Pioneer Elite Pro-510 problem - Page 56

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!



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

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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 TV ELECTROCUTEY

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



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
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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...

I went ahead and ordered 2 Sanny 180s so we'll see what happens.. If I have to get a d-board however , 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?

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.


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


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.


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



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


b

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.


"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!



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
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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
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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.

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

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

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