rajdude's Ampro 4200 setup and troubleshooting threads - Page 2

That's a bit silly, the 7812 that regulates power for the PSU fan doesn't do any other work, it will not mind an extra 200mA.

Your PSU is not overloaded, but it's not being ventilated very well, so a better fan and more holes are a good idea.


Don't worry, it's not all that bad, most connectors are impossible to plug in wrong (unless you try) and all you need to do is to go over every connection twice before turning it on again.


You don't have to be that careful, if you have ever worked with a PC you know all you need to, don't use any violence and be careful with the tubes and you will do fine.

Remember: These machines are built to be taken apart a lot



Please don't to make the holes you really need to manhandle the chassis, so leaving any electronics or the tubes in the there is a bad idea.



Yes, this is what I did (for each tube):
1) Remove lenses (the 3 hex bolts)
2) Remove all connections to tube/neck including the neckboard.
3) Unscrew the long bolts that are used to lock the tube for toe-in.
4) Unscrew the top and bottom pivot bolts.
5) Carefully pull the tube out the front, taking care not to hit anything with the the neck.

6) Open the top plate that covers the expansion bellows.
7) Let rubber soak in bleach and scrub with a plastic brush.
8) Discard glycol.

9) Unmount c-element (remove screws and push on the inside of the element though the fill-hole), put it in soapy water and carefully wash it using nothing but your rubber gloves.

10) Put the tube on the edge of your sink and rinse/wash the inside of the champer and the tube-surface with a plastic brush and warm soapy water.

11) Once all three pieces are absolutely spotless rinse each in demineralized water.

12) Mount the c-element.

13) Fill chamber with bleach and let it soak for a while.

14) Rinse chamber a couple of times with demi-water.

15) Fill with glycol.

16) Mount bellows (I had to use some drops of glue to keep it aligned while mounting the plate).

17) Reverse the mounting procedure and repeat for the rest of the tubes.

The cleaning of the LC chamber takes lots of water and detergents that you don't want anywhere near electionics.

You need to clean the insides of the chamber , changing the glycol is not enough.



Forget about it, there is no chaulking or cutting involved, the Ampros use a different scheimpflug system than the normal HD10 setup, on the Ampro the LC champer is fixed to the tube and the rest of the optics is flapping around.

On normal HD10 systems the LC chamber is deformed to provide scheimpflug.

Like Dion said, changing the fluid is pretty easy. You don't need to take the tubes out:

- Just take the lenses off.
- Take top plate off top of each Liquid Coupled tank.
- Siphon out old fluid until it is below the bottom edge of the C element face.
- Unbolt C element to gain access to tube face. The screws can be very tight. Use a proper fitting allen wrench and go slowly so you don't strip the heads.
- Clean everything multiple times and re-assemble. I only clean the C element with soap and water by hand. I use a soft "t" shirt to dry. Be careful, the C elements are easy to scuff and scratch.

I get my fluid from:

http://www.mcmelectronics.com

Do a search for crt coolant 20-4275. It takes a 16 oz can per tube.

Attached is a picture of my 4200 when I recently changed the fluid. The tubes were like new when I got it, and 5 years of heavy use later, they still look like new.

Ray

The C-element is a part of the complete optical package, so for all HD10 optics you will have the same shape of C-element.

For the HD10 optics there are 3 different colors of C-element: Clear, Red and Green.

I can't really tell if there was much difference in adding the red c-element and the green one had to be changed because it was cooked.

HD10 optics are used for many different 8" and 9" tubes.

The bleach is for killing whatever might be living in the glycol, it's what the decontamination procedure from Ampro calls for.

demi-water is just water whith the minerals removed, distilled water is even cleaner, it's cheaper than distilled water though, but for this use either will do.

The 9" tubes might be different, but the 9" HD-10 lenses and their c-elements are the same.



My understanding is that there are actually 2 shades of Green c-elements... the original Sony G90 green, and the darker Marquee HD10 green. I'm replacing my G90 green with the deeper shade Marquee HD10 green... it's supposed to help the resulting colorimetry track closer to reference.

Yep, that's true, my old 4200 green element was a tad darker than the new one I got, I don't know that PJ it came out of though.

Yes, you will need to redo all of the electronic setup, including convergence, for each mode you want to use.

The best solution is to use the actual source for the setup as there are other important parameters than the resolution (hsync, vsync, front/backporch and v blanking period).

R-

Glad that it was something simple....

enjoy

I'd sahy do 720p or 1080i first and get those dialed in. 1080p will be harder to get dialed. With 720p and 1080i you should be able to get visible scanlines at a few inches from the screen no problem. Once you have a feel for the Ampro, and a couple of setups done, the go for 1080p.

Also wait it you get the fans upgraded and the glycol changed before putting the time to get 1080p setup in.

Also given the HTPC is really and external pattern generator for you, skip the "guided" setup in the help menu and just follow the steps in the Service Manual. I find the "guided" setup a PITA and you are stuck with the genlocked internal test patterns for everything but the phase, blanking, and size.

good luck

--
NIck

Sync tip clamp is generally used for four or five wire input. (RGBHV)

Back porch clamp is generally used with sync on green or three wire input.

If the picture turns real green when in sync tip clamp mode, switch to back porch.

It handled 1680x1050 fine from my laptop... that's the closest resolution my laptop had to 1080p.

Are you sure that your video card has been enabled for max res? Usually the default max is something like 1280x1024 and any res above that will clip the extra pixels or give a scrolling desktop when you mouse over to that side.

What video card are you using?

If the card is displaying a resolution properly on a monitor then the 4200 should be able to handle it too.

Alot of monitors have an on screen display that will tell the horizontal and vertical sync frequencies. It might help to check what those resolutions are running at. The projector should tell the same story by entering 36 and code on the remote control. Check and see what your 30 code says when it's not displaying a picture.

Congrats, Rajiv. I'll have to come see it soon.

Did you replace the glycol? In all tubes or just the worst one(s)?
Did you replace the c-element(s) or just clean them?
What resolution did you end up at? What sources? What screen and size?
Did you build the unistrut ceiling mount?