Don't dump your CRT RPTV! - Page 357

Sorry for the confusion, I did a typo in the above post and meant to say to change out both ICs and the picos as well. It has been changed now to correctness in that post.

Except that if it's the 393, then yes there's only 1 IC, not 2. All 6 channels are handled by the one chip, whereas usually 2 are needed, at 3 channels each.

I would get your IC ONLY from a reputable source, like MCM, Union Electronics, East Coast, etc. Far too much work goes into changing them out to trust cheap knockoffs or factory seconds, which is where the lowered price tag comes from.

If you want to do this right, don't try to separate the boards just to get to the one in question. Remove the entire light box and set it up on end, to work on the ICs, leaving the boards where they are relative to each other, and fully connected up to each other. There are a few inline connectors you'll have to disco, and 4 bolts and 4 flathead screws. The screws are up above, the bolts are down below, on the sides of the lightbox. Then once the inlines are separated from each other, the entire lightbox slides out of the back so you have access from all angles.

That allows you to not have to disco anything critical - connections that may be missed when you put things back together again, potentially causing damage if they are not connected back properly or are left simply disco'd. Some circuits, esp. HV feedback circuits, freak out and go into runaway - very possibly causing instantaneous damage - if left unloaded.

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Well I really was not off the hook simply because I had not bought the car yet. I will buy the car now that I have damaged it, there's a reasonable price tag on it. Can't give it back to the owner like that when it happened on my watch. Yes she was taking a chance having someone drive it and keep possession of it while the water pump was in bad shape and leaking coolant. But I knew that going in. It happened on my watch, I'll take care of it one way or the other.

It still runs very well, has plenty of power even tho the compression stats are now significantly compromised, so I am going to see if that leaking like a sieve is just a blown hose or 2, in which case I would go ahead and drive it till it can't be driven anymore. I'll be taking it down to my local mechanic today. The Saab guy across the bay says no money should be put into it, just off it, but it runs so well even compromised, I gotta try something!

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Nep, haven't had a vacation in years. Have had a few business trips/calibration tours, but no vacations yet! I long for the days when I could get away for a week in Hawaii simply because I did a favor for someone who owned a condo and had a vacancy! That happened about 15 years ago...9 days in the sun, rent free!

No, am looking forward to that next plane ticket that gets sent to me, so I can come down and trick out a few sets!



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Stoke up the grill, have a little Woodford Reserve ready -



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I would still opt to go with official Sanyo parts, if you're gonna do it at all. The substitute MCM part pictured is a very generic pic and is not even that IC, as the 393 has 2 rows of legs, not just one. The difference in cost will only be a couple of bucks, 25 at the most, which is all you're saving by going cheap. Would you leave out changing out your throwout bearing if you were doing a full blown clutch job, just because it is still operating correctly at the time of the repair? Not done among professionals, they always change out the throwout bearing as a matter of course, working correctly or not. Too much time and energy to go back in a month or 2 later. Same argument here.

Find one elsewhere. Stick with Sanyo.

Junk under lenses - it is being magnified by the lenses. If not looking really huge in there, I would not disturb the seal between the lens and the coolant cover. Many ways to have something really seemingly innocuous like that come back and bite you on the butt later.

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Pioneer used tape at the bottom of the 2 layer viewscreen sandwich to keep it together down there, that gets gooey later on in life. To get that viewscreen off the set you have to pull upwards steadily on it with steady strong pressure till it gives. It may take a full minute before it breaks free.

Be sure and keep something between your hands and that plastic, which absorbs residues like crazy. I recommend either linen gloves or small hand towels.

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Yeah, that's cute!

With that much thickness of gook on there, I usually actually draw a happy face on it with my wet finger - always licking my finger first, never do it dry - to show the owner exactly how dirty that lens really is.

You'll love knowing that the deeper optics contain lenses that are just as dirty, so on a Pioneer CRT RPTV, the deeper optics cleaning is critically essential, as well as the regular optics. On a Pioneer Elite or non-Elite, 10 of the 28 surfaces in there need it critically by your set's age. The cleaning should be done every year without fail, and you're a little behind...

But that just means the difference you will wind up with in your viewing, in your set's case, will not be subtle. It will be dynamic, when you're done. The bleariness will be gone and the transparency and true inky blacks CRT is famous for will now be restored to your video content, once the grayscale has been optimised and the Black Level realignment for restored sensitivity has been done on your set. Esp. when you're viewing under ideal circumstances - with your viewing environment identical to that of the movie theater out there in the mall. Almost black but with some ambient lighting, to be kind to your eyes' irises.

And as far as getting info from the net on this, you know my stance: it's just as easy to get bad info from the net as good info. I have even seen microfibre towels recommended by Mr Bob on the net. And if you know anything about me from my over 10 years just on this one site - AVS Forum - you know I would NEVER recommend microfibre towels in this app!

My recommendation is to stick with the tried and true, especially about your irreplaceable optics. I have been coaching owners on the correct way to constently clean their optics over the years - and always safely, with no damage, ever - for the last 20 years. Having me do it for you on location is of course the best, but my phone coaching is also 100% effective with you on the other end of the line doing the actual work. With professional grade guidance from me on the other end of the phone every step of the way, the look of new will be restored to your set.

And it's not expensive at all, to have me on the line for these highly critical ops on your CRT based big screen, regardless of brand or model.

The optics cleaning is just the start of what can be done on your end, with me on the phone keeping you on the straight and narrow. It usually takes about an hour, stem to stern. One owner started there and then went on to spend a total of 4 hours with me on the phone doing various ops together before he was thru, and was so impressed with the results that when I was close by to his location on a calibration tour in Texas, he had me come over and finish the job as well.

You only get one shot at doing it right each time you do it. One false move and it's permanent damage to your optics. Contact me and get it done right.

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No absorbency. Leaves residues and swirls. Does not pick the glop up off the lenses, leaves it there to dry.

Any dry method will also scratch or scuff soft vulnerable plastic lenses used in CRT RPTV tech. Which would apply to microfibre too, but not just microfibre on that one.

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The spark you mentioned in your thread can easily be handled by properly re-insulating the HV leak in your system with silicon caulking applied nice and thick, which sets up flexible once thoroughly cured. Curing takes 24 hours min, and you must not operate it for more than a few seconds - for testing only - till cured properly.

In a 65", you have size most of the fixed pixel crowd can only dream of. That's why you see so many 47" fixed pixel sets out there. The bigger ones are just not affordable to most people. Yours is free, and evidently perfectly operational aside from the HV arc. All you have to do is get the touch of the master's hand on it, so it can truly perform the magic it was intended for. Believe me, that does not happen out of the box.

If you want to see what can happen with such attention, contact Superleo and ask if you can come over and visit him to see what Mr Bob could do for your set. He's in SA. We worked together on his Hitachi a few years ago during one of my tours in his area, and I am sure you'll be blown away by his picture.

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Can't remember the model you have, but sounds like the DTV input has somehow been reassigned away from component and onto RGB instead. That would explain your results anyway -

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I have used such a brush and it does about the best job possible for a mylar mirror. The best way to upgrade is to a glass, front surface mirror, check the last few pages and I believe Taichi4 has provided us with the current source for such mirrors. A mylar will only do so much fidelity and won't get any cleaner than a certain amount, and attempts to get it cleaner will usually scratch it.

I will be getting one to replace my mirror soon, I tried the one I had made for it years ago on an owner's 73905 recently and it was a huge and very effective upgrade. I will have the time for its procurement and installation soon, my total thanks to Taichi4!



But for now, a fine clean brush will probably be your best bet.

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This is what happens when your set cannot sync up to the signal properly. It is usually caused by the signal being sent out in 1080p to a 1080i-max set.

Most bluray players these days are designed for the newest of the new displays, meaning they default their Auto output settings to send out 1080p. 1080p was not prevalent when our sets were designed and will not work with our CRT sets, which need 1080i to look their best. The difference between 1080i and 1080p is nominal at best and takes the likes of an overhead projector to see the difference, and would make no relevant difference in our viewing of today's HD, whether from HD discs or broadcast. Be that as it may, 1080i is the max our sets can take in and properly display.

The cure is to set your bluray or HD-DVD player to go up to, but no higher than, 1080i. You may need to send out an S video or composite signal to do this - to one of the analog inputs on your display, to be able to see the menu for this setup on your disc player and alter it.


BTW, the bleariness in this pic - the grayness in what should be crystal clear blacks and the huge glow around the bright spot in the middle - shows that your set is in dire need of optics cleaning. Contact me directly if you want to get it done right.

Don't be a cowboy out there, guys, on this optics cleaning operation especially. Damage to your optics from the wrong methods and/or materials is instant and permanent. And irreversible.


Splatee -

My suggestion is to honor the fact that you got this $10,000 set for virtually nothing and use that spared cash to get it taken care of properly, maybe by a highly experienced fellow owner who would be glad to come on location for it?



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