Hello to the CRT forum

Ok firstly I would like to say hello to everybody within this forum. From looking at the posts there are a mixture of outright crt guru's down to newbie's like me. I do like reading to the various issues and solutions surrounding PJ's. I have not yet officially entered the crt world as I do not have a fully functional set-up but intend to have one in the not too distant future. I have acquired two barco projectors one a non functional data 600 (could be simple fault) and a working data 800. I have a few probably blindingly obvious question that I'm sure someone can answer.

1. How can you tell how many hours the tubes have had clocked up.

2. What signs exist if the tubes are on the way out.

3. Are there any prone areas on the 800 that I should look for to see If I have a outright royal sea going cockup of a unit or a worthy unit to set up in my home cinema.

These are opening questions but I would like to inspect the units in order to see If I have a pile of pap or decent machine. Any help to a newbie crt owner would be most appreciated.

I think I will be contacting gizlaroc because I have heard he is a specialist for the Norfolk area in crt service and repair.

Good day to all those within this forum.

Cheers

Duff

[acave]

I'll give you one bit of advice. Be careful of those offered for sale on eBay. I purchased a Barco 1209 which one of the members on here was selling. I'm sure bargains are to be had but not in my experience.

I'm now left with a huge doorstop; the projector was sold to me with fluid inside the projector which made its way onto the motherboard circuits. Even if the motherboard is replaced, fluid is STILL leaking from the lens (very few CRT projectors have liquid coupled tubes btw, sods law for me).

I also purchased the projector with excellent tubes.

http://www.davidbowie.com/users/dts/1209_2.jpg

Not the case.

Have a look at this thread. This was the seller stating the condition on here.

Barco 1209/2 iris 2, June 1997

Try not to pay attention to pictures of the tubes as well.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...category=22610

This is the same projector. Notice no mention of the cracked C-Element.

Although the seller had given me some cash back to purchase a used tube, he said that would be the end of the deal.

I feel he knew the projector had problems and wanted shot of it.

The only reply he could manage when told the projector was rubber ducked was pasting my email back when I agreed to take the cash for the tube.

I just hope you have better luck. I'll buy my next CRT (as I should have this one) from a dealer like Roland at B4 Projection.

I got carried away with the word “Bargain” on this 1209.

[cosmic023]

Hi diy_duffer,

First off, welcome to the forums.

If you wanna check the hours on the d800, go into the service mode and there should be an option "run time" or something to that effect.

I'm still learning the ropes of CRT front projection, but it's an amazing hobby, and there is so much to learn to keep this beasts up & running nicely.

I'd second acave coments, and give Roland@B4 a call. I know he's a very busy person, but he's very knowledgeable about Barco CRT's. I bought my BD801s from him, and it's a great machine and i'm still learning on how to get the best out of it.

http://www.b4projection.co.uk/

Cheers

Cosmic023

Many thanks cosmic023 & acave I wish to thank you for your reply. Is there anything I can inspect to assess the state of this unit? What is a C-Element? etc

I may have a piece of junk or I may have a decent unit. I think my best thing to do is maybe to let crtprojectors.co.uk have a look at it and give me the verdict.

I just wanted a little technical knowledge to inspect the unit so as not to cry myself to sleep tonight . I'm an engineer so any technical help would be much appreciated. How would one know if the tubes are junk?

The unit will sit on my workbench until I have inspected it for foreign bodies and cobwebs.

Cheers

Duff

[cosmic023]

Hi diy_duffer,

Well i think these unit's are built like tanks, so can take a fair bit of abuse.

From what i've seen the tubes are the most expensive part in the PJ, so screen burn , this link will help you to see what the state of the tubes are in ??

Again Roland or Gordon, are your best bets for more advice on theses PJ's. (Well unless anyone else knows ??)

Again having a PJ with pefrect tubes, with very little or no burn on the tube face is ideal. Then if you set the PJ up, and use it properly, it should last for many years.

Cheers

Cosmic023

[gizlaroc]

Originally posted by diy_duffer
I think I will be contacting gizlaroc because I have heard he is a specialist for the Norfolk area in crt service and repair.

That will make a few people chuckle!!


I have just had a couple of CRT's myself mate, no more than that.

But I am more than willing to meet up and share what little knowledge I have with you, I do like to do everything myself and learn what does what and why, when it comes to convergence, astig, focus etc.
This is definitely the way to go with CRT imho, leave fault finding to the pros and pay them if you dont feel like putting your hand near 30,000 volts to get your image totally dialled in.

If you want to shoot me a PM with details of where you are then mabe we can have a look at your crt and see about getting it up and running.

regards

Guy

The hint I dropped for gizlaroc may have paid off , from the amount of posts you have then there is a damn site more knowledge on your side than mine.

I will continue to traul through the data 800 posts in the hope of gleaming some knowledge on the subject.

The saga continues.

Cheers

Duff

[cosmic023]

diy_duffer:

When you search, There's plenty of info to be had on this site.

But you could always do a search on the AVS forums (US Site)

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/

Or the archive of older posts, still plenty on info on there as well.

http://archive.avsforum.com/avs-vb/index.php?

Plenty of reading for you now......

Cheers 4 now

Cosmic023

Cheers Cosmic I will have a gander and mull it over. gizlaroc is giving me ahand with some technical matters as well.

.Duff

[Paul D]

acave

Not to start an argument or get involved in your dispute with Simon.
I viewed the 1209 Simon Finch had, and at least at the time i saw it, it was stunning.
Simon opened the case to show me how spotless the inners were, and there was no sign of any leakage.

Simon had asked me to visit, to help set it up.
He didn't want a professional install booked, until it was checked out as at least functioning properly.
Although i was feeling like sh*t on the day, we still managed to get a great image using my laptop and Theatertek.

After seeing how sharp i managed to get the convergence grid with very little effort, i began to feel green with envy!

Simon was in two minds whether to stick with his easy to use NEC HT1000 DLP or get the 1209 installed.

We did find out that his HT1000 was poorly adjusted, and after a quick twiddle managed to get a much better image. I'm not sure if this then made his mind up to sell the 1209.

This is not to say that the image from the HT1000 was better. Rather that he mentioned he was happy with the HT1000 and the extra cash from selling the 1209 could go towards other things.

If i hadn't just bought my S3 DLP, i would have snatched his hand off for what he was selling it for. I had been expecting to pay nearer £7-10,000 for a mint 1209s, so felt gutted one coming up so cheap.

I only know Simon via these forums. And through these forums i have met him at the Manchester show and when i visited his house. He was great company and came across as very genuine, upfront and honest.
At no time did i get the impression from Simon that anything untowards was going on.

So i'm a little shocked at what's happened, and i'm sorry to hear that you have had problems with it. I hope with some "TLC" and help from these forums it can be fixed without to much extra cost.

[Roland @ B4]

Acave's projector is a sad story.
I went to do the installation of this projector earlier this week but could not complete it due to the issues that I was confronted with.
The green tube was quite badly warn and needed replacing This is common in ex simulation machines and from my experience of the 1209 chassis in general.
(Looking at the number of tubes I have bought / replaced over the years the green out numbers the blue.) However it was evenly worn as his picture shows, so it is not surprising that Fulabeer was able to get a good picture from it. (There is a lot of debate and fear over tube wear before the picture is examined)
With the lenses off however a new gremlin appeared. The C element ( thats the curved lens on the back of liquid coupled tubes) on the blue tube was cracked and had been repaired with a hard setting resin of some kind! Quite how this got broken we can only speculate but my suspicion is that some one did something up too tight. Unfortunately the cooling fluid was still oozing out and causing a small river down into the projector. (The 1209/2 holds about 1.5 Litres of this stuff which is a glycol type liquid) Whilst the projector is sitting on the deck no problems will occur for a while because the fluid will just accumulate in the base of the projector.
However in moving the projector around and getting it into his room Acave had to turn the machine on its side and the sticky stuff must have made its way around the projector then.
He had already told me that the power supply went pop when he powered it up so armed with a spare I looked around for blown fuses and could find none on the Power supply, but on the mains input one of the slow blow fuses had gone. Quick replacement and all was thought to be well.
Bare in mind I hadn’t seen the leaking fluid or botched lens at this stage.
I’m quite used to projectors going “pop”. This one went “BANG”.
Closer inspection revealed the lens fluid running a little track down the motherboard. I cleaned it up with alcohol and dried that out with a hair drier but the fluid was under one of the multipin connectors, which means the motherboard has to come out and probably be replaced. This is the one board on a Barco projector that is not modular and requires a whole heap of work to replace.
Acave and I are still talking about what we are going to do.
P.S. I don't believe that Simon knew about the fluid, he seemed a really genuine block when I spoke to him on the phone. This is just a really bad luck story

Sorry If I knocked up a hornets nest here it sounds like a bad luck scenario. Hopefully the PJ I bought does not have any BANG incidents although it does look as though it has been through a lot of hard times. The case is a little cracked (although maybe I could get another from someone with 800 spares). So if the case is anything to go by I may just have bought a giant piece of weightlifting equipment. Although not built like geoff capes there would probably be more chance of him being able to fix it then me should it be a duffer .

Are 800 spares few and far between or have I got a servicable model. I'm an electrical engineer by trade but from looking inside I would need to be a fine electronics engineer to tackle any small repairs.

Regards

Duff

[gizlaroc]

diy_duffer the Barco units have wonderful design in that you can swap out alot of the internal boards with new ones if you have problems.
Roland always has a good supply and can probaly diagnose most faults over the phone if you ever have a problem.



Acave, really sorry about the 1209 mate, bet you are gutted.
and there was me worrying about the tubes on my NEC XG as there is slight wear when you get them in the right angle.
So what are you going to do ??

[cosmic023]

Yep shame about Acave's 1209, i'd still love an 1209......still adore my BD801s, but then i'd like a better PJ for HD sources in a few years when HD becomes more mainstream.

Just goes to show it's better Buying stuff of quality people like Roland@B4, at least you get a quality PJ at a reasonable price. (with tech, help to boot)

I suppose that's the risk you take buying off ebay (or elsewhere for that matter), unless you can see it in person.

Just hope Acave gets a result soon.......

Cheers

Cosmic023

[Paul D]

acave

From what i saw before it went bang on you, the PJ seemed calibrate without any issues.
I was able to get straight geometry/convergence/focus without much messing about.(i can only imagine what Roland can do with them!)
With this in mind, and assuming the motherboard damage hasn't ruined it. I would think it would still be well worth getting Roland to replace the green tube/motherboard and fully calibrate it.
If funds allow, i would see about getting the "C" elements fitted.


I've been having a final bit of fun with my Barcodata 808s(ex B4 projection) today.
I've been doing a nutter calibration in preparation for selling.
I've experimenting with different contrast/saturation/brightness settings etc, and i've been surprised how good the image turned out.
The problem is a keep watching scenes instead of getting on with it!