Convergence/Focus problems with Epson 5020/6020 PJs SOLVED.

I discovered something about the problem with inverting some 5020/6020s. Some people have reported problems, which may not have been problems in some cases.

When you adjust the pixel convergence, you tell the red pixels to go up. (For instance.) When you invert the screen, up becomes down. However, the pixel alignment is still telling the red pixels to go up. Except that Up is now down, so the alignment adjustment is now telling the pixels to go exactly the wrong direction. So instead of aligning the pixels, the adjustment you had is un-aligning the pixels. Am I making sense? I tested this by not moving the projector, but changed the projection setting back to "Front" from "Front/Ceiling". Sure enough the pixels went out of alignment.

So, if you test a 50020/6020 on a bench before you ceiling mount it, and if you enable "LCD Alignment" while testing on that bench, and then you ceiling mount it, it's going to look like something moved inside because the convergence will now be horrible. The solution is to "reset" the LCD Alignment and start over.

This will also appear to affect focus, as the extreme mis-convergence will effectively expand each pixel, just as if it were out of focus.

Hopefully this information will help some people. I've posted this in multiple places, because I feel it's important for people to know.

Sorry about the title. I meant to say "INVERTED Convergence/Focus problems with Epson 5020/6020 PJs SOLVED.", and now I can't edit it.
Edited by Kirnak - 1/26/13 at 5:04pm

Agreed. Actually though, I do recomend people completely test their Epson prior to mounting it, including a basic LCD Alignment if needed. The odds are too great that you might need a replacement not too.

I went through six units beore I fianlly got one that was decent. the convergence was still about a half pixel off. However, that amount adjusted out without causing anu white field problems, so I'm happy. Flare isn't too bad, and is not visible at my seating distance. (1.2 x screen width.) I'll be forwarding the poll on 5020/6020 quality to Epson shortly. I wanted to get enough responses to make an impact first.

What's interesting to me after testing so many 5020/6020s is some of the varience. Some of them had white field uniformity issues after doing a pixel alignment, some did not. it seems the more flare the lens has combined with mis-convergence causes that issue. Also, pretty big variance in output. My latest one, a good one, is MUCH brighter in THX ECO than the others. 700 lumens compared to 550 on my others. This one also has 2500 lumens in Dynamic Normal after a very basic calibration. (Just enough to make it a good enough picture for sports.)

You know, I had three Epsons before this. None of them had a visible convergence error and all three had a better lens than this 6020. (Less flare, better focus.) Rather than use the LCD alignment feature as a nice upgrade, I think they've used it as an excuse to reduce quality control. If it weren't for the fact that I want the "torch" ability of Epson's dynamic mode for sports, I would have returned this Epson rather than hassling with six exchanges. I bought my 5020 on Cyber Monday, and I just yesterday got a good PJ. On the plus side, Epson's Customer Service was outstanding, and they upgraded me because of all the hassles I went through.