMI on your display. Not at all.

Keep using the component conns, it's the best way for analog sets like ours. And like RGB is for the big ceiling pjs, which produce even better pix than our sets. They use analog RGB, it's top rung, and I have not seen RGB on these Elite CRT displays be better than component.

HDMI is unnecessary for our sets aside from the upconversion of SD discs to 1080i, which can no longer be done by component these days because of HDCP considerations, fueled by paranoia from the movie industry around pirating. They now require that 480i->1080i upconversion to be done ONLY via HDMI because they can ditigally control it that way, and thus prevent such piracy.

That's the ONLY need our sets have for HDMI. As long as you have component for true HD, HDMI is just one more way to step on your otherwise good signal. HDMI messes with it. Component leaves it alone.


b

I got brave enough to open up my 610 and clean the optics. I will post some pictures later. Definately brightness has improved. Now I have a question about adusting the vertical picture. I tried the vertical size adjustment but that messed with the geometry of the screeen. All I want to do is adjust the vertical picture( scan)? so the images is moved down about 1 inch. When watching moves I noticed the black bar on the bottom is bigger than the top. Plus all the other menus are cut off the top.

If I can just get this adjustment I would be happen with my TV for a few more years. After I make that adjustment I will use video essentials to do a full picture adjustment and covergence. I have parts of the service manual.

Thanks a bunch.

I got brave enough to open up my 610 and clean the optics. I will post some pictures later. Definately brightness has improved. Now I have a question about adusting the vertical picture. I tried the vertical size adjustment but that messed with the geometry of the screeen. All I want to do is adjust the vertical picture( scan)? so the images is moved down about 1 inch. When watching moves I noticed the black bar on the bottom is bigger than the top. Plus all the other menus are cut off the top.

If I can just get this adjustment I would be happen with my TV for a few more years. After I make that adjustment I will use video essentials to do a full picture adjustment and covergence. I have parts of the service manual.

Thanks a bunch.

Have you cleaned your deeper optics, under your lenses? If not you're only halfway there, as 6 more surfaces will be affected. It's half the battle on Pioneer CRTs of your age range. Hope you used a WET method, and not a dry one, as those surfaces are very fragile, and irreplaceable.

If you change the positioning vertically, your sides will keystone out a bit and your convergence will be affected. Yes there's a way to do it, but be ready for corrections, which will be necessitated if you do.

When performing vertical centering in HD, the actual HD image is what needs to be centered. Don't prioritize the t/b black bars being the same height, they often will not be, and that's OK.

Usually OOB, both top and bottom have the lettering cut off. Restoring that is what o'scan redux is all about. Increased pixel density and thus increased resolution after comprehensive corrections is a perk that comes along as well. But a circle has to stay a circle in HD, so just redoing the vertical sizing is not enough. The horizontal needs it too. You can't just do one without the other, if you want your geometry to stay symmetrical and exact.

Master vertical sizing affects both 480 and 1080 image structure, BTW, so if you do it on one you'll need to correct for any changes on the other, too.


DON'T DO ANY SM GEOMETRY CHANGES WITHOUT WRITING DOWN THE ORIGINAL VALUES FIRST. O'SCAN REDUX IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART, AND IT'S REAL EASY TO PAINT YOURSELF INTO A CORNER YOU WON'T KNOW HOW TO GET OUT OF.


b

Any North Carolina folks interested in getting Mr Bob out this way? PM me please. :)

I got my conv-board back from my buddy,This time around I sent him the board as well as the the stk 392-180 chips from union electronics. and the 2 smaller chips also mounted on the heatsink

I swapped out the fuses and still have the LED's lit on both the conv-board as well as the p/s board.

I remember this happened the last time as well,So what I did was swap out ALL the gma fuses and then the set fired up fine.

However, this time it isn't working, I reorded new gma fuses in the 6.3 amp,4 amp,and 5 amp fast burn.

this is the 3rd time my buddy has fixed the conv-board for me,I always sent him the 110 chips except this time was the 180's .

I got my conv-board back from my buddy,This time around I sent him the board as well as the the stk 392-180 chips from union electronics. and the 2 smaller chips also mounted on the heatsink

I swapped out the fuses and still have the LED's lit on both the conv-board as well as the p/s board.

I remember this happened the last time as well,So what I did was swap out ALL the gma fuses and then the set fired up fine.

However, this time it isn't working, I reorded new gma fuses in the 6.3 amp,4 amp,and 5 amp fast burn.

this is the 3rd time my buddy has fixed the conv-board for me,I always sent him the 110 chips except this time was the 180's .

You can test those fuses you have with a continuity tester from Radio Shack. They have inexpensive VOMs there, just make sure you get one with a beeper indicating continuity.


b

checked all fuses with a multimeter,and get the beep from each one ???

I guess all of them are fine ?

with the LED's lit on both boards, is it a bad stk ??

Update:

I pulled out the conv-board, and took a close look at the solder connections of the legs from the stk's.

It appears that on the bottom of the board,wehere the legs of the stk's come through has solder that is sort of touching the solder from the next leg {2 legs total} ??

That could be the cause couldn't it ?

Update:

I pulled out the conv-board, and took a close look at the solder connections of the legs from the stk's.

It appears that on the bottom of the board,wehere the legs of the stk's come through has solder that is sort of touching the solder from the next leg {2 legs total} ??

That could be the cause couldn't it ?

Try your meter on those conn's. The 2 ICs have ID footprints. If the same legs on one are connecting while on the other they are not, the connecting ones shouldn't be.

You can also shine a strong flashlight thru the board at those legs to see if those legs are supposed to be connecting or not. Sometimes they silkscreen things in JUST the wrong places...

:p


b

I meant the legs of the IC go through the board,then they get soldered,on the bottom of the board {where the legs end} there is solder on each leg,
and on one of the IC's, the solder work was too heavy and the solder from 1 leg is touching the solder from the leg next to it.
\My Eyes aren't what they used to be :D , but there may even be 2 more heavy soldered legs that are touching and shouldn't be.

I meant the legs of the IC go through the board,then they get soldered,on the bottom of the board {where the legs end} there is solder on each leg,
and on one of the IC's, the solder work was too heavy and the solder from 1 leg is touching the solder from the leg next to it.
\My Eyes aren't what they used to be :D , but there may even be 2 more heavy soldered legs that are touching and shouldn't be.

That would definitely cause this problem, but the set would not have worked at all under these conditions. The tech should never have gotten out the door on that visit.

Sometimes 2 legs ARE connected on the design of these ICs, but that is rare, and I can't say whether yours are supposed to be or not. That's why I recommended the strong flashlight process.

But bottom line, that's sloppy soldering work, and NONE of the legs should be touching each other - or any other leg - on that IC. DEFINITELY not soldered together!

Did you do that soldering work, or was it done by a local tech? If so, he needs to make good on that for you, replacing them again if necessary, if they've been blown because of being shorted out like that. With that kind of sloppy soldering work, I would almost insist he change them out with new ones just because of that. Who knows how much they have been overstressed now because of being shorted out on some of their connections, and how that might affect their longevity?


b

Appologies if this has been asked before, but I didn't feel like wading through 54 pages of this thread to see...

I have an Elite Pro 510HD. I was all set to borrow a Playstation 3 from my buddy, when he asked, "is your tv HDCT compliant?". Apparently someone else borrowed his PS3 and it wouldn't play Blu-Ray movies back because it wasn't. So the question is, am I going to have a problem, as I'm only going to be using component cables (I thought all of this copy protection crap was only a problem if using HDMI).

Anyway, he's not going to loan me the PS3 till I have an answer!

While I'm here, is it possible to have the overscan in HD corrected on this model? I'm getting sick of scores being cut-off on the tops and bottoms, and seeing only 3/4 of the station logos on the side. Want to know before looking at paying to have someone come out.

Thanks, and again sorry if this has already been posted.

I have a 710 with a PS3. No problems.

BTW, do take the time to read all the way through this thread. It will save you many headaches in the future.

Welcome to the forum!

Appologies if this has been asked before, but I didn't feel like wading through 54 pages of this thread to see...

I have an Elite Pro 510HD. I was all set to borrow a Playstation 3 from my buddy, when he asked, "is your tv HDCT compliant?". Apparently someone else borrowed his PS3 and it wouldn't play Blu-Ray movies back because it wasn't. So the question is, am I going to have a problem, as I'm only going to be using component cables (I thought all of this copy protection crap was only a problem if using HDMI).

Anyway, he's not going to loan me the PS3 till I have an answer!

While I'm here, is it possible to have the overscan in HD corrected on this model? I'm getting sick of scores being cut-off on the tops and bottoms, and seeing only 3/4 of the station logos on the side. Want to know before looking at paying to have someone come out.

Thanks, and again sorry if this has already been posted.

HDCP limitations only affect HDMI, your set will play HD magnificently via component without any HDCP considerations at all. See page 45 of this thread for screenshots taken on your model, all component fed.

O'scan redux is one of my favorite activities, and can be remedied via sm only, or shimming the CRT array forward with sm added, in either case completely dialed in when I am thru. You won't have to strain to see the scores anymore, no, not at all.

And believe me, you're not the only one who is exasperated by this. I have reduced the o'scan on literally dozens of your model, can't wait to get to yours!


Mr Bob

I have a 710 with a PS3. No problems.

BTW, do take the time to read all the way through this thread. It will save you many headaches in the future.

Welcome to the forum!


Those who want to go in with Pam and me on a calibration tour to her area should contact her immediately if not sooner. The more in advance a trip's plane tickets are purchased, the better the deal for all!


B

Those who want to go in with Pam and me on a calibration tour to her area should contact her immediately if not sooner. The more in advance a trip's plane tickets are purchased, the better the deal for all!


B

Come on all you NC folks!! Surely SOMEONE here needs their set calibrated!

Come on all you NC folks!! Surely SOMEONE here needs their set calibrated!

Or just their optics cleaned, by a pro who pioneered the process - no pun intended - so you know it'll be done right, and safely. It's inexpensive and allows you to help Pam out with the plane expenses.

This can be on ANY brand or model of CRT RPTV, of ANY age.

Several optics cleaning gigs flesh out a cal tour nicely -


b

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly PamW and Mr Bob!

And believe me Mr Bob, when I get the funds, I'll have you come down to Souther California (Orange County) and make my TV shine. Apart from having someone from ISF calibrate my set when I first got it, it hasn't been touched. Reading what you've said about cleaning the optics excites me, but now you saying the overscan can be corrected, I'm foaming at the mouth! I one time had a lizard crawl into my cabinet, and while watching TV I suddenly saw his shadow crawling up my screen! I'm sure it's a mess in there.

All right, I'm gonna wade through this forum and see what the deal with adding an HDMI input is all about (anyone wanna point me to the page?).

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly PamW and Mr Bob!

And believe me Mr Bob, when I get the funds, I'll have you come down to Souther California (Orange County) and make my TV shine. Apart from having someone from ISF calibrate my set when I first got it, it hasn't been touched. Reading what you've said about cleaning the optics excites me, but now you saying the overscan can be corrected, I'm foaming at the mouth! I one time had a lizard crawl into my cabinet, and while watching TV I suddenly saw his shadow crawling up my screen! I'm sure it's a mess in there.

All right, I'm gonna wade through this forum and see what the deal with adding an HDMI input is all about (anyone wanna point me to the page?).


I'll take you up on that. OC, here I come!

Go to my website and hit one of the links at the bottom of the cover page. For well under $500, you'll have HDMI capacity on your set, just like current day models. And BETTER than the HDMI built into my Mits, as part of its latest-gen design, the last CRT design they ever made, with every bell and whistle they had at that time! It stinks compared to what I've seen the equipment in those links do. Mulches it up like downconverting 1080i to 720p, with its more blatant edge enhancement and loss of edge crispness, which is probably due to the halving of the pixel count at 720p. The equipment in the link doesn't do that, it keeps the sharp 1080i edges intact.

On the Elites, which have RGB, you can also get the gamma bump from GammaX via the RGB inputs. The gamma bump can only be done in RGB space. The Elites are all ready to go on that one. The Gamma bump gives you detail in dark areas that's not usually available without compromising your blacks and turning them gray, by turning up the Br. The GammaX allows those blacks to stay just where they are, deep and pure and transparent, while escalating ONLY the shadow detail in the dark areas. It's all there in the links -


b

Anyone in Long Beach California looking for a PRO 510 with ps already done drop me a line .. set looks great.

zig

That would definitely cause this problem, but the set would not have worked at all under these conditions. The tech should never have gotten out the door on that visit.

Sometimes 2 legs ARE connected on the design of these ICs, but that is rare, and I can't say whether yours are supposed to be or not. That's why I recommended the strong flashlight process.

But bottom line, that's sloppy soldering work, and NONE of the legs should be touching each other - or any other leg - on that IC. DEFINITELY not soldered together!

Did you do that soldering work, or was it done by a local tech? If so, he needs to make good on that for you, replacing them again if necessary, if they've been blown because of being shorted out like that. With that kind of sloppy soldering work, I would almost insist he change them out with new ones just because of that. Who knows how much they have been overstressed now because of being shorted out on some of their connections, and how that might affect their longevity?


b

I bought the chips,and pulled the board,then ship it all from NY to FL ,where a buddy lives, He feels bad and has done this for me a few times {using the 110 IC's} and it always fired right up.
do you think I damaged the chips :( , I only left it on a split second at a time while swapping fuses {I thought it was fuse related}. The set would not turn on,I was exactly like a bad IC, one LED on p/s board,and one LED on Conv-board.

It's back on it's way and he will resolder it for me ?
should I have bought another set of 180's ?

thanks for the input

I bought the chips,and pulled the board,then ship it all from NY to FL ,where a buddy lives, He feels bad and has done this for me a few times {using the 110 IC's} and it always fired right up.
do you think I damaged the chips :( , I only left it on a split second at a time while swapping fuses {I thought it was fuse related}. The set would not turn on,I was exactly like a bad IC, one LED on p/s board,and one LED on Conv-board.

It's back on it's way and he will resolder it for me ?
should I have bought another set of 180's ?

thanks for the input

As long as he's always going to be available to you and promises to NEVER AGAIN do such sloppy work for you, you can use the present ones and hope they will work for you.

But since you have this long distance thing going, what happens if they HAVE been compromised? You do it all over again with new ones?

If you're sending your board from NY to FLA each time, I'd definitely have him put new ones in, and NOT DO SUCH SLOPPY WORK AGAIN!

Personally I would not use his services again, even if he does the work for you for free. Too much is riding on his services, on your $5-7000 set.

I DEFINITELY would not trust him with the resoldering procedure!

:eek:


b

BTW, with such sloppy soldering work done, we also gotta wonder if he heat sink'd your ICs correctly when he put the new ones in. Any dried-out old compound has to go - get scraped off with a paint scraper - and new, fully gooey stuff put in between the ICs and the heat sinks themselves, to assure adequate heat transfer OFF the ICs and ONTO the heat sinks, where that heat can be dissipated properly and thoroughly. Those ICs run ungodly hot in there. They need the huge amount of heat transfer provided by the massive heat sink that both boards are mounted to in there, and the compound itself is an inescapable ingredient in that scenario, it's the primary heat transfering agent.

If the heat sink compound IS still gooey, then yes you can use it again. But after so many years it usually completely dries out, and needs complete replacement. It's a bottleneck that CANNOT be left to chance.

I have never heard of one of these sets requiring 3 replacements of their conv ICs! Never! Inadequate heat sinking is totally unprofessional and is one thing that will ASSURE you of that kind of low-rent performance. Hopefully I am wrong about your buddy on this, but from what I've heard from you so far about him, his work does NOT inspire me with confidence in his work ethic.

:eek:

I suspect you're getting exactly what you're paying for, here.


b

he's a freind,and I've been more than pleased with his past work,he made a slight error this time,hope it's not fatal to any of the chips ?,but I'll have faith that it will work out this time.

I'd never complain to a buddy about his work when trying to help me at such a busy time of the year for him,he uses new compound {I sent him a tube :D} as I didn't want him to use his own
and until now, his solder work has looked factory !

if it works it works, cross your fingers for me !

he's a freind,and I've been more than pleased with his past work,he made a slight error this time,hope it's not fatal to any of the chips ?,but I'll have faith that it will work out this time.

I'd never complain to a buddy about his work when trying to help me at such a busy time of the year for him,he uses new compound {I sent him a tube :D} as I didn't want him to use his own
and until now, his solder work has looked factory !

if it works it works, cross your fingers for me !

Fingers crossed. Luckily enough, the designs used by Pioneer are usually pretty forgiving of such things.

;)


b

I just posted this over at the Don't Dump... thread. Thought I'd share it here, where the 610 has a most cherished place in the world...

I changed the page number references to fit this thread -

We have a Pioneer Elite PRO610HD that is in our dedicated HT room and has fairly low hours of use despite it being around 10 years old. It has never been calibrated. I'm sure it could look better with a full cleaning and calibration, however for what that would cost I can buy a brand new 61" Samsung LED powered DLP. The Samsung will fit in the same space the Elite is in so my entertainment center won't require any major changes other than making a custom base that's only 15" high. (I have yet to find a pre-made stand that low) These DLP's are on the way out and the deals on them right now are pretty enticing. The picture on them looks very good as well. Has anybody else here been in the same situation? Opinions?

I think you should keep what you have and get it completely restored. It's an awesome set, capable of sizzling HD images. See my website for details.

And without a lot of the bleck you have to put up with on fixed pixel. Like RBE - rainbow effect - on DLP, and on most other fixed pixel tech silkscreen effect, pasty complexions on faces, busy backgrounds, stilted movement...

CRT has none of that. Its performance is exquisite. Plus delivers the best blacks in the biz - the most transparent, the deepest, the most dimensional and depth-producing blacks available.

See page 45 of this thread for examples of how your 610 CAN look, even at its current age. The 510/610/710 Pioneer Elites all have the same basic chassis according to the service manual - as do the non-Elite versions as well - so yours will look just like those pix, if you give me free hand with it, like those owners did.


These pix were shot by me on location with units I had just completed in MN earlier this year, making them even older than your set, as they have regular amounts of usage on them, while yours has light usage - what did you call it, "fairly low hours"? - so your set is essentially even younger than these.

A 10 year old set is NOT "old" in CRT tech, and I've never seen an Elite like yours need a new CRT. In fixed pixel tech you woulda gone thru many bulbs in 10 years.

The pix you see here are all from 10 year old sets just like yours - and I mean JUST like yours - they are only at cruising age and have lots of years left in them, of awesome HD images like these. Hit F11 to see them better.

Some samples. See page 45 for the full spread -


b


710, from Planet Earth

http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/6281/mntrip308screenshotsofdna5.jpg[/URL]


510, Hugh Jackman, from The Fountain

http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/4295/copy2ofmntrip308screensul4.jpg[/URL]

I am still looking for anyone in NC to go in with me to get Mr. Bob out here for a calibration and deep optics cleaning - anyone???

And I'm still waiting for anyone in the tristate (NY/NJ/CT) area for the same.

And I'm still waiting for anyone in the tristate (NY/NJ/CT) area for the same.


Have you been in touch with Don O'Neill? Feel free to take over as organizer if he's not keeping in touch with those contacting him about this -


b

Spoke to Don, he's gonna start it up again, sounds like we have 3 people so far for a tristate tour, but looking for another few if possible.

Spoke to Don, he's gonna start it up again, sounds like we have 3 people so far for a tristate tour, but looking for another few if possible.
Sent you a PM and copied to Don. -- John

Be sure to be in touch with Pam, she wants to join her tour with yours, or join yours if not enough come in on hers.


b

I have a 510 which just blew one of the 6.3A, 125V fuses on the PS board. This would be the fuse numbered FU202 on the board. I replaced the fuse with one from Pioneer parts department. Immediately upon powering on the set, the new fuse blew.

Do you have any idea why this would be happening. I don't recall the exact date of
purchase but it was around 1999/2000 timeframe. I have not ever noticed the blue flash. However, for the last 3 years, the set has had a display issue when viewing HD. with HD input via component cables, the image appears as a slight hourglass shape..I refer to this a pincushion (horizontal only) but don't know if it truly is. Convergence is off in HD as well. In standard definition, there was no distortion.

I have a 510 which just blew one of the 6.3A, 125V fuses on the PS board. This would be the fuse numbered FU202 on the board. I replaced the fuse with one from Pioneer parts department. Immediately upon powering on the set, the new fuse blew.

Do you have any idea why this would be happening. I don't recall the exact date of
purchase but it was around 1999/2000 timeframe. I have not ever noticed the blue flash. However, for the last 3 years, the set has had a display issue when viewing HD. with HD input via component cables, the image appears as a slight hourglass shape..I refer to this a pincushion (horizontal only) but don't know if it truly is. Convergence is off in HD as well. In standard definition, there was no distortion.

What red LEDs are lit up on your boards?

b

I'm in the NJ area, and might have an interest in a tour out this way. Bob has my PS board as I type this, and depending on the results when I get it back, will add my name to the tour list.

Will keep you posted.

What red LEDs are lit up on your boards?

b
One red LED is lit on the PS board, labeled "Power Down"

Im in the Atlantic City, NJ area and am definitely interested in having Bob update my 510. My picture has grown increasingly dim the past few years and now it can only be seen with the lights off or at night. Not sure what's going on. Bought it new in 2000. Certainly needs cleaning and calibration not to mention who knows what else. I've considered replacing it (it's not my main set) with a new flat screen but love the set and glossy box and would love to be able to restore it.

-Dan

I'll vouch for the fact that Bob can do it. My 510 was also purchased new in '00, and it just looks glorious today after he did it last year. No flat panel I've ever looked at can hold a candle to it. Just do it. You won't be sorry.

Im in the Atlantic City, NJ area and am definitely interested in having Bob update my 510. My picture has grown increasingly dim the past few years and now it can only be seen with the lights off or at night. Not sure what's going on. Bought it new in 2000. Certainly needs cleaning and calibration not to mention who knows what else. I've considered replacing it (it's not my main set) with a new flat screen but love the set and glossy box and would love to be able to restore it.

-Dan

Virtually every regular-use/hours CRT Elite I have worked on in the past few years has grown so dim the br has had to be run around plus 12-15, just to be able to see details in dark areas. This of course affects the grayscale adversely, usually turning the blacks a horrid green. Combined with the bluishness of the whites, which is factory standard issue and never changes until changed in a grayscale alignment, quite a bit of change happens in the display before we're thru.

After the optics are regular cleaned and then the deeper optics are cleaned as well, the energy getting to the CRTs has to then be rebiased and rebalanced, then a complete grayscale op done, which gets rid of the horrid green in the blacks, gets rid of the blue in the whites, and restores the gain of the guns back to factory spec, where it was OOB when new. This is all covered in my basic cal package. Along with all the image structure work, of course. The end result is always absolutely splendid.

That was done on the sets producing the great screenshots on page 45 of this thread, of the x10 series, a couple of which I put on the last page back. And for the set in the last post, in GA. These sets were photographed with br at zero/centerpoint, where it's supposed to be. All Pioneer sets I calibrate wind up being restored and made to look new again - and usually muuuuch better than new - with all regular User settings centered. Including Br. No longer do you have to crank it up to plus 12-15 just to get away from having a dim picture, putting it out of its ideal design parameters. At br centered, you now see perfect shadow detail - excellent detail in dark areas - transparent, authentic and faithfully ALL THERE again. The limited, bleary pic when I walk in is not even in the same league with the depth perception and transparent crystallinity you get from your set when I am finished with it.


I LOVE doing this! The look in the eyes of the owners after I'm done is just priceless, every single time!


:cool:

b

I'll vouch for the fact that Bob can do it. My 510 was also purchased new in '00, and it just looks glorious today after he did it last year. No flat panel I've ever looked at can hold a candle to it. Just do it. You won't be sorry.


Yours was dim too when I got there, wasn't it?

b

I'm sold and interested. Problem is, we have to get you to the North East. How many people have indicated interest and how many do you need to facilitate a trip?

I'm sold and interested. Problem is, we have to get you to the North East. How many people have indicated interest and how many do you need to facilitate a trip?

Have you contacted Don O'Neill, whose post letting people know about this tour appears here on this thread a littel ways back? He's the one organizing the tour, and there are already several on board, which is more than enough to get me out there. After a core of maybe 3 cals and/or optics cleanings, the more the merrier. On 2 occasions I have been flown to NJ for just one owner's set - sets the second time, he had added one 2.5 years later - where he simply used his sky miles to get me there and back both times. Allowed me to visit Ground Zero just before they started rebuilding, which REALLY made the trip worthwhile for me, over and above the work aspects.

So contact Don immediately if not sooner. The farther in advance he is able to book plane flights, the cheaper the plane fares -


b

One red LED is lit on the PS board, labeled "Power Down"

With a 6.3 amp fuse blowing, we expect the defl bd to be down. That's the bd mounted on the floor of the unit in the middle, below the green CRT. It will usually have a red LED lit up on it if down, requiring its replacement.

If that's not lit, but you have had conv probs in terms of the hourglassing of your pic, perhaps the conv bd is blowing a new fuse now. Always before it has been either the horizontally mounted 4 A or 5 A fuse on the PS bd, which sometimes disables the red light on the conv board once a fuse is blown on it, such that sometimes it's blown, but the light on it that is indicating that, can't light up because of that part of the conv board not getting any voltage.

There are no easy answers on this one, from my experience. You could try ordering the PS bd from Pioneer and trying it out, with the proviso that you can return it if you need to, which they will do, in which case you're only out the shipping. Actually you can do that with any of the 3 boards that are suspect, all of which are mentioned here. If doing that makes your set work, send back/return whatever board winds up being the culprit, and send the original PS bd or conv bd to me and I'll get that one going for you while preserving all your precision settings from it to the rest of the set. If it's the defl bd that's at fault, you can keep the one you ordered from Pio and send the bad one back for core charge refund.

Or send me the conv bd, I'll replace those obviously suspect ICs and that may do it.

Have never seen the cold solder joints on the PS bd alone cause the 6.3 A fuse to blow. It's always something downline from the PS bd, even if caused by spikes sent down into the rest of the set because of the PS bd's cold solder joints.


Again, no easy answers on this one. This thread is all about the history of these problems on this series, and this is off the beaten path of this thread, and of my own personal repair experiences on them.


b

Don - Sent you a PM about this. See Bob's post above. How many have indicated interest for a NJ trip?

I have been reading the posts in this thread with great interest as my Pio SD-523HD5 RPTV seems to be having the same problem described in this thread. It seems that there are several symptoms to this problem. During the last week I have noticed the brightness of the set increasing in several steps then flashing/blinking back to a lower brightness level (no blue flash). As I don't use the sound from the TV, I have heard no popping sounds. The set has never completely shut off (yet!). Therefore, I am taking Mr. Bob's sage advice of turning the set off until I get it repaired. (I plan to do the "One Last Time" turn on so I can then unplug it.)

I purchased this TV new in March, 2001 and have had a couple of performance issues. The first issue was in late 2005 (just before the 5-year extended warranty expired). The color went from normal to an awful greenish tint. This was quickly fixed and the optics were cleaned during the repair. The second issue occurred in May, 2008. It was the convergence IC failure. This was also quickly fixed with replacement of the ICs. As I had messed with the convergence before repair, I had to redo the convergence after the repair.

I will be sending Mr. Bob an email to request the information about removing the power supply (PS) board and shipping it for repair. As I have never had the set professionally calibrated, I have been battling the overscan problem which seems to be more pronounced on high definition channels. I am in MD and was wondering if I could be considered in the "East Coast" calibration trip?

Finally, I was also wondering about getting the device that will allow an HDMI input to my component or RGB input. I believe it is called the Fury II. Will that device allow upconversion of a DVD to 1080i? I am currently using an iScan Pro to convert the 480i DVD output to 480p. I believe that the iScan Pro does a better job than my Sony DVD player in converting my DVD (as well as VCR and LaserDisc) to progressive output.

Finally, I was also wondering about getting the device that will allow an HDMI input to my component or RGB input. I believe it is called the Fury II. Will that device allow upconversion of a DVD to 1080i? I am currently using an iScan Pro to convert the 480i DVD output to 480p. I believe that the iScan Pro does a better job than my Sony DVD player in converting my DVD (as well as VCR and LaserDisc) to progressive output.


The HD Fury is for the already UPconverted SD to 1080i signal, which can no longer be OP'd via component, due to HDCP influences. Stick with your DVDO for 480i->p upconversions.

See my website's cover page for a link straight to it.


b

Don,

I just sent you a PM regarding Mr. Bob's "East Coast" Tour. Please keep me informed via my included eMail address. (I will try to continue to check back on AVS Forum from time to time.)

Thanks.

Mr. Bob,

Thanks for the quick reply to my email. I will try to get my PS board sent out today.

Also, I think I may have misstated my question about the HDFury (or HDFury II). I am thinking about upgrading to a Blu-ray disk player. To take full advantage of the up-conversion of DVD of the BD player, I understand that you need an HDMI connection. It seems that the HDFury (or HDFury II) would provide this HDMI. I understand that the maximum resolution that I would be getting is only 1080i not the full HD resolution of 1080p.

This question/issue may be moot as I only have two component inputs on my SD-532HD5. These inputs are currently filled with my Verizon FiOS HD STB output and my iScanPro DVDO output (which connects my current DVD, VCR, and LD). I suppose I could use the RGB connection option of the HDFury but I understand that would result in the loss of my TV's picture adjustment capabilities when watching BDs and DVDs. (Life is just a series of decisions!) What are your thoughts?

Thanks.

Don,

I just sent you a PM regarding Mr. Bob's "East Coast" Tour. Please keep me informed via my included eMail address. (I will try to continue to check back on AVS Forum from time to time.)

Thanks.

Mr. Bob,

Thanks for the quick reply to my email. I will try to get my PS board sent out today.

Also, I think I may have misstated my question about the HDFury (or HDFury II). I am thinking about upgrading to a Blu-ray disk player. To take full advantage of the up-conversion of DVD of the BD player, I understand that you need an HDMI connection. It seems that the HDFury (or HDFury II) would provide this HDMI. I understand that the maximum resolution that I would be getting is only 1080i not the full HD resolution of 1080p.

This question/issue may be moot as I only have two component inputs on my SD-532HD5. These inputs are currently filled with my Verizon FiOS HD STB output and my iScanPro DVDO output (which connects my current DVD, VCR, and LD). I suppose I could use the RGB connection option of the HDFury but I understand that would result in the loss of my TV's picture adjustment capabilities when watching BDs and DVDs. (Life is just a series of decisions!) What are your thoughts?

Thanks.

Using RGB will not allow Color and Tint corrections, but everything else stays available. It will allow you to use the GammaX if you so desire, for bumping the gamma up so you can see details in your dark areas better while keeping the black floor exactly where it is. Of course cleaning your entire light path up from the effects of years' worth of the HV's static charge will also restore your transparency in the darks, which is now sorely lacking, at your set's age.

Component or RGB is all you need for true HD, tho. The Fury will be just for the upconversion.

Adding component inputs is cheap, it can be done with as little as an AV switcher box from Radio Shack. Or with better switching units, which can also be IR switched with remotes. www.monoprice.com has one for less than $30, which used to cost $89.

Our units do 1080i only, and no don't have the full p res. But when I can sit there and study the grain of the film they used to shoot the movie I am watching, I don't really care! That's more than enough res for me, and NOT worth the potential dumbdowns of other facets of fixed pixel that are still having growing pains. Nor missing the crystal clear blacks that CRT has always been famous for.

Hope to see you soon, on the tour!


b

Mr. Bob,

Do you know if those component switchers are able to pass through full bandwidth? I ask cause I just found out my Pioneer VSX-35TX receiver doesnt! I had been running my DVD player and PS2 through the receiver, while having my Dish running straight into the TV. When I got my friends Playstation 3 and swapped it for the PS2, there was visible 'waves' running through the screen, and the text was VERY out of focus, almost like the convergence had just gone bad.

When I plugged the Playstation 3 directly into the TV, no problems. Making sure it wasn't the cable, I plugged the Dish into the receiver, and there were the wavy lines again. I had heard back when I bought the receiver that it couldn't do full HD passthrough, but this was the first time it became an issue. I hate having to use the Playstation 3 as my DVD player, as I love my Pioneer Elite player, but I'm all out of component inputs! If these switchers can do full HD passthrough, problem will be solved for VERY cheap.

Any info regarding this will be greatly appreciated.

Anyone in Long Beach, California looking for a Pioneer Elite PRO 510 for cheap drop me a line ... moderate use, set looks great in HD or upconverted from NTSC.

- zig

Got my PS board back last week. Dropped it back into the set the same night. First off, I'd like to say that Bob's resolder job was a real wake-up call for me. Just looking at the board, it was clear that my attempts, while admittedly amature, were completely inept. Anyways, Set is working without a hiccup for a solid week, with plenty of use from all family members. Prior to this, the set was popping off within minutes of turn-on.
Took a leap of faith to send the money, prepay for shipping to and from someone I only know of via this forum, and with no guarantees.

Um, IT WAS A GREAT DO!! I am now officially on the Northeast tour wagon. Dont know Don, but want him to consider me IN for any tour out this way (Clinton, NJ) 45 min west of Newark airport.

The set definitely needs a tuneup, and I have little to no doubts about Bob's abilities anymore! Lets get him out here.

Got my PS board back last week. Dropped it back into the set the same night. First off, I'd like to say that Bob's resolder job was a real wake-up call for me. Just looking at the board, it was clear that my attempts, while admittedly amature, were completely inept. Anyways, Set is working without a hiccup for a solid week, with plenty of use from all family members. Prior to this, the set was popping off within minutes of turn-on.
Took a leap of faith to send the money, prepay for shipping to and from someone I only know of via this forum, and with no guarantees.

Um, IT WAS A GREAT DO!! I am now officially on the Northeast tour wagon. Dont know Don, but want him to consider me IN for any tour out this way (Clinton, NJ) 45 min west of Newark airport.

The set definitely needs a tuneup, and I have little to no doubts about Bob's abilities anymore! Lets get him out here.


Be sure to contact Don directly if you want in on this tour, don't just state your desires on the thread, here. Contact me directly as well. Call me if you need his number -


b

Be sure to contact Don directly if you want in on this tour, don't just state your desires on the thread. Call me if you need his number -

Is NYC outside the area? PMed Don a week or so back about wanting to be on the tour for coolant change. Wasn't aware of tour progress (no reply so far), so is direct contact needed? -- John

Is NYC outside the area? PMed Don a week or so back about wanting to be on the tour for coolant change. Wasn't aware of tour progress (no reply so far), so is direct contact needed? -- John

Direct contact is definitely needed. Contact me directly as well, anyone who wants in on this tour, not by pm please.

Contact me directly, John, and I'll get you his number.


b

John, NYC is definitely part of it. I'm in Westchester, there's NJ and Long Island I think interested too. Mr. Bob has my board right now, fyi.

John, NYC is definitely part of it. I'm in Westchester, there's NJ and Long Island I think interested too. Mr. Bob has my board right now, fyi.

Have all you guys checked in with Don, and me, as to the tour? Redundance is good...


b

Mr. Bob,

I tried Don's office number on Thursday and got no answer after 10+ rings. I tried his cell and was sent to voicemail. I left a message but have yet to hear back from him. I had previously sent him a PM and posted the fact on this thread. I still have not heard from him. I will try again on Monday as I am definitely interested in calibration of my set.

I did get my PS board sent out to you by FedEx late yesterday afternoon. Based on what the clerk told me, you should receive it on Monday. I checked the box that you didn't have to sign for it, but I think the clerk may have specified a "Direct Signature" was required. I hope that doesn't cause a problem. I got the biggest box that FedEx had and wrapped the board in a bunch of bubble wrap. I was concerned that the fit was a bit tight, hope everything arrives without damage.

On another topic, I read somewhere that restacking the screens on my SD-532HD5 would help reduce, if not eliminate, reflections. However, I have not been able to find information on specific procedures. Do you have any guidance/suggestions about doing this?

I got my conv-board back from a buddy the 2nd time and again,my 510 still has both led's lit on both the ps/board and conv-board, changed the fuses on the ps board again,even though they werent blown.

the 180 chips were tested and found to be fine,as was the solder job I thought may have not been.

I'm throwing in the towel on this one.

I'll wait to buy until I can get a look at the upcoming Vizio 55 with LED lighting and 240hz a million/1contrast ratio and below $2k due out in June.

the IC's went 3 times and the ps/board twice......it's time

Bill,

Sorry to hear you are giving up on your Pioneer Elite 510. I can certainly understand your frustration with the set. However, it seems to me that the wise saying, "Penny wise and pound foolish," applies. I have unfortunately found myself in a similar situation on a number of occasions, i.e., trying to take the least expensive way out of a problem. For example, I changed the timing belt on my first overhead-cam-engined car by myself resulting in the car's ignominious and premature death.

If I had to give up my Pioneer RPTV, I think I would be looking at a plasma not an LCD. The Pioneer sets look great, albeit expensive. The Panasonic sets also look better than most others and very affordable.

Despite Vizio's improving picture and image quality, Vizio would be one of the manufacturers that would be at the bottom of list. Even though it would likely be the least expensive (no, the "cheapest") choice. I would be concerned as I have heard that Vizio outsources the parts for its TV and its assembly. If I went with a Vizio, I would be looking for a long-term service/replacement warranty.

Mr. Bob,

I tried Don's office number on Thursday and got no answer after 10+ rings. I tried his cell and was sent to voicemail. I left a message but have yet to hear back from him. I had previously sent him a PM and posted the fact on this thread. I still have not heard from him. I will try again on Monday as I am definitely interested in calibration of my set.

I did get my PS board sent out to you by FedEx late yesterday afternoon. Based on what the clerk told me, you should receive it on Monday. I checked the box that you didn't have to sign for it, but I think the clerk may have specified a "Direct Signature" was required. I hope that doesn't cause a problem. I got the biggest box that FedEx had and wrapped the board in a bunch of bubble wrap. I was concerned that the fit was a bit tight, hope everything arrives without damage.

On another topic, I read somewhere that restacking the screens on my SD-532HD5 would help reduce, if not eliminate, reflections. However, I have not been able to find information on specific procedures. Do you have any guidance/suggestions about doing this?

If others are also not hearing back from Don, if anyone else would like to don the mantle of organizer of this trip, let's get cracking. Don's not returning calls from me either, I have called twice in the last 2 days, with no response. I will try again at work on Monday, but am very over scheduled right now from 2 trips out of town in close proximity plus other things, so please call him yourselves also.

I would not double stack a glarescreen for the purpose of reducing internal reflections. Glarescreens that are glossy in finish are just as reflective as the fresnels they would be covering.

I never doublestack glarescreens anymore at all, just because of all the static charge they pick things up with, while you're handling them. I had to do one 3 times once before it would co-operate, and swore never again.


b

I have assumed the role of organizer for Mr. Bob's East Coast Tour. I have the following people who are interested in the tour:

Don O'Neill - NJ - I have your phone and email address

bdrose - Westchester, NY - I do not have your phone or email address

Aurora10002 - NY - I do not have your phone or email address

John Mason - NYC, NY - I do not have your phone or email address

Brett328 - Clinton, NJ - I do not have your phone or email address

Dang10 - Atlantic City, NJ - I do not have your phone or email address

For those of you that I do not have a phone # or email address, I have sent each of you a PM with my phone # and email address.

With me, that makes 7 people interested in Mr. Bob's services.

I also found another person on the ***************.com who may be interested in cleaning and calibration who lives in the Philadelphia, PA area.

wipeout - Philadelphia, PA - I do not have your phone or email address

I have assumed the role of organizer for Mr. Bob's East Coast Tour. I have the following people who are interested in the tour:

John Mason - NYC, NY - I do not have your phone or email address

E-mailed you ~3 pm today with these. Let me know if the e-mail got lost. -- John

My thanks to Ron for taking over for Don, who is an accountant and can't really do organizing this justice right now, at this time of year.

I just heard from someone by email who wants in also. I will be getting him this thread info, and his info to you ASAP, Ron -


b

I wouldn't mind joining in on a Mr. Bob tour to get a cleaning and calibration for my 610, but I think I'm too far away for this NY/NJ/Eastern PA tour. I'm in Western PA, about 20 miles east of Pittsburgh. I haven't seen much chatter from other Elite owners in this area, so I don't have much hope of attracting enough others to make a stop in this area viable.

My issues:

- optics. the set is now 8 years old (Dec 2000) and has never had the optics cleaned. I know it needs it as I have lost detail in the dark scenes/shadows and I have been meaning to carefully do the basic cleaning myself using the instructions posted earlier in this thread. Haven't found the time yet.

- geometry. I went into the service mode a few years ago and improved things (straightened the vertical and horizontal lines which were bowed, especially for the HD scan rate) pretty well, but I couldn't address overscan for the HD, which is excessive. This bothers me more than anything else - the top is cut off on everything (e.g., the Fox NFL score line, tops of people's heads). Also, I have persistent vertical blue and red lines on the far left frame that I couldn't figure out how to get rid of. Any advice there would be appreciated.

- no problems with blue flash/pop. Rock solid since I did the PS board solder fix myself 3 years ago (Dec 2005).

- internal reflection - I see the "halo" effect from a bright light with dark surroundings, which is caused by internal reflections. Wouldn't mind minimizing that via duvetyne lining on the internal reflective surfaces. But this isn't a critical flaw and I can live with it.

- grayscale - I know it could be better but this doesn't seem too bad and is less important to me than the geometry.

Clearly, I should have had these things addressed a few years ago, but I didn't. At this point I worry about putting too much money into an 8 year old set that may not last that much longer. But if I did pursue it I would seriously consider also getting the HD Fury to add HDMI support.

I wouldn't mind joining in on a Mr. Bob tour to get a cleaning and calibration for my 610, but I think I'm too far away for this NY/NJ/Eastern PA tour. I'm in Western PA, about 20 miles east of Pittsburgh. I haven't seen much chatter from other Elite owners in this area, so I don't have much hope of attracting enough others to make a stop in this area viable.

What usually happens is that the primaries on the trip have paid for the plane ticket themselves way ahead of time, getting a good price on the ticket - and with enough joining in, it's very affordable for each - allowing side trip sign-ons to only have to take care of getting me to their neck of the woods and back to the original territory I'm visiting. That happened once on my Atlanta tour where a guy in St. Louis had me stop by on the way back home, and on the MN tour of last year, 2 guys in Chicago had me come over there for their sets and back, then I flew out of MN again, to go back home. On the Daytona trip I added cals in Orlando and visited friends in Miami.

This makes for a very equitable sharing of the load.

I welcome all CRT RPTV owners who want optics cleaning ONLY done on their sets also. Many won't want to spring for a complete cal, but do see the need for at least getting their sets' light paths crystal clear again. A few of these per trip makes it come out OK for everybody, as these also chip in on the master plane flight(s). On the MN tour last year, that came out to only $78.50 each!



My issues:

- optics. the set is now 8 years old (Dec 2000) and has never had the optics cleaned. I know it needs it as I have lost detail in the dark scenes/shadows and I have been meaning to carefully do the basic cleaning myself using the instructions posted earlier in this thread. Haven't found the time yet.

- geometry. I went into the service mode a few years ago and improved things (straightened the vertical and horizontal lines which were bowed, especially for the HD scan rate) pretty well, but I couldn't address overscan for the HD, which is excessive. This bothers me more than anything else - the top is cut off on everything (e.g., the Fox NFL score line, tops of people's heads). Also, I have persistent vertical blue and red lines on the far left frame that I couldn't figure out how to get rid of. Any advice there would be appreciated.

- no problems with blue flash/pop. Rock solid since I did the PS board solder fix myself 3 years ago (Dec 2005).

- internal reflection - I see the "halo" effect from a bright light with dark surroundings, which is caused by internal reflections. Wouldn't mind minimizing that via duvetyne lining on the internal reflective surfaces. But this isn't a critical flaw and I can live with it.

- grayscale - I know it could be better but this doesn't seem too bad and is less important to me than the geometry.

Clearly, I should have had these things addressed a few years ago, but I didn't. At this point I worry about putting too much money into an 8 year old set that may not last that much longer. But if I did pursue it I would seriously consider also getting the HD Fury to add HDMI support.

Contact Ron, the new organizer, cc'ing me also at my regular email address - or call me directly - and see what you can work out. I would love to come to where you are (wherever you are!) and really do my magic on your set. Everything you've stated here - and more - gets addressed and taken care of in my calibrations.



b

Virtually every regular-use/hours CRT Elite I have worked on in the past few years has grown so dim the br has had to be run around plus 12-15, just to be able to see details in dark areas. This of course affects the grayscale adversely, usually turning the blacks a horrid green. Combined with the bluishness of the whites, which is factory standard issue and never changes until changed in a grayscale alignment, quite a bit of change happens in the display before we're thru.

After the optics are regular cleaned and then the deeper optics are cleaned as well, the energy getting to the CRTs has to then be rebiased and rebalanced, then a complete grayscale op done, which gets rid of the horrid green in the blacks, gets rid of the blue in the whites, and restores the gain of the guns back to factory spec, where it was OOB when new. This is all covered in my basic cal package. Along with all the image structure work, of course. The end result is always absolutely splendid.

That was done on the sets producing the great screenshots on page 45 of this thread, of the x10 series, a couple of which I put on the last page back. And for the set in the last post, in GA. These sets were photographed with br at zero/centerpoint, where it's supposed to be. All Pioneer sets I calibrate wind up being restored and made to look new again - and usually muuuuch better than new - with all regular User settings centered. Including Br. No longer do you have to crank it up to plus 12-15 just to get away from having a dim picture, putting it out of its ideal design parameters. At br centered, you now see perfect shadow detail - excellent detail in dark areas - transparent, authentic and faithfully ALL THERE again. The limited, bleary pic when I walk in is not even in the same league with the depth perception and transparent crystallinity you get from your set when I am finished with it.


I LOVE doing this! The look in the eyes of the owners after I'm done is just priceless, every single time!


:cool:

b

Bob, can you explain technically what you mean by, "the energy getting to the CRTs has to then be rebiased and rebalanced"? Also, what does "br" stand for?

Bob, can you explain technically what you mean by, "the energy getting to the CRTs has to then be rebiased and rebalanced"? Also, what does "br" stand for?

br = brightness

That statement refers to the Screen tripots at the focus block, which have to be very carefully redone, on their precision alignment with each other and with the levels of their product - voltage and current - that you need delivered to the insides your CRTs, for them to work properly.

On the Pios in question, that all changes over the years, and at their current age, that all now needs to be re-setup from scratch, and the grayscale also re-setup from scratch afterwards.

All of that is included in my calibrations, whenever found to be necessary. ISF does NOT teach how to do that in their trainings, unless things have changed since I did my last ISF course.


b

Hi Bob - I had my PS board replaced 1.5yr ago and my set shut down late last year. I finally got around to opening the back and the PwrDwn LED was on w/ the 6.3A and 5A fuse blown. I replaced the blown fuse and plugged the power. The 5A fuse blew again but not the 6.3A and the Deflection Serv Assly LED was lit. Did not see the LED lit on the Conv Brd. Do you think it's the Deflection Brd that's gone bad? Can I send it to you for repair? Thanks.


With a 6.3 amp fuse blowing, we expect the defl bd to be down. That's the bd mounted on the floor of the unit in the middle, below the green CRT. It will usually have a red LED lit up on it if down, requiring its replacement.

If that's not lit, but you have had conv probs in terms of the hourglassing of your pic, perhaps the conv bd is blowing a new fuse now. Always before it has been either the horizontally mounted 4 A or 5 A fuse on the PS bd, which sometimes disables the red light on the conv board once a fuse is blown on it, such that sometimes it's blown, but the light on it that is indicating that, can't light up because of that part of the conv board not getting any voltage.

There are no easy answers on this one, from my experience. You could try ordering the PS bd from Pioneer and trying it out, with the proviso that you can return it if you need to, which they will do, in which case you're only out the shipping. Actually you can do that with any of the 3 boards that are suspect, all of which are mentioned here. If doing that makes your set work, send back/return whatever board winds up being the culprit, and send the original PS bd or conv bd to me and I'll get that one going for you while preserving all your precision settings from it to the rest of the set. If it's the defl bd that's at fault, you can keep the one you ordered from Pio and send the bad one back for core charge refund.

Or send me the conv bd, I'll replace those obviously suspect ICs and that may do it.

Have never seen the cold solder joints on the PS bd alone cause the 6.3 A fuse to blow. It's always something downline from the PS bd, even if caused by spikes sent down into the rest of the set because of the PS bd's cold solder joints.


Again, no easy answers on this one. This thread is all about the history of these problems on this series, and this is off the beaten path of this thread, and of my own personal repair experiences on them.


b

Hi Bob - I had my PS board replaced 1.5yr ago and my set shut down late last year. I finally got around to opening the back and the PwrDwn LED was on w/ the 6.3A and 5A fuse blown. I replaced the blown fuse and plugged the power. The 5A fuse blew again but not the 6.3A and the Deflection Serv Assly LED was lit. Did not see the LED lit on the Conv Brd. Do you think it's the Deflection Brd that's gone bad? Can I send it to you for repair? Thanks.

If there's an LED lit up on the defl bd, that bd needs to be replaced. We don't even try to fix them. You can order one from me or get it yourself.

Hopefully that will do it...


b

Hi, I have a 610hd. It does not format 720 or 1080i properly. The only time the picture takes up the whole screen is in 480p. I have seen a few people mention this and I've gathered that an adjustment has to be made in service mode. I entered the service mode and was completely lost. Is there anywhere that I can find a walkthrough on how to adjust it properly?

Hi, I have a 610hd. It does not format 720 or 1080i properly. The only time the picture takes up the whole screen is in 480p. I have seen a few people mention this and I've gathered that an adjustment has to be made in service mode. I entered the service mode and was completely lost. Is there anywhere that I can find a walkthrough on how to adjust it properly?

This is not for the faint of heart. It is called overscan, and all CRT RPTV tech is designed with it, OOB.

The Elites have the capacity to have that overscan realigned outa there, I have done it many many times on them, but how to do it is very convoluted, and you can paint yourself into a corner real fast. I got better and better at it as the years went by and I began to see patterns on certain ways of doing it that enabled me to dial it in better and better. But many have tried - and failed - to get it right, winding up with a pic that was much worse off than before.

If you can't find an old-school diehard calibrator like myself to do it for you - very few calibrators do this anymore, they are usually fully booked with calibrating fixed pixel tech, which doesn't require this realignment - then contact me directly and I'll do my best to guide you thru what to do on the phone.

Where do you live? Perhaps I will be close by to your area soon -


b

Hi Bob - Are you doing any Bay Area(South Bay) Calibration tour anytime soon? I'm down here in Santa Clara County. Thanks.

Hi Bob - Are you doing any Bay Area(South Bay) Calibration tour anytime soon? I'm down here in Santa Clara County. Thanks.

No need for a tour to South Bay, it's just a drive. There are ground travel charges for the RT, contact me directly and I'll fill you in.

On a typical cal there's no way to do 2 in a day anyway. If 2 or more cals are needed, like on a tour, a stayover would also be needed. A guest room or couch is OK by me, no need for a hotel room.

Most people in Santa Clara just have me drive down for the day -


b

This is not for the faint of heart. It is called overscan, and all CRT RPTV tech is designed with it, OOB.

The Elites have the capacity to have that overscan realigned outa there, I have done it many many times on them, but how to do it is very convoluted, and you can paint yourself into a corner real fast. I got better and better at it as the years went by and I began to see patterns on certain ways of doing it that enabled me to dial it in better and better. But many have tried - and failed - to get it right, winding up with a pic that was much worse off than before.

If you can't find an old-school diehard calibrator like myself to do it for you - very few calibrators do this anymore, they are usually fully booked with calibrating fixed pixel tech, which doesn't require this realignment - then contact me directly and I'll do my best to guide you thru what to do on the phone.

Where do you live? Perhaps I will be close by to your area soon -


b

I live in Tampa, Florida. I would gladly compensate you to direct me through the process over the phone. This has been driving me crazy.

I live in Tampa, Florida. I would gladly compensate you to direct me through the process over the phone. This has been driving me crazy.

My phone # is in my sig. Or get a cal tour together, there are several owners there who would like me to do their sets, we just need an organizer. That way you can have the whole enchilada.


b

Mr. Bob, what parts of your calibration would need to be tweaked if the set were moved to a new home (~20 miles away)? I'm asking about everything that you could do in a calibration from shimming to cleaning and everything in between.

Hey, I have a question... I'm a newbie to the forum but read a few posts on the PS cold solder issue. I acquired a Pioneer Elite Pro 710 HD. The tv was not working when I got it, but I did a soldering job on mostly the entire board and got it working again for a few months. Well, recently the tv powered down again blew two fuses 6.3 amp and 4 amp. I replaced these with a 6 amp and 5 amp (couldn't find a 4 maybe a prob?) and they blew again immediately. Removed one of the good 6.3 amp fuses from another spot and switched out the 6 amp fuse with that one. Powered up with green light for a few secs, then back off. I then saw an led light not only on the power supply but also a board on the far left. I pulled the ps out again and did the best I could to reflow some joints. Powered up again and both lights are gone, but now the screen has nothing but thin horizontal lines in middle of screen. You can hear sound, but no video except thin red, green blue lines. Anyone know of a specific spot on the ps board for this to focus on, or anything that should be addressed otherwise? I feel close to remedying this but maybe a specific solder joint I'm missing. I appreciate the input.

I'm no expert, but if you're set is powering up it maybe another board that's gone bad and not the PS. I'm concerned about you're plugging in a 5A fuse to replace a 4A fuse as you may have damaged something else. Bob would be your best bet. Good luck.

Hey, I have a question... I'm a newbie to the forum but read a few posts on the PS cold solder issue. I acquired a Pioneer Elite Pro 710 HD. The tv was not working when I got it, but I did a soldering job on mostly the entire board and got it working again for a few months. Well, recently the tv powered down again blew two fuses 6.3 amp and 4 amp. I replaced these with a 6 amp and 5 amp (couldn't find a 4 maybe a prob?) and they blew again immediately. Removed one of the good 6.3 amp fuses from another spot and switched out the 6 amp fuse with that one. Powered up with green light for a few secs, then back off. I then saw an led light not only on the power supply but also a board on the far left. I pulled the ps out again and did the best I could to reflow some joints. Powered up again and both lights are gone, but now the screen has nothing but thin horizontal lines in middle of screen. You can hear sound, but no video except thin red, green blue lines. Anyone know of a specific spot on the ps board for this to focus on, or anything that should be addressed otherwise? I feel close to remedying this but maybe a specific solder joint I'm missing. I appreciate the input.

Mr. Bob, what parts of your calibration would need to be tweaked if the set were moved to a new home (~20 miles away)? I'm asking about everything that you could do in a calibration from shimming to cleaning and everything in between.

If you go down to Uhaul, buy half a dozen boxes and lay them flat underneath your set as you wheel it onto the truck, probably nothing. They are triple-corrugated, and protect your set from the road shocks. Since they never got built, you can return them at the other end and get your $ back.

I moved my 65" Panny 3/4 mile to my new home 4 years ago even without those, driving slowly and carefully, and didn't even need to redo the convergence! My set needed nothing, after that move.

With proper shock absorbtion, yours should respond the same way. Just don't aim for every crack in the sidewald along the way! Go slowly over those.

And use a precut plank on the ramp, if there are knurls in it. Want to keep the journey SMOOTH -


b

Hey, I have a question... I'm a newbie to the forum but read a few posts on the PS cold solder issue. I acquired a Pioneer Elite Pro 710 HD. The tv was not working when I got it, but I did a soldering job on mostly the entire board and got it working again for a few months. Well, recently the tv powered down again blew two fuses 6.3 amp and 4 amp. I replaced these with a 6 amp and 5 amp (couldn't find a 4 maybe a prob?) and they blew again immediately. Removed one of the good 6.3 amp fuses from another spot and switched out the 6 amp fuse with that one. Powered up with green light for a few secs, then back off. I then saw an led light not only on the power supply but also a board on the far left. I pulled the ps out again and did the best I could to reflow some joints. Powered up again and both lights are gone, but now the screen has nothing but thin horizontal lines in middle of screen. You can hear sound, but no video except thin red, green blue lines. Anyone know of a specific spot on the ps board for this to focus on, or anything that should be addressed otherwise? I feel close to remedying this but maybe a specific solder joint I'm missing. I appreciate the input.


If you did not do all the soldering I have recommended in this thread countless times, but only a set/limited number of joints, then you left your set vulnerable to the spikes created by the intermittencies in the PS bd. Once it started working again, new joints went bad, and perhaps were joints that cause more serious damage than the joints you resoldered yourself.

This is a degenerative problem, it only gets worse, not better, like needed dental work. That's why I have said from the beginning of my participation on this thread that the entire board needs to be resoldered, not just some of it, with the only exceptions being specific and justified. And mentioned here many times. If you did "most" of the board, and later a few more, I'm betting you didn't follow my recommendation.

What you're now describing is lack of vertical sweep. Chances are your deflection board is now down, and we simply replace those, we don't even try to fix them. No way to know if your conv bd is down for now, but the 4A usually indicates that that conv bd is down as well.

But problems on the PS board have never before shown up as lack of vertical sweep, leaving only horizontal lines. Vertical sweep is a beam deflection, and as such is generated and developed on the defl bd.

You should NEVER replace a 4A with a 5A! That allows 20% more current thru, and that's just enough to try the patience of any circuit, even if you don't blow that circuit. But chances are that is just enough to blow that circuit as well. I have done such a thing, but only under very precise and limited circumstances, and this would not qualify for that, by any stretch.


This is not for amateurs. If you are not a qualified repair service tech, DON'T TAKE LIBERTIES WITH YOUR MULTI-THOUSAND DOLLAR INVESTMENT. Nor its hardy, but still delicate and vulnerable circuits.

Get a qualified local repair tech on this NOW, before you have any further domino effects, and live with the extra $ it will now cost. Give him FULL DISCLOSURE. He will need it.


b

So I did some googling around to find a cheaper place to find this deflection brd(#AWV1809) and found a refurb brd for cheap at partstore.com(no core charge). I'll give partstore a try and see how this board is. They have a 30 day return policy in case it doesn't work.

If there's an LED lit up on the defl bd, that bd needs to be replaced. We don't even try to fix them. You can order one from me or get it yourself.

Hopefully that will do it...


b

Well, I must admit putting a 5 amp fuse in a 4 amp slot was probably not the brightest idea. Usually I get a little more clarity before jumping the gun on the unknown, but it was one of those days where it was like "Ah geez, what the heck.." It was late, I was tired, anxious and the only thing Lowe's had was a little assortment pack. Funny thing is, I've soldered enough electronic stuff from stereos, xboxes, x360s with success and now this but never had to replace something as simple as a fuse before. If I permanently damaged the tv, oh well no loss... I know that makes some expert techies CRINGE at the thought of a several thousand dollar unit to be treated so lightly, but hey it was free on craigslist.. only cost me a uhaul rental to get the "big beastie" home. Don't get me wrong, I would love to get it working again, but the only thing I invested was a little time.. and I did get it going albeit for a few months. I'm certainly not going to invest hundreds of dollars for a part or repair guy to look at it, I'll invest that in a new lcd or plasma. I don't regret trying though. In my experience, not trying at all gives you 100% failure rate, but if I try something with even 10% success rate it's better than doing nothing. I mean, I admit to being a novice, but how did you experts become "experts" anyway? I guess none of you have ever been in a trial and error situation in your earlier days where it ended up costing you a high dollar piece of equipment. Some of us learn the hard way I guess.. Or maybe times are tough, even for techies?? lol

But honestly, I don't think I destroyed it, I recall it doing the same thing when I soldered it a few months ago. First there was only sound no picture, then and I ended up with just horizontal lines. Then, I resoldered again and got it working, but even then the convergence seemed off. But maybe it already had the problem earlier and something else has now gone out. Plus, my electricity here in the house has been a little weird lately. The tv went out earlier this week.. Seems like my wife has hit the reset switch in the kitchen a bunch this week and the fan in the dish receiver was really going on pretty loud for a while even after shutdown. Anyway, today I did locate where the second LED light was before it stopped, AVP1944. Turns out the 4 amp fuse blew again, but the 6 amp is fine. Do you think this could be the ICs?

I do really appreciate any input as I intend to continue working on it myself. If I kill the tv, well... I would have given it my best. In the end though what I can say is... I didn't destroy the "big beastie" because I wanted it to die... I destroyed the "big beastie" because I.... wanted to live..... and... so long as I don't fatally electrocute myself in the process... TV FIXIE :):D:D:D TV ELECTROCUTEY :confused::eek::eek::eek:

I must admit, ya got me there. That post is a hard act to follow...

:D

If your 4A is still blowing, chances are your conv ICs need to be replaced, which is very straightforward, but be sure and be generous with the heat sink compound. If doing so keeps the 4A fuse alive from then on, you've upgraded your ICs to the new 180 series at the very least, and with that fuse blowing, chances are at least one of them had croaked.

Try replacing that defl bd. Those 2 things just may do it.

But if your PS bd is still not resoldered all the way - rejuvenating all solder conns of the original solder flow job - your set will still be in jeopardy of this kind of thing happening again -


b

Last night on my 510HD. Right after the loud pop and flash, the tv shut itself off, leaving only the red front panel standby LED on. And it then smelled like fried silicon in the living room.
I just checked and only the 4A fuse (FU102) on PS bd is blown. If I power-on on now (with 4A fuse removed) after 1-2 seconds, only the PS power-down LED is on. No other LEDs are lit.

How are the CRTs oriented by color?

Is the deflection board the one on the floor of tv, next to PS, with high voltage and huge heat sinks at the back of tv?

Which is the conversion board?

Thanks!

Btw, I was about to give Bob a call for a full "tune-up/cali" back in Oct, but my dad went in the hospital and I just finished dealing with that, and he's doing fine now. I have no hesitation in paying for this. I have 27 years of electronics experience, a few with older CRT tvs, but having someone familiar with rear projection - let alone our exact models, is well worth the price of calibration and everything else Bob does. And I have seen no negative posts on his calibration jobs, only positive ones. Bite the cali cost and be ecstatic with your 8 year old $5k TV already! I will be paying Bob for a visit as soon as I get this thing working again.

Jeff
-------

Sorry Bob! I admit I did read through several previous postings and noticed you have quite a few warnings about avoiding the mirror panel section of the tv... :p

I went ahead and ordered 2 Sanny 180s so we'll see what happens.. If I have to get a d-board however :mad:, I'll probably donate it.. I've been eyeing the Sammy LN52a650 for a while... I've also got a few too many of these non-working big guys in my garage now still waiting for me to experiment on.

I'm am curious to know if the new ICs will make a noticeable difference in picture quality? IMO the picture never was very sharp and I'd say even my cheapie GE 52" 1080i CRT was clearer and sharper. You guys still seem to back these and prefer these CRTs, but I've never seen one compare to the brightness, contrast, angle viewing or clarity of lcd or plasma.. Just curious.. am I missing something?

Last night on my 510HD. Right after the loud pop and flash, the tv shut itself off, leaving only the red front panel standby LED on. And it then smelled like fried silicon in the living room.
I just checked and only the 4A fuse (FU102) on PS bd is blown. If I power-on on now (with 4A fuse removed) after 1-2 seconds, only the PS power-down LED is on. No other LEDs are lit.

With the 4A fuse removed, chances are the red LED on the conv bd will not have the power to light up, even tho the bd is down.


How are the CRTs oriented by color?


Facing the unit from the front, red is on the left, blue on the right.


Is the deflection board the one on the floor of tv, next to PS, with high voltage and huge heat sinks at the back of tv?

Floor mounted beneath the green gun, with thick red HV wires. DK about the heat sinks, am not with one of those units right now...

PS bd is vertically mounted on the rear of the set, to the right while facing the set from the back.


Which is the conversion board?


Far left also vertically mounted on the rear, straight across from the PS bd, while viewing the opened back, from behind the set.



Thanks!

Btw, I was about to give Bob a call for a full "tune-up/cali" back in Oct, but my dad went in the hospital and I just finished dealing with that, and he's doing fine now. I have no hesitation in paying for this. I have 27 years of electronics experience, a few with older CRT tvs, but having someone familiar with rear projection - let alone our exact models, is well worth the price of calibration and everything else Bob does. And I have seen no negative posts on his calibration jobs, only positive ones. Bite the cali cost and be ecstatic with your 8 year old $5k TV already! I will be paying Bob for a visit as soon as I get this thing working again.

Jeff
-------

I'll be looking forward to that. Where are ya, here in the Bay Area?


b

I'm am curious to know if the new ICs will make a noticeable difference in picture quality? IMO the picture never was very sharp and I'd say even my cheapie GE 52" 1080i CRT was clearer and sharper.

The new ICs will not make a noticeable difference in the pic, in fact will prolly need conv trimming after replacement. Replacing them only makes your conv circuit work again, but stronger - to last longer - if upgraded. What you want is the STK 392-180, 2 of them. Replaces the much weaker original, the 392-110. Order the 180s from Melissa at Union Electronics, near Chicago.

All CRT tech is gauged by - and ONLY by - the level of calibration it gets. Some factory calibration is head and shoulders better than other factory calibration, OOB. Panasonic OOB CRT triple-gun performance is some of the worst there is, but cleans up to where there's no better HD pic out there.

UNcalibrated - and uncleaned - CRT tech is going to be all over the map, and lots of them WILL be clearer and sharper than others.


You guys still seem to back these and prefer these CRTs, but I've never seen one compare to the brightness, contrast, angle viewing or clarity of lcd or plasma.. Just curious.. am I missing something?

"Come on over to my house..." and I'll show you what CRT tech is SUPPOSED to look like, on my Mit 73". Or go to page 103 of the Don't Dump your CRT RPTV! thread for some screenshots of my set in action also.

See my screenshots on page 45 of this thread, of the Elite triple gun series this thread is all about, in action.

I'll put my fully calibrated 73" Mit CRT up against anything out there in the home living room arena, and it will stand tall and proud beside the best - and most expensive - of them, and show up all the readily-affordables bigtime, as the simple approximations of a good picture that they really are!

:p

I admit mine is not QUITE as good as the extravagantly expensive overhead ceiling pjs, but that's a completely different ball game. In the living room arena, I dominate! My tech rules. Which is CRT tech, what this thread here is all about.

Come on over and I'll show ya -

;)

b

Uh oh...

My PRO-710HD just started acting funny and I came across this thread.

Mine is showing bright flashes intermittently (the picture will all of sudden flash bright for a second, and then go back down to normal). Sometimes it seems to happen frequently...then sometimes it will go an hour without happening. From what I can tell, I don't see any "blue", and it hasn't shut down on me. Is that where I'm headed? I believe it started happening a few days ago. I believe the TV is about 7-8 years old at this point. I actually had it professionally calibrated by Gregg Loewen shortly after I got it (and have since moved).

So what do I do next? Call the Pioneer service number?

My 510HD and my friends's 710HD started intermittent "white" flashes (not blue) after about 3 years from new. But it was only about once a month, and only after watching tv for more than a few hours at a time. Mine slowly but progressively got worse. I put up with it for another 2.5 years at which time it decided to happen for the last timebefore shutting itself down. I found this thread, tried resoldering the power supply (PS) board 3 times to no avail. Well, I did manage to make the symptoms change but couldn't get a picture back. I got an email address on this thread of someone to contact for possible warranty repair (out of warranty) but after 3 weeks of exchanging a couple of emails and still no resolution, I was done waiting. So I went to Pioneer online and ordered a new PS board for ~$300. I was pi$$ed that my "Elite" $5000+ tv was already broken after only a few years but I was not willing to wait any longer for Pioneer to fix it. I installed the new PS board in about 10 minutes and voila! All is good. That was a little over a year ago. Two nights ago, my tv shutoff with a loud pop and white flash while watching a movie. Scared the ccrap out of us too - it was a very quite passage in the movie, and then BOOM! Anyway, it doesn't appear to neccessarily be the PS this time. At the moment, my best guess is the Convergence board, according to Mr. Bob here. I still think this is an awesome tv and I can wait til the LCD panel technology settles a bit more before getting one. I plan to fix this problem, have Mr. Bob out to do a full calibration, etc, and then keep on trucking - er, viewing. If you are not electronically experienced, give Mr. Bob a call and ask him what to do. Try not to hire a local tv guy unless he specifically knows about the Pioneer Pro 510/610/710 series and this particular problem. And good luck.

Indie
-------

Hey Bob - I am in Pleasanton. Right over the hill from you. Convenient, eh? So, it sounds like it's the Conv bd then. I will pull it and check the problematic ICs. Isn't there a local resource for these ICs?
I don't have a whole lotta work at the moment so I may as well try and tackle this one myself.
Jeff
-------

I have a couple problems with my 510. I have the blue flash, brightness change problem. It started 2 years ago, but I was out of the country (away from the TV) for a year and a half during that time. I have removed the power board and was considering attempting the soldering myself, but now I don't think that is a smart idea. I am considering sending the board to Mr. Bob, but I have other issues too that I'm afraid the power board fix won't resolve.

My other issues started when I first got an HD signal about 3 years ago. Before that I only had SD sources and everything was great. When I first plugged in the HD, the geometry and convergence were off the charts - vertical lines bowed outwards several inches and convergence was way off. I don't think the picture even reached the corners. I spent hours resolving this (using the service menu) and got it to a state that was ok but far from perfect. Lines on the edges still had slight waves.

It remained this way for many months until one day I went to try to adjust it better (of course the night before the Superbowl party at my house!). In the middle of doing that in the service menu, there was a pop and immediately it was as if I had never fixed any problems - there was terrible bowing again. However this time there was no way I could even get it as good as it was previously. The top of the picture was the worst where there was no way to completely fix the geometry and convergence in the top corners and I had to adjust the picture to have a lot of overscan on top to make it watchable.

Based on that I'm afraid I have more problems than just the power board, although I once read that the power board could possibly fix the geometry problems as well. Mr. Bob or others, do you have opinions on whether it will be worth it to try the power board or if I definitely have problems with other components? I also live in northern NJ and see that there will be a NY area tour soon. I don't think I want to spend too much on the TV at this point.

Uh oh...

My PRO-710HD just started acting funny and I came across this thread.

Mine is showing bright flashes intermittently (the picture will all of sudden flash bright for a second, and then go back down to normal). Sometimes it seems to happen frequently...then sometimes it will go an hour without happening. From what I can tell, I don't see any "blue", and it hasn't shut down on me. Is that where I'm headed? I believe it started happening a few days ago. I believe the TV is about 7-8 years old at this point. I actually had it professionally calibrated by Gregg Loewen shortly after I got it (and have since moved).

So what do I do next? Call the Pioneer service number?

STOP USING YOUR SET NOW. DO NOT LET IT WARM UP AGAIN, UNTIL FIXED. It's this warm-up that triggers the bad conn's caused by the cold solder joints on the PS bd.

If you want the best $ scenario possible, you MUST NOT keep running your set until it shuts down and will no longer come on again when told to. The best case scenario is to nip this thing in the bud while the problems are still intermittent, and aside from them the set runs properly. That scenario has by far the best success rate - 100% so far, of the boards I have serviced.

If you call the Pio svc # they will want to sell you a new PS bd. If you go that route you will prolly get a rebuilt one with only the primary offenders remedied, as new boards for these units disappeared years ago. I keep hearing about PS bds replaced by Pio with "new" ones - which are actually rebuilts, from the "dud cores" you send back when you get a new one, and the same thing happening again a year or 2 later.

You never hear about that with my boards, the ones people send me from all over the continent for my own specialized resoldering process. My resoldering technique is the only technique that permanently solves the REAL problem: degeneration of the conn's in the PS bd - which result in spikes being sent down into the rest of the circuitry, often damaging other boards/circuits - because of the poor soldering job Pio did on these PS boards originally. Remember, the PS board is the POWER SUPPLY board. It supplies the primary and most basic power supplies the entire rest of the set runs on. It affects everything in there, one way or another.

Contact me (directly, no pms please) for logistics, send me the board, I'll do it right and you'll be up and running again in a few weeks.

If you keep running your set and watching it, chances are something much more expensive to fix will happen to your set before long. I can usually cure those as well, but there's no need for those extra expenses and down times. Send it now while it still works properly most of the time, and afterwards it will work properly from then on.

I know it's hard to give these sets up for a few weeks - I know more than most, because I am capable of bringing out their best, see page 45 of this thread for screenshots evidencing that. I KNOW how great they are!

But PLEASE - get control of yourselves, owners, and make peace with the required downtime. A year from now the down time you will have had to spend now will seem insignificant and in the past, but you'll still be watching your set!


;)


b

I have a couple problems with my 510. I have the blue flash, brightness change problem. It started 2 years ago, but I was out of the country (away from the TV) for a year and a half during that time. I have removed the power board and was considering attempting the soldering myself, but now I don't think that is a smart idea. I am considering sending the board to Mr. Bob, but I have other issues too that I'm afraid the power board fix won't resolve.

My other issues started when I first got an HD signal about 3 years ago. Before that I only had SD sources and everything was great. When I first plugged in the HD, the geometry and convergence were off the charts - vertical lines bowed outwards several inches and convergence was way off. I don't think the picture even reached the corners. I spent hours resolving this (using the service menu) and got it to a state that was ok but far from perfect. Lines on the edges still had slight waves.

It remained this way for many months until one day I went to try to adjust it better (of course the night before the Superbowl party at my house!). In the middle of doing that in the service menu, there was a pop and immediately it was as if I had never fixed any problems - there was terrible bowing again. However this time there was no way I could even get it as good as it was previously. The top of the picture was the worst where there was no way to completely fix the geometry and convergence in the top corners and I had to adjust the picture to have a lot of overscan on top to make it watchable.

Based on that I'm afraid I have more problems than just the power board, although I once read that the power board could possibly fix the geometry problems as well. Mr. Bob or others, do you have opinions on whether it will be worth it to try the power board or if I definitely have problems with other components? I also live in northern NJ and see that there will be a NY area tour soon. I don't think I want to spend too much on the TV at this point.

Once your conv has gone out completely and will not obey commands from you anymore, it's usually time to change out the conv ICs. A straightforward op that MANY CRT RPTVs will need, at some time in their lives.

Just do it. Or send it to me, I'll upgrade it to the newer, stronger ICs.

It's POSSIBLE that one of the voltage regulators for the ICs on the PS bd has gone too far in its bad conn's, but if so all 3 colors and all commands would be affected, as one of the 2 voltage rails - the plus and the minus - will have been affected, and this affects all colors.

If only the geometry at the top has been affected, then chances are both voltage rails are still intact, meaning that the v reg on the PS bd is still functioning like it should, tho the PS bd intermittencies still need to be attended to properly. This would indicate the conv ICs are at fault.

Sounds like both boards need it now. We have to do it in the proper sequence, tho, and getting the conv bd going again has to happen first. Once that's up and running again, and the set works again, shut it down within 1 minute before it has a chance to warm up, and we'll go to the final step, which will be resoldering that PS bd.

DO NOT LET YOUR SET WARM UP AGAIN TO CRUISING TEMP UNTIL THE PS BD HAS BEEN RESOLDERED PROPERLY.

Then you'll be home free. These sets have no track record of other problems, just these - the PS bd, the conv bd or the defl bd, all starting witih the PS bd. Once these are taken care of, chances are your set will never again have any further repair problems to have to attend to.


b

I don't think I want to spend too much on the TV at this point.


You should. You did, 8-9 years ago. Properly taken care of it can still beat the pants off all of the affordable fixed pixel out there. Owners are spending whatever it takes all over the country to keep these dazzling CRT pix alive and well. I'm living proof of that, owners are flying me in to their cities just for calibration, with repair along with it whenever necessary.

And calibration is far more expensive than repair on these sets, when nipped in the bud.

Both are worth every penny. These sets are just awesome.


b

Hey Bob - I am in Pleasanton. Right over the hill from you. Convenient, eh? So, it sounds like it's the Conv bd then. I will pull it and check the problematic ICs. Isn't there a local resource for these ICs?
I don't have a whole lotta work at the moment so I may as well try and tackle this one myself.
Jeff
-------

How you gonna check the ICs? Even I don't know how to do that. When the symptoms indicate it, we replace them and then all is well. That's how professional repair techs do it. If you as a non-professional have some magic way we techs have not discovered yet, I'm all ears...

Contact me directly and we'll get an appointment together for you, unless you want to do it completely on your own -


b

STOP USING YOUR SET NOW. DO NOT LET IT WARM UP AGAIN, UNTIL FIXED. It's this warm-up that triggers the bad conn's caused by the cold solder joints on the PS bd.

If you want the best $ scenario possible, you MUST NOT keep running your set until it shuts down and will no longer come on again when told to. The best case scenario is to nip this thing in the bud while the problems are still intermittent, and aside from them the set runs properly. That scenario has by far the best success rate - 100% so far, of the boards I have serviced.

If you call the Pio svc # they will want to sell you a new PS bd. If you go that route you will prolly get a rebuilt one with only the primary offenders remedied, as new boards for these units disappeared years ago. I keep hearing about PS bds replaced by Pio with "new" ones - which are actually rebuilts, from the "dud cores" you send back when you get a new one, and the same thing happening again a year or 2 later.

You never hear about that with my boards, the ones people send me from all over the continent for my own specialized resoldering process. My resoldering technique is the only technique that permanently solves the REAL problem: degeneration of the conn's in the PS bd - which result in spikes being sent down into the rest of the circuitry, often damaging other boards/circuits - because of the poor soldering job Pio did on these PS boards originally. Remember, the PS board is the POWER SUPPLY board. It supplies the primary and most basic power supplies the entire rest of the set runs on. It affects everything in there, one way or another.

Contact me (directly, no pms please) for logistics, send me the board, I'll do it right and you'll be up and running again in a few weeks.

If you keep running your set and watching it, chances are something much more expensive to fix will happen to your set before long. I can usually cure those as well, but there's no need for those extra expenses and down times. Send it now while it still works properly most of the time, and afterwards it will work properly from then on.

I know it's hard to give these sets up for a few weeks - I know more than most, because I am capable of bringing out their best, see page 45 of this thread for screenshots evidencing that. I KNOW how great they are!

But PLEASE - get control of yourselves, owners, and make peace with the required downtime. A year from now the down time you will have had to spend now will seem insignificant and in the past, but you'll still be watching your set!


;)


b

Thanks Mr. Bob. Consider it done. Guess I need to find somewhere else to watch the Superbowl...unless you can have it back to me by then. ;) So is it 100% that it is indeed the power supply, or just most likely?

I have to say, I'm glad I found this thread, not only because it seems to contain a reasonable solution to my problem, but because it's given me some validation in my own mind as to how awesome these Elite RPTV's are. When people ask me what TV I have, and I tell them it's an 8 year old RPTV...and it has just as good or better picture of all the current LCD/Plasma/DLP's out there, they look at me like I'm insane. Probably the biggest reason I haven't "upgraded" my TV at this point is because none of the TV's in the size range of mine (64") that I've seen have nearly as good of a picture. Even the really expensive ones. I was actually starting to think it was a psychological thing, or just bias because I'm envious that I don't have a fancy flat panel hanging on my wall.

In any event, Bob, I will give you a call tomorrow, thanks again. Also, what's the latest on this east coast tour? I'm actually 90 minutes west of Philly (30 miles due north of Baltimore).

Great chatting with you this morning, Scott, looking forward to getting your set going again and seeing you soon afterwards.

In the repair biz, until the fat lady sings there are no guarantees. We take our best shot at all times, as to what the source of any repair problems are.

Repair techs get a best guess together from the diagnostic process, then try out what that diagnostic process indicates would fix it. If it fixes it, we were correct. If not, we weren't and try again from a different angle.

It's that way with ALL troubleshooting, when you think about it. We don't know NUTTIN' until the fat lady sings...

;)

And yes, when you have a screen that big ALL potential flaws show up, and bigtime. That's why I still believe in CRT tech. It has been hanging in there for decades, looking silky smooth, as the Yohan would say...

:D

b

How you gonna check the ICs? Even I don't know how to do that.

I don't mean to check them electronically...
Immediately after my latest Flash-Pop-Bang-Power-off, the room filled with the smell of burnt Silicon. I will remove the board and inspect the ICs for either visible melted or heat discoloration or, for just the smell of fried Silicon. Or, I may just replace the ICs anyway, change the 4A PS fuse, and give it a go. I thought this was a reasonable path of execution.

jeff
-------

I don't mean to check them electronically...
Immediately after my latest Flash-Pop-Bang-Power-off, the room filled with the smell of burnt Silicon. I will remove the board and inspect the ICs for either visible melted or heat discoloration or, for just the smell of fried Silicon. Or, I may just replace the ICs anyway, change the 4A PS fuse, and give it a go. I thought this was a reasonable path of execution.

jeff
-------

Yes, but most of the time failures in electronic circuits don't show anything. Resistors may burn and show that way, but they can also just let go internally and go open without ever showing anything.

Unless an IC really blows up and fries, you won't see anything wrong with it from the outside.

So the fact that you got the ozone smell is usually just the tip of the iceberg, without additional testing techniques.

In this case you'll prolly luck out because conv repairs have been tracked accurately for years, but what you say would be inadequate for many if not most repairs.


b

I have been in touch with six people that are interested in Mr. Bob's calibration magic. Including me, that makes seven. The locations are a bit spread out geographically. I don't know the location of Aurora10002. Currently, I have 2 in Central MD, 2 in NJ, and 2 in NY. Would like to get a couple more folks between Baltimore and Philadelphia and perhaps a couple more around the Trenton and Newark area. That would fill out the tour nicely.

Anyone looking to get their optics thoroughly cleaned. If you image is darkening, it may from all the dirt being attracted to those lenses (inside and outside). Mr. Bob can do a thorough cleaning without calibration for a very reasonable fee. Contact me using PM. Please leave your City/State, email address and a phone number where I can contact you.

Timing for tour hasn't been finalized but I'm shooting for early to mid-March.

We have now had another cracked board, our 9th so far (yes I am still counting them...). It was sent in a box that was "perfectly fitted" for it - if you trust the gorrillas at the shipping services. (I don't...)

When sending the board to me, PLEASE use an oversized box. When the box is just enough to contain the item, with a couple of inches all around, the middle of the board is very vulnerable to anything dropping on it. In this case the board was surrounded by inch thick bubble wrap, like I specify, but something was still able to crush the transformer and its nearby heat sink by hitting it in the middle. In such cases we don't see any damage on the outside of the box.

A claim to F Ex has been filed, which is a royal PITA to do this time. Last time it was all done on the phone with both myself and the owner of the set on the line with them, all taken care of on that one call, and all was well. I got right on the repair and sent the board out later the same day, and the set has been cranking away ever since.

This time they have required me to print out the email they sent, fill it all in, then fax it to them, along with a proof of value, meaning I had to go to the Pio website, print out what the board costs to replace, and insist that it NOT be replaced but repaired, and state how much that will cost. Now I gotta wait till they contact me to see the damage, which could take days, before I can even launch into repairing it.

It arrived here fine, I sent it out fully resoldered, it got hit and damaged on the return trip, going back to its owner. Mike, the owner, did not know what to look for as far as damage to the board, but it was obvious to me at first glance, cracks radiating out from both the big transformer in the middle, and the big heat sink only 3/4" away. This was fully visible from looking at the board from the top even while it was still screwed down onto the metal plate it is mounted upon.

A box that's only 6" tall will not be adequate, nor one with only 2" space at each edge, board to side. The box in question here was 7 -7/8" tall, and it still was not enough to save the middle from getting crushed. The edge was also hit, bending the metal frame a bit, but not causing any electrical damage. The electrical damage came from the crushing it obviously endured, cracking the board in several places and severing runs on that board, rendering it inoperative. Hopefully. So far. But one of these days the owner will put in a damaged board and it may not work, because powering it up damaged mechanically may cause further damage, electronically. Domino effect on such things cannot be tracked, because each instance of mechanical damage will be different. Not unrepairable so far when this has been done, and I'm hoping we'll stay lucky on that, but no promises.


If you send me a too-small box and want me to rebox it, I will be fine on doing that, but it will cost you additional, and that will have to reach me before I can send the board back, reboxed. Contact me if you want me to do that for you.

I am to the bare bones on what I charge for this repair now, so please take pre-emptive action on your end, to make sure your box is GENEROUS in its fit for the board, and that you have enough room to lay it in at an angle, shoring up one side more than the other on the bottom packing materials, with the largest heat sink near the bottom of the board, on that slant, when the board is face up, like it should be.

I am still running 100% on my success in restoring these boards, even factoring in occasional damage like this. I hope this one will follow suit, as soon as I can get to it, repair it and get it back to its owner.


b

This doesn't have anything to do with a Pioneer Elite, or at least not really.

My dad had bought a month ago a Sony Bravia 37" LCD, and I convinced him to get it calibrated. He bought it at Best Buy, and the Geek Squad guys are ISF certified, so I figured that was the way to go. Cost was $250, considerably less than what I paid for an ISF tech to do my Pio 510 9 years ago!

Well, the guy came out today, and what a disappointment. He went through the motions...hooked the TV up to his laptop with an HDMI cable, checked the color temp, went into the service menu and made some adjustments ( the blue was 47% above what it shoulda been), put up a test pattern or two and did some tweeks, and then HE WAS DONE!!

My dad doesn't have hardly any HD channels, doesn't feel like paying for the good package! So the guy used a show my dad had recorded on DVR and made some color adjustments, but that was it. He said he would have liked to compare between different channels, but since there was no HD programming on at 2 in the afternoon, nothing he could do. Said if my dad does upgrade his HD package, they'd come back out for free and do final tweeks.

I guess I was disappointed cause the dude spent a little over an hour doing stuff, and then was gone. When I had my set done, the tech spent an hour and a half JUST on my convergence! I know LCD doesn't have that, but still. I asked the guy if he was going to put a DVD in and check that input, and he said it wasn't necessary. He just changed the picture settings to match the Dish HD input (both are using component cables, not HDMI). He explained that Best Buy only allows them 2 hours max per site, and that he had 6 calibrations to do that day alone, and couldn't go over 8 hours for the day. Man, where's the love? Now I know why it only cost $250.

I was just expecting him to adjust each input individually, spend a little time looking at various discs that test different aspects of picture quality. I certainly didn't expect him to spend a whopping 4 minutes on a program he wasn't familiar with, make some quick adjustments, and call it a day. Again, when I had my set done, the guy used Se7en to check black levels, Fifth Element for color and motion, and a 3rd I don't recall for white levels. He was so familiar with those discs and what to look for, he knew if the levels were bang on or not.

The thing that really bugged me was, I had put in my ancient version of Video Essentials and thrown up some test patterns myself a few weeks back. One of them showed that the screen was not centered correctly both horizontally and vertically. The TV only allowed for me to fix the horizontal, but the vertical was greyed out. I had to actually bring this up to the tech, cause he hadn't done ANYTHING that would have checked for proper screen position or overscan. Unfortunately, there was nothing in the service menu that would let you make that adjustment, and he was just as clueless about the greyed out vertical. It's no big whoop, cause it was only barely off, but the fact that he hadn't even checked himself was annoying.

Again, maybe these are all things that no longer need attention like they did on the Pioneer 510. I realize tech moves rapidly and things might be virtually idiot proof now. It also made me sad that there's no love in what these guys are doing.

Alright, now I'll steer this into the Pioneer frame of mind. Geek Squad will not touch an RPTV! They'd do a calibration, but after what I saw, no way in hell! No optic cleaning, no overscan adjusting. I'd say Mr Bob will be getting all our business for years to come!

Sorry for the off-topic rant. Just thought I'd share.

Well, all Sonys I have done have had ONE grayscale, and it was global and applied everywhere, no matter what the scanrate. If that's still so, then he did what was needed.

Very few fixed pixel units even allow for centering, much less sizing. So with a lot of them you get what you get, with NO changes possible. At least you got hor. positioning.

The color paradigm is one thing Sony has always been on top of, tho. They have always had a way to eliminate the red push their sets are designed with.

Haven't done a Bravia, tho, DK if they have continued their tradition, which was always there on the CRT triple-gun sets, one way or another. If you have red push still, you might want to get a real calibrator over there. ISF doesn't teach how to realign red push to silky smooth linearity.

Thanks for the kind words, tho! Yes I intend to stick around as long as possible, keeping as many CRT triple-gun units looking silky smooth for as long as possible! Which should cover at least the next few years, if not more...


;)


b

I went into sm mode, and pressed the ANT button and figured out how to adjust the picture sizing in full mode. but if i toggle to full for hd, the adjustments don't seem to make any difference on the overscan when i watch a 1080 signal. I adjust the h size and h pha size and i can see the difference when the adjustments are for full mode, but like i said, there is no noticable difference for 1080. I set the convergence in 1080 and the picture that is there looks great, but it is still bowed in on the sides. With a 720 signal, there are 3 pictures overlapping. Am I missing a step there? I got this set for free, and I don't want to spend the cost of a new smaller tv just to make this one look normal in hd. If I shim the guns forward, wont that affect the full mode too much?

I went into sm mode, and pressed the ANT button and figured out how to adjust the picture sizing in full mode. but if i toggle to full for hd, the adjustments don't seem to make any difference on the overscan when i watch a 1080 signal. I adjust the h size and h pha size and i can see the difference when the adjustments are for full mode, but like i said, there is no noticable difference for 1080. I set the convergence in 1080 and the picture that is there looks great, but it is still bowed in on the sides. With a 720 signal, there are 3 pictures overlapping. Am I missing a step there? I got this set for free, and I don't want to spend the cost of a new smaller tv just to make this one look normal in hd. If I shim the guns forward, wont that affect the full mode too much?

Full is automatic in sm, for HD g/c - image structure - adj's. Whatever you do gets done in Full, and for HD you can't do any other aspect ratios except Full. For SD you can do the other aspect ratios, but not for HD, you can only do Full.

H size for 1080i governs the 1080i scanrate. For SD another button covers the 480i/p scanrate, where FULL is the primary aspect ratio and there are several other ARs that get done independently of Full. H Pha is for positioning horizontally, there is no "H Pha size"ing. Vertical sizing is global and affects all scanrates. So does shimming the CRT array forward. And no, doing so will not affect full mode too much.


If you don't think this set is worth spending some $ on, stop now. Getting it for free is no excuse to not TOTALLY respect it and give it the care and feeding it deserves. If you're not willing to spend the kind of $ that will bring out its best, pass it along to someone who will, who still respects this technology.

I got this set for free, and I don't want to spend the cost of a new smaller tv just to make this one look normal in hd.

With the attitude I hear you expressing here, I certainly am not motivated to help you much. The least expensive set in this series - the 510 - ran its original owners $5000, and is still capable of a stunning picture. See page 45 of this thread for proof of that. You're sitting on a gold mine there, yet you have no respect.

"Normal in HD" can be done with relatively conservative efforts, if the only thing wrong is the bowing in of the sides. Keep in mind that you have to be in the scanrate concerned when you go into sm, can't do any input changes on the set after you're in for regular component inputting, tho you can still change the scanrate at your source - the output of your or sat box, or if on cable whatever channel your cable box is set to, which determines which scanrate your set is getting.

And that you can't do any 1080i g/c - image structure - on RGB, only on component.

How about making HD look SPECTACULAR? Every bit as good as fixed pixel where it really counts, and BETTER than fixed pixel in a lot of areas. And bigger pic than most of the new stuff.

Wouldn't that be worth "spending the cost of a new smaller TV" to achieve, on your FREE $5000 (minimum) set???


b

I do have a lot of respect for the set, but at the same time they seem to be poorly made. The level of support that Pioneer offers and the lack of ownership of these problems is why I would not sink $500 into making this set look good. The quality control must have been terrible judging by how commonly the boards break. At my income level, spending a weeks wages on an eight year old television that will probably have issue after issue is not a viable investment. If I did not respect the set, I wouldn't spend hours tuning and repairing it. In today
s economy, there are a lot of more sensible ways to spend that kind of money. I am more than willing to spend my time fixing it up myself. Not to mention the fact that I'd be lucky to sell it for $500 these days, even if it was in perfect
shape. It is only worth what somebody else is willing to pay for it.

I set my cable box to a 1080i channel, and then go into sm. I still cannot see any noticable differences when I make adjustments to the h sizing. Is there a different way to adjust the sizing per scanrate?

This is what I am talking about, re. broken boards, this is the latest one I mentioned, above. I am still waiting for Fedex to call me back, after having faxed them and received a return fax directly, saying they had received my fax to them, have to wait for them to survey the damage before they will pay any claims on it. This is the main damage anyway, there's more to do than is on this pic -

b



http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/7984/brokenpsbdmikeazzaraff9.jpg[/URL]

I do have a lot of respect for the set, but at the same time they seem to be poorly made. The level of support that Pioneer offers and the lack of ownership of these problems is why I would not sink $500 into making this set look good. The quality control must have been terrible judging by how commonly the boards break. At my income level, spending a weeks wages on an eight year old television that will probably have issue after issue is not a viable investment. If I did not respect the set, I wouldn't spend hours tuning and repairing it. In today
s economy, there are a lot of more sensible ways to spend that kind of money. I am more than willing to spend my time fixing it up myself. Not to mention the fact that I'd be lucky to sell it for $500 these days, even if it was in perfect
shape. It is only worth what somebody else is willing to pay for it.

I set my cable box to a 1080i channel, and then go into sm. I still cannot see any noticable differences when I make adjustments to the h sizing. Is there a different way to adjust the sizing per scanrate?

These sets are EXTREMELY well made. Have you checked the start date of this thread? It's been 4 years now, and this thread is still going strong!

The PS board soldering weakness of the original solder flow op is the ONLY weakness on this set. Do you know how many boards are in this set, where something coulda gone wrong? Unplug it, open it up and see! There are scads of them, NONE of which had these problems. It was a weak spot in their production, yes, but NOT in their design, of this board or any other. You get this one problem fixed and you're good to go for the remaining life of the set. Which will be many years. At this vintage these sets are only at cruising age, they are not old at all. CRTs last far longer than anyone in the retailer world gives them credit for. This thread has been here for 4 years yet this is the ONLY problem that keeps cropping up, aside from the conv and defl bds being hit BECAUSE OF the PS bd problem, on domino effect. This is a VERY well designed set, my friend.

The H Sizing probably doesn't show while you're doing it, but should show once you're back to the regular screen, out of sm, or even in other sm modes while you're still in sm. Do it on a freeze frame or the HD DVE overscan pattern, so you can see the changes more specifically. When in conv or geometry mode the Yellow button down in the lower right corner of the remote toggles you between their internal grid and whatever you are sending in, on that scanrate. I use all sorts of test patterns that way, but whatever you're sending in only shows up in response to the yellow button, or the colorations on the other button, the one for grayscale and colorations - on HD I think it's the ch+ button in the upper right corner of the remote. I know exactly where it is, I use it all the time, but don't observe how it's marked. It's there in your service manual.

Other than that you're trapped into their grids or a green screen, which doesn't reveal much about the sizing while you're changing it.


b

If anyone is interested in purhasing this set please let me know. I purhcases around June 2000 for $6,000. It's in good working order just needs cleaning, manual focus and calibration. I have never had the board failure or any service call on this TV. I did a first surface cleaning recently. Based on the threads here I would imagine that someone would be interested to tweak themselves or even use as parts.

I estimate about 8500 hrs of viewing on this set

Send me a PM if interested. It would be for pickup only in Houston, TX.

Thread still active?

These are from my Mit. I know it's not a Pioneer, but want to be sure owners here are kept aware of the kind of scintillating HD images ALL CRT RPTV tech is capable of, including the models in this thread. Similar pix from the Pioneer models this thread is all about can be found on page 45 of this thread.

And of course to keep this thread alive and kicking...

:D


b

24 '09 Season Opener. Hit F11 to expand the visible pic's area on your screen -

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/5371/280924seasonopener2001fm4.jpg[/URL]

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/7330/280924seasonopener2002pa7.jpg[/URL]

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/9213/280924seasonopener4qk8.jpg[/URL]

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/9783/280924seasonopener007jx4.jpg[/URL]

Currently we are looking for people to share Mr. Bob's travel expenses for a clean and calibration tour in mid-March to mid-April for the Southwest. So far we have Drumheadz in Tucson and myself in Albuquerque. I will be glad to coordinate the tour if you just post a reply or email me directly. We're willing to go with two, but hope others will hop on board.
Best,
Dave Roberts
abqdor@aol.com

I have a Pro510HD that I replaced the PS board in about a year ago. The TV shut itself off with a loud pop noise a couple weeks ago. The 4-amp fuse was blown on the PS board. I checked all resistors in the convergence ICs (STK 392-110) circuit and were all fine. While I had the convergence assembly out, I decided to swap the ICs for the later upgraded ones (STK 392-180) just to avoid yet another TV failure in the future.

The puzzling question I have is, the 4-amp fuse appears to be for the 35V supply line(s). And the best I can tell, this 35V supply seems to be for the Audio section on the Video Assy board ("E"). Prior to my latest TV failure, I was having very poor distortion in the TV's speakers, for about 2 months. I was temporarily using the TV's audio bc my Marantz AV amp is also on the blink. I wonder if something blew in the audio circuit.

So now I am trying to figure out if it is really a problem in the audio circuit that is now causing the TV to PD. Just wondering if anyone else has had a problem with the audio circuit.

The only LED lit is the PD on the PS board.

Thanks!

I have a Pro510HD that I replaced the PS board in about a year ago. The TV shut itself off with a loud pop noise a couple weeks ago. The 4-amp fuse was blown on the PS board. I checked all resistors in the convergence ICs (STK 392-110) circuit and were all fine. While I had the convergence assembly out, I decided to swap the ICs for the later upgraded ones (STK 392-180) just to avoid yet another TV failure in the future.

The puzzling question I have is, the 4-amp fuse appears to be for the 35V supply line(s). And the best I can tell, this 35V supply seems to be for the Audio section on the Video Assy board ("E"). Prior to my latest TV failure, I was having very poor distortion in the TV's speakers, for about 2 months. I was temporarily using the TV's audio bc my Marantz AV amp is also on the blink. I wonder if something blew in the audio circuit.

So now I am trying to figure out if it is really a problem in the audio circuit that is now causing the TV to PD. Just wondering if anyone else has had a problem with the audio circuit.

The only LED lit is the PD on the PS board.

Thanks!

It would not be unusual for one power supply to feed 2 - or more - circuits.

If you can take your audio section offline - separate it from its power supply - and the set stays on, you have your answer.

Unfortunately that won't work if your conv ICs are blown, or if you try to disco the conv circ from its power supply by pulling that fuse. In that case the set won't come on, because it needs that fuse's voltage to fulfill one of the protection parameters, and allow the set to stay on.

b

For anyone in the S.F./Northern California area who's looking for a calibrator, I can highly recommend Robert Jones. He recently calibrated and cleaned my six year old Elite PRO-730HD CRT rear-projector. The improvement is really striking -- even my wife and daughter were blown away by the clarity and depth of the picture. I'm very happy I decided not to replace this TV with a flat panel. I own much newer plasma sets by Pioneer (Elite) and Panasonic, as well as a Samsung LCD, and while they have excellent PQ, they can't compete with the CRT RPTV when it comes to black levels and picture clarity. You can find Bob at bob@imageperfection.com or 510-278-4247.

Michael Delman

Either Mdelman is a brother in law or he is on commission. Seriously, what a great reference. Can't wait to get Mr. Bob to the southwest. Come on people, surely there is someone in the New Mexico-Arizona area that wants to share a cleaning tour.
Best,
Dave Roberts
abqdor@aol.com

So, my blown 4A fuse has been traced to the audio board. So I pulled off the tv front cover and realized I am not going to get this thing outta here from the front. And the rear access doesn't look like any small task either. It appears it must come out from the rear but, you have to remove the entire Signal, AV, Video, Sub-Video section to get to the Audio board. Since my blown 4A fuse was being caused by the Audio board, I suspect it is likely one of four possible shorted filter cap's in that circuit. Shouldn't be a big deal to fix. Hopefully, it didn't kill the power amp IC. The convergence ICs and board checked out fine. Now if I can just get this Audio board out of the tv...

Anyone removed the Audio board?

So, my blown 4A fuse has been traced to the audio board. So I pulled off the tv front cover and realized I am not going to get this thing outta here from the front. And the rear access doesn't look like any small task either. It appears it must come out from the rear but, you have to remove the entire Signal, AV, Video, Sub-Video section to get to the Audio board. Since my blown 4A fuse was being caused by the Audio board, I suspect it is likely one of four possible shorted filter cap's in that circuit. Shouldn't be a big deal to fix. Hopefully, it didn't kill the power amp IC. The convergence ICs and board checked out fine. Now if I can just get this Audio board out of the tv...

Anyone removed the Audio board?

Do you really need the audio on that unit? Most people use an external audio sys.

Try to find if you can simply take the power offline for just that bd, so that any short on that bd goes out of circuit and doesn't trip the protection. I would try to disco the voltage going to that board, and hope the unit then turns on. That same voltage may be needed for other circuits in there, and when this fuse is blown they can't light up properly.

b

Do you really need the audio on that unit? Most people use an external audio sys.

Try to find if you can simply take the power offline for just that bd, so that any short on that bd goes out of circuit and doesn't trip the protection. I would try to disco the voltage going to that board, and hope the unit then turns on. That same voltage may be needed for other circuits in there, and when this fuse is blown they can't light up properly.

b
Yes, I disconnected the 6-pin cable from connector E4 on the PS bd. That cable carries 35V, 12V, Gnd, and an Audio-PD signal to/from the Audio bd (indirectly). Everything works except for audio, which normally (as you suggest) would be fine, as most of us are not using the TV's audio circuit anyway. However, this is going to sound sad but, my Marantz SR-18 AV Surround amp is also not working :-( That's my next fixit project. The Marantz sits on the top shelf of a rack and it has many round vent holes in the top cover. I am guessing the housekeeper may have dropped something in there. Or, it could just be a buildup of dust. In any event, it is dead at the moment, so I have no other easily reachable sound source. Ironically, the audio circuit is so simple bc most of the circuitry is inside the preamp and power-amp ICs, but it is a major pain to get to the bd. I will tackle tomorrow. If it looks too involved (read: "pita") I will blow it off and spend my time fixing the Marantz instead. Funny note: the Marantz also died with a loud pop and flash (spark, actually). Maybe I should check its PS bd... ;-)

Yes, I disconnected the 6-pin cable from connector E4 on the PS bd. That cable carries 35V, 12V, Gnd, and an Audio-PD signal to/from the Audio bd (indirectly). Everything works except for audio, which normally (as you suggest) would be fine, as most of us are not using the TV's audio circuit anyway. However, this is going to sound sad but, my Marantz SR-18 AV Surround amp is also not working :-( That's my next fixit project. The Marantz sits on the top shelf of a rack and it has many round vent holes in the top cover. I am guessing the housekeeper may have dropped something in there. Or, it could just be a buildup of dust. In any event, it is dead at the moment, so I have no other easily reachable sound source. Ironically, the audio circuit is so simple bc most of the circuitry is inside the preamp and power-amp ICs, but it is a major pain to get to the bd. I will tackle tomorrow. If it looks too involved (read: "pita") I will blow it off and spend my time fixing the Marantz instead. Funny note: the Marantz also died with a loud pop and flash (spark, actually). Maybe I should check its PS bd... ;-)


I would have no idea what would happen if you disco ANYTHING on there. Nothing in this thread would guide you in that regard.

Yer on yer own...

:eek:

b

PS - I am quite surprised to hear everything else is working. Many of the circuits other than the audio depend on those other voltages that you have disco'd in that one connector.

...Similar pix from the Pioneer models this thread is all about can be found on page 45 of this thread...

I'm only showing 29 pages in this thread (maybe due to a preference setting?). Where can I find those Pioneer pictures?

I'm only showing 29 pages in this thread (maybe due to a preference setting?). Where can I find those Pioneer pictures?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=402397&page=45

We are on p 57 according to my computer screen.

...Similar pix from the Pioneer models this thread is all about can be found on page 45 of this thread...

I'm only showing 29 pages in this thread (maybe due to a preference setting?). Where can I find those Pioneer pictures?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=402397&page=45

We are on p 57 according to my computer screen.

Ahhh... looks like the number of pages is a user setting:

UserControlPanel/Settings&Options/EditOptions/ThreadDisplayOptions/NumberOfPostsToShowPerPage

I set mine back to the ThreadDefault but still not finding the pics around pages 44-46 :(

Hey Bob, how many posts per page do you use?

Ahhh... looks like the number of pages is a user setting:

UserControlPanel/Settings&Options/EditOptions/ThreadDisplayOptions/NumberOfPostsToShowPerPage

I set mine back to the ThreadDefault but still not finding the pics around pages 44-46 :(

Hey Bob, how many posts per page do you use?

No idea.

DK what's going on with your computer sys. Pam's link got me right to the page in question and showed me the pix in question.

I am currently on page 57 answering you, and this page starts with post #1681 and ends with #1709.

Page 56, the completed one before this page, had posts from #1651 to #1680. This is on my laptop, which is the only one I have available right now, as I flew into Baltimore last night for Steve Mock's 710. I'll be finishing it up today - we did the grayscale last night and took some before and afters - and will be doing a Mit 73" for his sister next, then on to the last cal of this trip, then home again a week from yesterday.

Thanks, Pam! Wish your new circs were still allowing me to do your set!


b

The return trip to BWI here has hit a snag, with the original organizer being an accountant and being swamped with work right now, and the alternate organizer has hit car problems which monopolized and severed his funds for the cal work for now.

There are still half a dozen owners in this area who want that trip to happen, and so do I. I recommend that a new organizer step forward promptly, so we can get that cal tour back on track. I have all the data on the owners interested so far, plus flight prices at the time of the last organizer, so contact me and I'll share that info with you. Also if you want in and haven't signed up yet -


b

No idea.

DK what's going on with your computer sys. Pam's link got me right to the page in question and showed me the pix in question.

I am currently on page 57 answering you, and this page starts with post #1681 and ends with #1709.


Thanks, Pam! Wish your new circs were still allowing me to do your set!


b

Here's the link directly to the post:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=13526428&postcount=1325

And Bob, hopefully you will get my way eventually...

Anyone know how to disconnect these cables at the top of the signal bd assembly? I do not see any kind of release but they do not want to come out.

Also, any experience removing this whole signal/video/sub-video bd metal cage assembly?


http://www.microdisk.com/images/510HD/Pro510HD-rear1.png


http://www.microdisk.com/images/510HD/Pro510HD-rear2.png

Anyone know how to disconnect these cables at the top of the signal bd assembly? I do not see any kind of release but they do not want to come out.

Also, any experience removing this whole signal/video/sub-video bd metal cage assembly?


http://www.microdisk.com/images/510HD/Pro510HD-rear1.png


http://www.microdisk.com/images/510HD/Pro510HD-rear2.png

Whenever confronted with pulling this kind of plug out, I always grip as many of the wires as I can before I pull, so that no 1 wire has too much pressure on it. As long as I have a fingerful of them to pull on, and I wiggle them back and forth a bit end to end, they always come out gracefully, just like they do on the PS bd.

Sometimes there's a clip behind what you can see in these pix that you have to release, DK whether these have that or not.

BTW, what is pic'd here is the terminal bd, not the signal bd. The metal plate has to be unscrewed from the bd by many small black Philips screws, and the term board explored as to how it comes out of the motherboard it's mounted to. That's where you usually find the clips I spoke of in the paragraph above.


b

Thanks, Bob.
Yeah, I wasn't certain this was the Signal bd, but that was the closest thing I could find in the (lousy) diagram.

j

Thanks, Bob.
Yeah, I wasn't certain this was the Signal bd, but that was the closest thing I could find in the (lousy) diagram.

j

Why are you pulling the plugs on this board? It rarely if ever has any problems with it, nor with the bd it plugs into. If you have problems with the component jacks, that can be performed without removing this board, nor removing these plug-ins.


b

Someone needs to educate these guys...
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1067572

Just got home tonite from the weeklong Baltimore tour. There were 4 big screens to work on and only 7 days to do them in, so tonite is the first time I have had a chance to breathe a bit and contemplate which pix to send up.

These are the Befores of Steve Mock's Pioneer Elite 710. I will get others up here soon, including the shimming op and Afters -

The most noticeable deficiencies in his display were the optics needing cleaning, the pic was dim and overscanned, and of course the horrendous grayscale. He was nearing the edge on putting up with that pesky overscan, and the shimming op finally gave him the relief he's been looking for.

The purple pix were taken the first night, which was when the grayscale had to be done because of little light isolation in the daytime. The optics cleaning had to be done before the grayscale could be done.

The structure shots were taken the next day, after the grayscale had already been dealt with and restored. You can do the structure with little light iso, but not the grayscale.

Optics dirty

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/9716/22209stevemock710baltim.jpg[/URL]

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/7364/22209stevemock710baltimi.jpg[/URL]

Grayscale horrendous

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/9716/22209stevemock710baltim.jpg[/URL]

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/6295/22209stevemock710baltims.jpg[/URL]

Pic after cleaning and grayscale but before restoring of the original light levels, along with other user settings needing to be way off center to deliver decent fleshtones, but before the rest of the work, where those got recentered

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/9716/22209stevemock710baltim.jpg[/URL]


huge overscan - observe the upper left corner, where the graphics are cut off at the knees. That's just the top, the bottom was the same -

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/9716/22209stevemock710baltim.jpg[/URL]

OOB overscan and uncentered positioning

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/2644/22209stevemock710baltimd.jpg[/URL]

still grossly overscanned OOB, but at least re-centered before taking it in via the shimming op

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/7374/22209stevemock710baltimv.jpg[/URL]

Dim pic at Black Level zero, requiring increasing it way out of spec

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/1153/22209stevemock710baltimq.jpg[/URL]

http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/9716/22209stevemock710baltim.jpg[/URL]


More soon -

b

From another thead -


I've been pondering getting a new plasma to replace my 7-year-old Toshiba 56H80. It still works OK, but the images have degraded over time and have become quite cloudy.

Just before I made the plasma plunge, I decided to give the old set one last try. Removed the screen (really easy -- just two retaining leg screws) and voila!

The lenses were caked with a thick film of dirt, which I wiped clean. The mirror, surprisingly, was fine. Here is a pic of the clean vs. dirty lenses:

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu85/metlc/Toshiba005.jpg

Total time, around an hour and a half. The result? Like brand new. Didn't tell my wife, and when she clicked it on.... "WOW! Don't think we need a new TV now!"

Excellent pic! Looks just like what I find every time I open up a CRT RPTV, after cleaning the first lens.

Be sure you have cleaned your deeper optics - under your lenses, 6 more surfaces - and that you are NOT using any sort of dry method, including just wiping them off with a dry cloth. Those plastic surfaces are DEATHLY sensitive to being scratched/scuffed, and that's permanent damage if your cleaning techniques are wrong. Do NOT use any sort of dry method, and I don't advise using microfibre cloth either, because of its very lame absorbtion quotient.

If your deeper optics on a Tosh have not been cleaned, you're only halfway there. They are just as dirty as the lenses shown here. Your mirror is also dirty, tho it takes special procedures to see it. Shine a strong flashlight - like one of those super bright multi-LEDs - onto it from the side at a steep angle and you'll see what I mean.

Wait till you get your ENTIRE light path crystal clear again!

On a Tosh and many other brands including Pioneers and Hitachis, 10 surfaces need to be cleaned to restore the light path to crystal clear status again. On others, like Mits HDready's, whose coolant covers are sealed correctly, you only need to do 4 of them. In either case, intense care needs to be taken to not do permanent damage to them, once the years - and the static caused by the 30KV of HV inherent in CRT use - have locked that dust, dirt and grit onto those surfaces. ALL lenses in CRT RPTV tech are PLASTIC, not glass. The only glass in there is usually the mirror, and it's a front suface mirror, with the glass on the other side. As such extreme care needs to be taken to not strip it with any cleaning agent that might do so. No ammonia if you intend to do it over and over again over the years - I suggest once a year is minimum - and no solvents of any kind.

But unless it's a mylar mirror - in which case never touch it except to replace it with a glass front/first surface mirror, which will deliver better colors, better blacks and 25% more light level than a mylar - the mirror will need cleaning EVERY time.


b

Same display as from the pix above, sent in earlier. More about the cal itself later -

b

http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/3613/22209stevemock710baltimn.jpg

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/7150/22209stevemock710baltiml.jpg[/URL]

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/9716/22209stevemock710baltim.jpg[/URL]

http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/8270/22209stevemock710baltimp.jpg[/URL]

http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/6200/22209stevemock710baltimo.jpg[/URL]

http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/9716/22209stevemock710baltim.jpg[/URL]

http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/2014/22209stevemock710baltime.jpg[/URL]

Sorry about the slight focussing blurriness on this one and the Lilu pic above; it was camera error, not display error. All After pix are with the display untouched after the calibration. The colorations were very delicate on this one, so I decided to keep it

http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/9716/22209stevemock710baltim.jpg[/URL]

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/8411/22209stevemock710baltimh.jpg[/URL]

2 different exposure settings on cam, display remains the same. Cam's up/downloaded dynamic range nowhere near as good as display's, as evidenced best on the fur hitting white crush in the second pic while the guy's backside is still challenged for shadow detail. The display had no problem with getting all of that right, as the settings on the display never changed yet showed it all when the best parts of both pix are observed.

The camera/computer upload/imageshack hosting/download to this thread - not so much

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/9716/22209stevemock710baltim.jpg[/URL]

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/7374/22209stevemock710baltimv.jpg[/URL]

As I posted in the don't dump your CRT thread, I picked up a PRO-710hd today. I paid very little for it. I have led indicators lit up on the ps and deflection boards.
I still think it's a good deal.
I moved this set with the help of a friend and an all terrain dolly built by me. We were very thankful that we had the dolly, as we traversed several yards down a snow covered walkway! I will post a pic of my six wheeled all terrain television!

An ATTV....I can't wait to see that!!!!

Ladies & Gentlemen,

I give you the all terrain television.http://lh4.ggpht.com/_C3cKytwcI8A/Sav3_1OB_BI/AAAAAAAAAXM/COi62WtLrY4/s720/P1010335.JPG

A new entertainment concept! Congrats on the purchase! I'm still loving my 710!

Dirty/clean Optics and grayscale




http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/9716/22209stevemock710baltim.jpg (http://img19.imageshack.us/my.php?image=22209stevemock710baltimuz7.jpg)
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/7551/22209stevemock710baltimuz7.jpg



http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/7364/22209stevemock710baltimi.jpg[/URL]
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/9716/22209stevemock710baltim.jpg[/URL]



http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/6295/22209stevemock710baltims.jpg[/URL]
http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/9716/22209stevemock710baltim.jpg[/URL]



http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/8144/22209stevemock710baltimc.jpg[/URL]
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/7374/22209stevemock710baltimv.jpg[/URL]



http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/5737/22209stevemock710baltimwv0.jpg[/URL]

This last shot was in the daytime with a skylight way up there and only able to be partially blocked, so the blacks won't be quite as inky as in the previous shots, with the daylight allowing you to see the nice wood cabinetry on this one, which Steve created from scratch BTW. VERY nice woodwork by the owner.

Cam's exposure setting lower than in shot above, at cam, display's settings remained the same. Would have reduced the exposure on the Before shot above to get a match with this one on the exposure, but it was too late by then

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/2879/22209stevemock710baltimat4.jpg[/URL]


b

4 layers of half-inch thick wood, for exactly 2" thickness

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/8501/22209stevemock710baltimsm3.jpg (http://img23.imageshack.us/my.php?image=22209stevemock710baltimsm3.jpg)
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/22209stevemock710baltimsm3.jpg/1/w800.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img23/22209stevemock710baltimsm3.jpg/1/)

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/7650/22209stevemock710baltimwv4.jpg (http://img23.imageshack.us/my.php?image=22209stevemock710baltimwv4.jpg)
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/22209stevemock710baltimwv4.jpg/1/w800.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img23/22209stevemock710baltimwv4.jpg/1/)


You can see 2 blocks on this shot, because the entire array tray is raised so much

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/4782/22209stevemock710baltimpg4.jpg (http://img23.imageshack.us/my.php?image=22209stevemock710baltimpg4.jpg)
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/22209stevemock710baltimpg4.jpg/1/w800.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img23/22209stevemock710baltimpg4.jpg/1/)

Steve's rather unique way of doing the bolts. As Kirk said in Wrath of Khan, about his solution to the unwinnable Kobiashi Maru (?) test at the Academy, "It had the unique virtue of never having been tried..." Observe the MULTIPLE washers at the head of the bolt, since we could not get the bolt to penetrate the set's metal tray beyond just a little bite, even with the hole already there for a smaller bolt thickness that we simply could not lay our hands on in an elongated length. Worked like a charm...


http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/7264/22209stevemock710baltimls9.jpg (http://img23.imageshack.us/my.php?image=22209stevemock710baltimls9.jpg)
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/22209stevemock710baltimls9.jpg/1/w800.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img23/22209stevemock710baltimls9.jpg/1/)

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/7605/22209stevemock710baltimuy1.jpg (http://img23.imageshack.us/my.php?image=22209stevemock710baltimuy1.jpg)
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/22209stevemock710baltimuy1.jpg/1/w800.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img23/22209stevemock710baltimuy1.jpg/1/)

The results


Before (only centering corrected yet)

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/8612/22209stevemock710baltimeu7.jpg (http://img23.imageshack.us/my.php?image=22209stevemock710baltimeu7.jpg)
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/22209stevemock710baltimeu7.jpg/1/w800.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img23/22209stevemock710baltimeu7.jpg/1/)

After

Had to push the image up a bit from center because of a pesky red and blue dot that were visible in the blacks at fully centered vertically.

Top could have been a bit straighter and more parallel to the frame, but the shimming op had taken so long by then I was kind of in a rush and missed it. That wood wall that had to be removed was incredibly hard to get out when thru the front was the only way. He really didn't want to have to take the set out to get to the back of it, and with his considerations on what was back there to have to deal with, I didn't blame him...

Redoing the o'scan this way takes a lot of pressure off the coarse and fine geo/conv circuit, which can happen when reducing it via sm only

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/1112/22209stevemock710baltimps0.jpg (http://img23.imageshack.us/my.php?image=22209stevemock710baltimps0.jpg)
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/22209stevemock710baltimps0.jpg/1/w800.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img23/22209stevemock710baltimps0.jpg/1/)

I am soooo jealous of the work shown! Overscan is the thing that bothers me most (on a daily basis) with my 510, and seeing how much you corrected it is amazing. Damn this economy and my lack of funds to get you down to the OC!!

Gonna have to throw in Fifth Element to compare how bad my dirty optics have gotten, cause honestly apart from dark scenes being a little too dark these days, I haven't noticed a problem with the color. I'm scared!

I am soooo jealous of the work shown! Overscan is the thing that bothers me most (on a daily basis) with my 510, and seeing how much you corrected it is amazing. Damn this economy and my lack of funds to get you down to the OC!!

Gonna have to throw in Fifth Element to compare how bad my dirty optics have gotten, cause honestly apart from dark scenes being a little too dark these days, I haven't noticed a problem with the color. I'm scared!

Yer lucky. OC is cheap, from OAK -

I assure you that as long as your set has not been mistreated or run heavily so that there's an aging footprint, I can deliver the same job for your 510. And you don't sound like the kind of owner who mistreats his toys...

:D

No promises, but with some units I can use the shimming method to reduce it to under 3%! Which is what my Mit 73" is now running at, to my constant wonder every time I turn her on...

Worst case scenario we reduce it via sm only, which I also do all the time. Either way I will recover those lost areas of video real estate for you -


b

I have monitored and made good use of this forum for years now for my PRO-610HD. I have an UNUSED (New or rebuilt-whatever Pioneer is selling) PS board that I got direct from Pioneer. It is Part # AWV1872. It is unused still in foam formed holder and Pioneer box exactly as received from Pioneer. I will be selling this unit OUTRIGHT (no core/core charge as with Pioneer). I thought this would be the place to mention it, as this forum is very specific to this issue. If anyone here is interested, just leave a reply on this forum or email me at mr2986@msn.com. I won't list it for sale for a few months.
Maybe Mr. Bob could even use it...?

So my first step in getting this set operational will be replacing the deflection
assembly board.
Recap: This set is stuck in standby mode and PS board and Deflection board led indicators are on.
The two sources I have found for AWV1809 are Pioneer and Partstore.com.
Partstore has a refurbished board listed. Anybody have experience with this item?
In removing the defl board I looked around inside and I am wondering if this set has had the PS board replaced or worked on at some point. The paper fuse has been replaced and I found a loose fuse in the cabinet like it was dropped.
I don't think it goes anywhere. All fuses are accounted for on the PS board.

It will be awhile until I will be able to get it calibrated, will the set be watchable after I replace the deflection board? What I mean is there anything that will be changed dramatically from when the set was last used?

I also need to source a remote for this set as well.

So my first step in getting this set operational will be replacing the deflection
assembly board.
Recap: This set is stuck in standby mode and PS board and Deflection board led indicators are on.
The two sources I have found for AWV1809 are Pioneer and Partstore.com.
Partstore has a refurbished board listed. Anybody have experience with this item?
In removing the defl board I looked around inside and I am wondering if this set has had the PS board replaced or worked on at some point. The paper fuse has been replaced and I found a loose fuse in the cabinet like it was dropped.
I don't think it goes anywhere. All fuses are accounted for on the PS board.

It will be awhile until I will be able to get it calibrated, will the set be watchable after I replace the deflection board? What I mean is there anything that will be changed dramatically from when the set was last used?

I also need to source a remote for this set as well.

Given the choice, all else - like price - being equal, I would always take the official board, where they have all the means - jigs etc. - to test it and be sure it works properly.

Once replaced the unit should fire up just fine. Don't think I have seen any aberrations of the pic due to changing out this board.


b

Factory instilled OOB overscan. BD graphics lettering - or anything else up there at top of screen that you might want to see - cut off at the knees. Same on bottom, cutting off much of her chin

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/9716/22209stevemock710baltim.jpg[/URL]

After

Overscan redux in action. Not only fully restored lettering, but of several inches of the gray above it as well. Same applies at bottom of screen, restoring the contour of her chin. And all around.

Apply this to sports scores and other graphics your CRT RPTV display is currenty missing and your eyes are starving for, if you've never had it done.

ALL CRT RPTV tech came with overscan as standard equipment, but the original pic can always be restored by someone in the know, again revealing those formerly lost areas of video real estate and at the same time heightening the available to be viewed visible pixel count. And thus heightened, more intense image resolution, both horizontally and vertically

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/9716/22209stevemock710baltim.jpg[/URL]

Before

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/9716/22209stevemock710baltim.jpg[/URL]

After

Just imagine...

Unfortunately, I didn't get an After on this one! The only After on o'scan redux other than Lilu's closeup is the grid, shown before. Maybe next time...

:o


b

After waiting almost too long to do anything about it, you can add another set to the list of units that had problems with cold solder on the PS board.

My unit starting going "brighter/grainer" for a few seconds at a time about two years ago. It usually didn't last long and then would go back to it's regular look. I knew something was going bad but it was years out of warranty and I was envisioning a fortune to fix something that had depreciated to about 10% of it's original value. To make it worse, I hadn't ever seen it in HD before that started happening :mad:
Last January I purchased an over the air HD tuner, stuck an antenna on the roof and Wow.....what a picture. Of course, the beauty was interrupted every once in a while by the "bright" look. Then, around Christmas 2008, while watching HD via the RGB inputs on video 2, the unit suddenly made a loud popping noise and switched itself back to the built in tuner. I switched it back and it continued to work but the same thing happened a few more times over the next two months.
In early February of this year, the unit started losing it's picture and showed sort of a pink screen with curved white lines on it. This too, happened a few times over several weeks. We would turn it off at the main power, let it cool off, then it would work again (I know, I know....we shouldn't have kept pushing it).
Finally, in early March, it popped and turned off. It let us do the cool down trick once or twice and that was it. If you turned it on at the main power switch,the unit would power up and immediately turn off again. The remote power wouldn't do anything and it needed to be turned off at the main power switch to reset it.
Never thinking I would be able to do anything with it I decided to start looking online anyway. It didn't take long to find this thread and I was amazed at the amount of posts about the exact same thing starting back in 2003 I think and continuing on to today. After reading for days, I decided to tak a chance and pulled the power supply board, got out my wore out, 20 year old soldering gun and re-flowed the connections that seemed to be most problematic. When I put the board back in, the unit powered up and worked immediately. Yee haa :D
After running for a couple of hours, the brightness issue showed up again. Hmmmm....now I hadn't added any solder and the guns tip was worn to a fairly large flat shape which was not ideal for this type of soldering. I powered the unit down and picked up a new $7.99 iron at Radio Shack the next day. Once home, I pulled the board again and spent about 2 1/2 hours going over it with a magnifying glass, re-flowing and adding solder as I saw fit. I put the board back in 5 days ago and haven't had any brightness problems. While I had the unit apart, I pulled the front screen and cleaned off the beams (which weren't nearly as bad as some of the pictures posted on this thread). Now it once again looks beautiful.
Thanks to everyone who has posted to this board. The information pointed me directly to the problem and gave me the confidence to try the DIY routine.

John

The key words here that I caught on were "as I saw fit." You can't trust that. What's bad now is bad now, others will be good now but bad later.

The DIY route is good if you do what's ultimately necessary in this situation. You have done what's necessary FOR NOW. More cold solder joints will continue to go out on you as the months progress, each one possibly being the one that will cause shutdown and damage to your other boards downline, from spikes that get generated by bad solder conn's. This could be the death of your set - it rips my heard out every time it goes that far and the owner decides it's just not worth it to put any more $ into it. Those sets die. If you get the PS bd fully stabilized and promptly, NOW, it never has to go that far. The problems will disappear and never reappear again. My resoldering op has saved dozens and dozens - literally tons - of 510/610/710s over the years.

The only REAL solution to this issue has been printed here over and over and over again: you MUST resolder virtually the entire board, NOT JUST WHAT'S BAD NOW. Other joints will go bad later, I guaranty you, and next time you might not be so lucky.

And not using any solder??? That solder was too thin to begin with, that's part of the problem! Whenever I resolder the boards owners here send to me, I use several long pulls on my solder spool before I am done. That board is THIRSTY for adequate amounts of solder. The amount it had OOB was definitely inadequate. I double/triple the amount of solder I find on those boards, when they reach me, before I'm thru.

I know you have read a lot of this thread, but obviously not all of it. If you want to get it done to the level of the rest of the boards in there - completely restored and ready for more years and years of faithful service - you still have some work to do. Or send it to me.

I know you're a dyed in the wool DIYer, so I won't be seeing your board. But you gotta do it right, if you're gonna do it at all. Too much is riding on it. Your set could be totalled if you don't get this done right, and NOW, before using your set for watching video again. DO NOT let it warm up to cruising temp again unless and until that board has been COMPLETELY restored.


b

Hey Bob, thanks for the honest feedback.

As it stands, I feel pretty good about the repair despite not having any experience at it. Would you have done a better job? I'm quite certain you would have. This thread alone says a lot for your experience and passion for these types of repairs and there's no way a DIY'er can expect to be anywhere close on a first (and probably last) repair of this type.

As it stands, I had actually typed up an email to you to get info on sending the board to you for repair. I had measured for a box and was preparing to send it on its merry little way. At the last moment, I canceled the email and decided to give it a whirl. Yes, the first time I did not add any solder (I didn't have any of the right type available), but that was more to see if I had a chance to do it myself or not. Since it wasn't powering on, I figured I couldn't make it too much worse :rolleyes: Anyway, when it powered on after doing that, I figured I'd give it a serious shot so I shut it down and bought the solder gun and solder.

"As I saw fit" is clearly from inexperienced eyes but I hit every point that was connected to a heat sink, every point on all the white wire connectors and then every one that looked thin (and a few that didn't but I was on a roll). Without it in front of me now I can only guess that I re-did about 60% - 70% of the points on the board. I felt wore out at the end of it so if it were to die tomorrow I'd still have to give myself an A for effort.

Anyway, thanks again for the feedback and the contributions you've made on this board. If it goes down again, it'll probably show up at your door.

John

OK

;)


b

Just so you know, 60-70% is still grossly inadequate to what the board needs. And the heat sinks are not what needs it, because they are not directly connected to anything.

Hopefully you will still have 8 lives left next time you have a spurious intermittent event, and that that event will not be the one that takes your set down permanently. Until the soldering's done to the level at which I do it here, that board cannot be trusted not to hurt other boards downline from it in the future. Some DIYers ARE capable of that, but if you're not a fellow professional at soldering circuit boards, you're taking the life of your set in your hands. And they are inexperienced hands.

You are currently sitting back and hoping for the best, but laboring under a false sense of security. The next event could total your set, unless money is no object in your life.

:eek:


b

I have Pro710HD, and when it warms a little me these lines appear, if I place a fan behind, it works correctly, I have changed both STK but equal the lines are seen when it warms. I need help, please :confused::confused::confused:



http://images4.hiboox.com/images/1109/95a6dedbf81fe221eea1998e5c947729.jpg (http://www.hiboox.es/go/imagenes/otros/dsc06021,95a6dedbf81fe221eea1998e5c947729.jpg.html)


http://images4.hiboox.com/images/1109/81905d7415cefcba829410b4acd510ca.jpg (http://www.hiboox.es/go/imagenes/otros/dsc06019,81905d7415cefcba829410b4acd510ca.jpg.html)


http://images4.hiboox.com/images/1109/8c4ee5db330bf6dfb94f9ab1927244ea.jpg (http://www.hiboox.es/go/imagenes/otros/dsc06017,8c4ee5db330bf6dfb94f9ab1927244ea.jpg.html)

Haven't heard of this one before, but if it's susceptible to heat/cold and fan cooled operation vs. non-cooled ops, that makes it a thermal and the bad solder conn's on the PS bd are the most likely suspect. Has your PS bd been resoldered? I expect not, and I also suspect that you have not done very much reading on this thread so far, or you'd know about that already. This is a long thread, so I understand, but info about the thermally related nature of these problems IS there, if you want to do some reading on it, between here and where this thread started.

STOP USING YOUR SET NOW. The next thermally related event it experiences could be the one that takes it down permanently.

Send the PS bd to me, I will resolder it to a professional grade level, restoring stable ops to your set again. My resoldered PS bds do not go out again later. They are restored to the level of all the other boards in there, that never had any problems in the first place. Your set is then ready for the next number of years of looking simply amazing, given the proper care and feeding. See screenshots verifying that, a little farther back in this thread.

Contact me directly and I'll send you the necessary info.


b

Haven't heard of this one before, but if it's susceptible to heat/cold and fan cooled operation vs. non-cooled ops, that makes it a thermal and the bad solder conn's on the PS bd are the most likely suspect. Has your PS bd been resoldered? I expect not, and I also suspect that you have not done very much reading on this thread so far, or you'd know about that already. This is a long thread, so I understand, but info about the thermally related nature of these problems IS there, if you want to do some reading on it, between here and where this thread started.

STOP USING YOUR SET NOW. The next thermally related event it experiences could be the one that takes it down permanently.

Send the PS bd to me, I will resolder it to a professional grade level, restoring stable ops to your set again. My resoldered PS bds do not go out again later. They are restored to the level of all the other boards in there, that never had any problems in the first place. Your set is then ready for the next number of years of looking simply amazing, given the proper care and feeding. See screenshots verifying that, a little farther back in this thread.

Contact me directly and I'll send you the necessary info.


b

My Pioneer has 3 years of use only.
I have the PS board resoldered
The problem is in the CONV AMP board, because I have connected a fan of PC in the badge CONV AMP board, the problem disappears, but when I disconnect the fan to 5 minutes the problem returns.
The CONV AMP board is resoldered too

Tank you

My Pioneer has 3 years of use only.
I have the PS board resoldered
The problem is in the CONV AMP board, because I have connected a fan of PC in the badge CONV AMP board, the problem disappears, but when I disconnect the fan to 5 minutes the problem returns.
The CONV AMP board is resoldered too

Tank you

Was the PS board completely re-soldered? It is absolutely essential that ALL the solder joints be re-worked, and not just some of them. If you are satisfied that the PS board was done correctly, then try the following. If not, send it to Mr. Bob for re-work.

Note these instructions are for a Pioneer 610, but from what I understand, both sets are basically the same.

The issue you are having is definitely heat-related, with possible bad solder joints on either the conv. amp board (where the STK's are) or the digital conv. board, which is located beneath the conv. amp. (both boards are attached to the same heat-sink)

When you replaced the STK chips, did you get them from a reputable electronics dealer? A lot of people try to save money by buying them from Ebay, and these are usually factory rejects, meaning they're junk. Be aware that the original part number chips run hot, there is a cooler-running chip available as an upgrade (I believe it is STK192-180 or STK394-160, it's listed somewhere in this thread)

When you installed the STK chips, did you apply a thin layer of FRESH heat-sink compound between the metal tab of the chip and the heat-sink? Proper heat dissipation is vital for performance.

I would check both boards very carefully for bad solder again, paying close attention to the three (red white blue) connectors at the top of the board, the board interconnector at the bottom, and of course the solder on the STK's themselves. Also de-solder the power resistors on the conv. amp and check to see if they're open or shorted. (I would replace any that look "burnt") If you replace any, they must be the same wattage and value as the originals. A good source of information on convergence repairs can be found here, read the thread thoroughly:

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/diy-repair-maintenance/5600-crt-based-rptv-convergence-repairs.html

It was a good idea to use that fan, at least you localized the area of the problem (IF it isn't the PS board or something else). Good luck.:D

I would add that there are exceptions, that not ALL the PS bd needs to be resoldered, and those exceptions have been listed many times by me on this thread. However, if you don't know electronics enough to know why and don't want to read this thread cover to cover, just resolder EVERYTHING. The one thing you don't solder might be the one thing that gives way next.

And yes the STKs mentioned are the best subs. The 180s are the least expensive of the really good subs - upgrades, I should say - and have proven to be totally reliable. I get mine from Melissa at Union Electronics, out of/around Chicago.

I have never seen cold solder joints on any other board in there except the PS bd, but your symptoms are definitely thermally related, so please heed the advice previously given. It's great advice.

And keep using that fan until you have this one taken care of -

;)

b

I would add that there are exceptions, that not ALL the PS bd needs to be resoldered, and those exceptions have been listed many times by me on this thread. However, if you don't know electronics enough to know why and don't want to read this thread cover to cover, just resolder EVERYTHING. The one thing you don't solder might be the one thing that gives way next.

And yes the STKs mentioned are the best subs. The 180s are the least expensive of the really good subs - upgrades, I should say - and have proven to be totally reliable. I get mine from Melissa at Union Electronics, out of/around Chicago.

I have never seen cold solder joints on any other board in there except the PS bd, but your symptoms are definitely thermally related, so please heed the advice previously given. It's great advice.

And keep using that fan until you have this one taken care of -

;)

b

Dear Bob, the STK that I have put 392-150, and I bought them in a good dealer, fortunately I have re-welded the CONV AMP and the problem has disappeared, it is more I have used with a hairdryer to give him heat to the badge and everything works very well, I have calibrated the CONV and it is kept stable, thanks for your help
You are the best

Dear Bob, the STK that I have put 392-150, and I bought them in a good dealer, fortunately I have re-welded the CONV AMP and the problem has disappeared, it is more I have used with a hairdryer to give him heat to the badge and everything works very well, I have calibrated the CONV and it is kept stable, thanks for your help
You are the best

;)


The 150s work excellently as well. They are not as current as the 180s, but are definitely better than the originals.


b

the STK that I have put 392-150, and I bought them in a good dealer, fortunately I have re-welded the CONV AMP and the problem has disappeared, it is more I have used with a hairdryer to give him heat to the badge and everything works very well, I have calibrated the CONV and it is kept stable, thanks for your help

Good job!:D


I have never seen cold solder joints on any other board in there except the PS bd, but your symptoms are definitely thermally related, so please heed the advice previously given. It's great advice.

Oh yes, they're in there, lurking, waiting for the right moment to mess up your evening....

During my last adventure, found a couple on the conv. amp. One was on the red connector for the conv. yoke, the other was one of the output resistors.

In addition, I always had problems with the split screen and PIP functions - one side would be pink with lines, other side OK. Found the problem by gently flexing one of the boards in the video block (I think it was the sub video assembly). Turns out that one the surface-mount chips is riding on a layer of rosin, not completely soldered to the board (bad wave). I may tackle this one later, but I'll need a micro-tip iron and a 30X microscope to do it - this chip has what looks like 50 leads to a side, at a very, very fine pitch. :D

Good job!:D



Oh yes, they're in there, lurking, waiting for the right moment to mess up your evening....

During my last adventure, found a couple on the conv. amp. One was on the red connector for the conv. yoke, the other was one of the output resistors.

In addition, I always had problems with the split screen and PIP functions - one side would be pink with lines, other side OK. Found the problem by gently flexing one of the boards in the video block (I think it was the sub video assembly). Turns out that one the surface-mount chips is riding on a layer of rosin, not completely soldered to the board (bad wave). I may tackle this one later, but I'll need a micro-tip iron and a 30X microscope to do it - this chip has what looks like 50 leads to a side, at a very, very fine pitch. :D

OMG, SMD issues! This is one that has NOT been reported yet.

Let's hope this remains an isolated incidence. I have taken in dozens and dozens of the PS bds that have been sent to me for the resoldering experience, and aside from those damaged in shipment, all but 1 have gone back and made their sets work properly again. That 1 PS bd was just too damaged by the shippers in too many places, having been sent in too small a box - I had given the owner the opportunity to have me rebox it for an extra fee before I sent it back to him, but he declined - and needed to be replaced. The others all survived, and their sets are probably merrily cranking away as we speak. I gave the owner a partial refund on that one, and if he had insured it for the proper amount - most do, his was the exception that got the attention in the end, he didn't insure it for anything and was stuck with their miniscule default amount - he wouldn't have needed that either.

Luckily your chore will only be to resolder that IC. With a fine tip iron and some magnification I am sure that will go just fine. I use a magnifying hood, along with 1.5x reading glasses, but the hood has an extra set of pop-down lenses, and I could use a set of 3.5x readers instead of the 1.5x's. This allows both my hands to stay in play.

I got it really cheap at MCM, I think it's a Tenma unit. The lenses are good quality optics, all except for the swing-down extra lens, which is just so-so. All the other lenses are optical quality and I use it every time I do a resolder job on the PS bds.

I am confident this is a bump in the road and not something we will see again anytime soon, on these units. A good reason to never flex a board you don't have to flex, or you could trigger something like this!

Sorry your unit came up with it, tho!

:(


b

Last year buys 6 STK 392-180 for Internet in USA but the dealer did not know. Mount a couple, and everything worked even well it does a couple of months when the red and green lines appeared, I thought that there were the STK and bought 150`s here in Spain a known dealer.
I have already solved the problem and there were no STK. But I even have a couple of 180's to mount if they trump them 150's.
I have left the fan of PC mounted on the CONV AMP, that will help to work better to the STK.

Last year buys 6 STK 392-180 for Internet in USA but the dealer did not know. Mount a couple, and everything worked even well it does a couple of months when the red and green lines appeared, I thought that there were the STK and bought 150`s here in Spain a known dealer.
I have already solved the problem and there were no STK. But I even have a couple of 180's to mount if they trump them 150's.
I have left the fan of PC mounted on the CONV AMP, that will help to work better to the STK.

I have seen no evidence to suggest that the 150s would not do the job, but it's good you have those 180s JIC.

Those ICs work very hard in there. I think a fan on them is a very good idea!


;)

What's the weather like in Spain this time of year?


b

I have seen no evidence to suggest that the 150s would not do the job, but it's good you have those 180s JIC.

Those ICs work very hard in there. I think a fan on them is a very good idea!


;)

What's the weather like in Spain this time of year?


b

Beginning spring, I suppose that equal in USA.
1 month ago buy (ATLONA VIDEO SCALER W / HDMI OUTPUT. MODEL: AT-LINE-PRO2) because only it was using the Pioneer to see movies HD, only from HTPC, now I can see TV in PAL and sports in HD
My life has changed jejejejeje

Beginning spring, I suppose that equal in USA.
1 month ago buy (ATLONA VIDEO SCALER W / HDMI OUTPUT. MODEL: AT-LINE-PRO2) because only it was using the Pioneer to see movies HD, only from HTPC, now I can see TV in PAL and sports in HD
My life has changed jejejejeje

Hypnotic, isn't it!

:p

;)

b