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Ampro 2000 on ebay

421 Views 4 Replies 4 Participants Last post by Laser117, Dec 18, 2005

WhiteRabt

Discussion Starter · Dec 17, 2005

There's a cheap Ampro 200 on ebay, item number 5841518129.

Is this a good unit? Is there anything I should know before I bid?

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Curt Palme

· #2 · Dec 17, 2005

Funny, I read it, and I am thinking HEY, THAT &^%*&% STOLE MY TEXT!

And yes he did, I gave him permission to..

I sold that set last year and it was in good shape at the time. I can't see the current owner having run it into the ground in a year, but I have no idea how it was used in that time.

www.curtpalme.com has an FAQ that tells you the pros and cons of various models incl the AmpRo.

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Laser117

· #3 · Dec 18, 2005

I have one I bought last November. They can throw a heck of a picture, but not the brightest picture in the world. My picture quality more than doubled when I blacked out my room. I still have to converge mine before every movie...has always been like that...replacing 4 different boards didn't fix it. Ampros are notorious for drifting, I don't know if I have one worse than normal or what.

People keep trying to blame back mechanical setup, etc...but I'm 99% sure it's not that. I'm thinking I have some capacitors somewhere that aren't up to snuff...maybe on the main board. These things are 10 years old, so capacitors can, do, and will fail.

Parts are/can be expensive for them unless you core swap with a crt person here, like Curt, etc. But, really...what parts on a crt are cheap? I've seen the remotes go for $250 bucks, same with the power supplies.

Power supplies are a known weak spot with Ampros. There are running jokes around here about their reliability. Mine was down more than up until I replaced mine. Not every projector is the same, some are fine, some aren't. If the guy is dumping it, it's prolly cuz he's upgrading, or is tired of drift.

Curt's got plenty of parts for those, or so he says, so I'd email him. It might be cheaper in the long run to buy from a reseller, at least you get support and parts that way....and after you factor in shipping and risk...at least you know it's been tested by a pro if you buy from a reseller.

Resellers answer questions much quicker and in a much nicer tone of voice if you are THEIR customer. Nobody likes a free loader. If support isn't important to ya, go for cheap. I felt the piece of mind and risk protection was worth an extra couple of hundred. Factor it in long term, and it's not so bad.

Oh, and you will need a transcoder unless you have a HTPC.

Just my two cents.

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MikeReilly

· #4 · Dec 18, 2005

Mine keeps acceptable convergence for quite some time. It's usually off when freshly powered up and cold but gets better as it warms up - I set it when warm only. I could adjust it more often, however unless the pic is noticeably off I usually just watch. HPVS can be a concern - I'm tempted to buy a parts PJ to back it up. On mine the only real problem is that I should probably get another neck card - the red is streaky. If that one weren't so far away I'd be looking at it myself.

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Laser117

· #5 · Dec 18, 2005

I only converge after at least 30 minutes, sometimes more. The convergence gets better, but never perfect, the longer I leave it on. I had converged it tonight after warming up, and before we watched the second movie, I had to touch it up again. That's at least 1.5 freaking hours before it got stable. And no, if I leave it on that long without converging, it doesn't fix itself..it will get close, but the key or the bottom lin will be off every time....not to mention the shift of both blue and red...it's never much, but enough to have to touch up...some days it's really bad....some days it's not.

And it never drifts in the same direction...so go figure. Turning it on an hour before hand is not very manageable in most situations.

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