24" Widescreen CRT (FW900) From Ebay arrived,Comments.

damn, that is an interesting mix of good and bad news. Thanks for taking the hit. Is this for your diamondtron? If your red tint issue is caused by what you thought it was (the RGB amplifier), will one working IC fix it? And just to be clear, an IC is an integrated circuit, and the RGB amplifier itself is an IC right?
That's a Trinitron 21", a Sun GDM-5410. And yes, the RGB amplifier is an integrated circuit, Hitachi FA4301, it's the same as on the FW900.

To remind the issue accurately, that screen first lost the red color because of 2 dead components on the red output (D107 and R114). Once I replaced them, I got the red back online but it was bleeding and too powerful.
If you take a reading between the power input pin (80V) and a color output of the amplifier (with the integrated circuit desoldered from the board), it should behave like a diode with very close voltage drops on each output. In the case of this IC, the current can go both ways between the red output and the power input, it's defective. Replacing it fixes the problem.

Nice box by the way, it looks so much like a device from the 60-70s, I love it !
 
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thanks for the clarification. And yea, this thing was built in the mid 70's! When they were inspecting it at the xray machine, some senior TSA agent walked over and was absolutely fixated on it - he told me he hadn't seen something like that for years - it was like he was transported back to his youth.
 
Hey, long time lurker from Poland here.

Anyway, I'm selling my FW900. It's a unit from the first batch(oct 2000) and it's 100% functional. Could use some windas/focal point adjustment which I've never gotten to though. The coating is intact and the only visible scratch requires a bright static image to be seen.

So any polish and german people as well since I live near the border(150km from Berlin) are welcome to PM me.


Got a Mitsu DP2070sb as well.



EDIT: I've changed my mind and decided not to sell them yet. Feel free to PM me with offers though.
 

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You need WinDAS and a usb - ttl cable. If you have a colorimeter you can follow the white point balance guide, and if you don't, you can use the technique in this video to manipulate the variables directly, though you'll have to figure out which variables to change and to what values.

Also, have you tried an image restoration?
Thanks! The colors seem very accurate, just lacking brightness on higher resolution.

Image restoration? How hard is that?
 
Thanks! The colors seem very accurate, just lacking brightness on higher resolution.

Image restoration? How hard is that?

Actually, I just looked through the W900 manual, and unlike the FW900, it appears that the W900 doesn't have an image restoration feature. In the FW900 it's in the color menu in the OSD. Looks like your best bet is WinDAS and a colorimeter.
 
Does anyone with the vcom adapter (the 235mhz pixel clock capable) did something special in order to get it working past 165mhz? I bought a chinese dp-vga that looks rather similar but It refuses to go past 170mhz. Overall pretty good product for 4€, better dac than the one found on my gpu and no input lag (at least I dont percieve any)
 
Does anyone with the vcom adapter (the 235mhz pixel clock capable) did something special in order to get it working past 165mhz? I bought a chinese dp-vga that looks rather similar but It refuses to go past 170mhz. Overall pretty good product for 4€, better dac than the one found on my gpu and no input lag (at least I dont percieve any)

I think VCOM is one of the only adapters that can go over 170.
 
Update on the G70. The DC board with the boards I got doesn't work properly. But at least the set turns on now! :D

It's no big loss. I only paid shipping cost for the boards and I was able to get a whole other lot of G70 boards in addition.

I ended up getting a Yamaha DLP projector. It's not as punchy as the CRT (5000:1 contrast vs 30,000:1), but it's a very nice machine. You can adjust the primary color points and secondary color points as well (its Color Management System is awesome and most importantly - it WORKS!!). I haven't calibrated it yet, but I plan to. So far it looks very good out of the box. Model is DPX-1200. Only strike against it is that it's 720p only, but it's probably one of the best 720p units you can get. The price I paid for it was very reasonable. Came with a new bulb and was serviced before sale. My plan is to keep using this projector and hunker down and save. I'll be pulling the G70 but I'm not getting rid of it yet. Most likely I'll get the DC board repaired.

My opinion is the G70 still looks nicer when setup properly. But the Yamaha is sharper and a WHOLE lot easier to set up (that's an understatement actually).

Regardless, the G70 will come off the ceiling because even if I was to use it some more, I still have to reposition it, as I have a new screen (Silver Ticket 1.3 gain 92 inch screen). Anyways - glad to see this thread still full of life! :D Cheers!
 
So guys, my GDM W900 has stunning picture quality and accurate colors outside of this one tremendous flaw and that's for pure reds, the color is orangeish which diminishes scenes that are suppose to be red. Using Nvidia Control Panel and messing with the color does nothing neither does Windows color calibration. I've tried this cable on my other monitor and the reds were fine so it's not the cable.

Is there anything I can do to fix the reds from being orange? Would that WinDAS thing help?
 
My opinion is the G70 still looks nicer when setup properly. But the Yamaha is sharper and a WHOLE lot easier to set up (that's an understatement actually).

Regardless, the G70 will come off the ceiling because even if I was to use it some more, I still have to reposition it, as I have a new screen (Silver Ticket 1.3 gain 92 inch screen). Anyways - glad to see this thread still full of life! :D Cheers!

Thanks for the update, and glad that your Yamaha is serving you well. Keep us updated on any G70 developments :)
 
So guys, my GDM W900 has stunning picture quality and accurate colors outside of this one tremendous flaw and that's for pure reds, the color is orangeish which diminishes scenes that are suppose to be red. Using Nvidia Control Panel and messing with the color does nothing neither does Windows color calibration. I've tried this cable on my other monitor and the reds were fine so it's not the cable.

Is there anything I can do to fix the reds from being orange? Would that WinDAS thing help?

That's very strange. Are you sure you haven't inadvertently loaded up any background software that changes the lookup table?

Do this: Follow the "Preparing the PC for signal generation." section in the WinDAS guide. This will ensure that everything is default. You'll need to install ArgyllCMS to do this (instructions on how to do this are in the guide). Then load up a pure red screen, and see if it still looks orange. Report back here.
 
Thanks for the update, and glad that your Yamaha is serving you well. Keep us updated on any G70 developments :)

Will do. I'm hunkering down and saving my money so who knows? Come next year or whatever, I may have the cash to say "fuck it" and just go get a G90. :eek::D
 
spacediver I ended up fixing the color issue by instead of hooking it up to my GTX 980 Ti, hooking it up via a Inland Display Port to VGA adapter oddly enough. It's not the most profound red, but least its not orange now.

This monitor has given me all kinds of headaches, though. When I get adapters to convert it to VGA, it gets the proper EDID settings because it says it's "Sony Digital Display", but it keeps going 1920x1080 native on these adapters when my monitor is suppose to be 1920x1200 native. When I run at 1920x1200 by forcing the resolution on this adapter, it looks terrible.

When I use my 980 Ti's Analog port, it just reads as "Analog Display" no matter what I do. However, it ends up being able to do 1920x1200 clearer, albeit it's considering the native res like 1280x1024 and it feels like I have to adjust the underscan (or overscan?) a lot to stretch the screen out properly, in doing so causes the image to get less bright.

My only guess is that I'm gonna need a HDFury or that VCom device. I can only hope that's the solution...
 
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kokonoe, sounds like you might have a driver issue. If you're connecting through the analog port, you should be able to run the monitor properly (i think).

Try moninfo, it will allow you to actually create an inf file.
 
kokonoe, sounds like you might have a driver issue. If you're connecting through the analog port, you should be able to run the monitor properly (i think).

Try moninfo, it will allow you to actually create an inf file.
Hmm...looking at this I'm kind of confused. Not sure what I'm suppose to be doing..haha...
 
run the program, and then choose file/save as inf, and it will save the display information to an inf file. You can then use that inf file to update your driver. Although this might be circular so might not accomplish anything. You can edit the display information before saving the inf file - that may help.

If that doesn't work, try using this inf file (I just created it myself). Just save the inf file to a directory, and then when you update the display driver, do it manually and point to the saved location.
 
spacediver I ended up fixing the color issue by instead of hooking it up to my GTX 980 Ti, hooking it up via a Inland Display Port to VGA adapter oddly enough. It's not the most profound red, but least its not orange now.
Did only this adapter improve the color, or did the improvement happen with all adapters vs the GTX 980 ? Because it looks a lot like a color imbalance, too much green, not enough red, that might have been "fixed" with a crap adapter that creates a color bias itself.

IMO you should get a colorimeter and perform a white point calibration. If it doesn't solve the problem, then it's an issue on the A board that has to be fixed at the hardware level.
Probably either capacitors on the RGB lines just after the VGA plug that are too old (C104-C204-C304), or an issue with components on the RGB output lines of IC403, or IC403 itself defective.
Or an issue with components on the lines between IC402 and IC403 as well. There's a resistor connected to the ground on thoses lines, if its value decreased, it would surely decrease the signal voltage.

EDIT: I went straight on the color issue but I had missed the post talking about stretching display and brightness decreasing. I'm not entirely certain of what you mean, that could be something specific to Nvidia graphic cards (I'm used only to AMD ones) but that behaviour looks really weird and might indicate a deeper issue.
Brightness shouldn't change unless you change brightness/contrast or color settings.
Do you mean you can't stretch the display area enough to fit the entire tube only with the OSD settings of the screen ?
 
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The way I see it, if kokonoe is displaying a red image (RGB value [255,0,0], and perceiving it as orange, there are these possibilities:

1) something has gone wrong with the phosphors (unlikely)
2) something is seriously wrong with the alignment of the beam, relative to the phosphor stripes
3) kokonoe's perception is at fault (i.e. it's actually red, but perceived as something different)
4) something wrong with the video cable
5) something on the software level means that a [255,0,0] signal is not actually being sent
6) the possibilities strat mentioned, though I'm not good with understanding that stuff yet.

to test possibility 2), you could use a loupe (magnifying glass), like I did here

for example, here is a white crosshair, followed by a green crosshair, followed by a green pattern (note that there are some color distortions due to the camera. Your best bet is to render a pure red pattern and observe it with the loupe.

2uj5eg5.png


2e5k2mc.png


29xbuwm.jpg
 
So guys, my GDM W900 has stunning picture quality and accurate colors outside of this one tremendous flaw and that's for pure reds, the color is orangeish which diminishes scenes that are suppose to be red. Using Nvidia Control Panel and messing with the color does nothing neither does Windows color calibration. I've tried this cable on my other monitor and the reds were fine so it's not the cable.

Is there anything I can do to fix the reds from being orange? Would that WinDAS thing help?

Can you show us some pictures?
 
Any updates on the Analog convertors, I am setting on two A+ Units that are going up for sale soon because I cannot use them after upgrading to the TitanX :(
 
The question is: what the hell happened with those adapters, did they cancel the project or what ? The first time we hear about is was back in July, it shouldn't take so much time to put a product on the market.
 
yea, haven't heard from amlett for a while. Might be a good idea if we contacted analogix and/or Simon Cox from Firefly Technology
 
About Analogix converter,i've contacted Simon in October and he said that manufacturer was waiting for CE approvals.
I have contacted him twice in January and February but received no reply.
HD Fury says that the industry is trying to shut them down,maybe they will able to release hdfury5 but for now no good news.
Looking at this post https://www.monitortests.com/forum/...tility-CRU?pid=5554&highlight=vivanco#pid5554 the guy says that this adapter http://www.vivanco.com/Homepage/Pro...r-hdmi-plug-vga-socket-black.html?id=nsession can do 300 MHz but with some problems,i've sent him a private message for informations.
 
thanks for the update derupter, that's really useful to know. I'd heard about the legal issues with HDFury, and while an HDMI-VGA adaptor is important, a displayport to VGA adaptor would presumably not run into the legal HDCP issues that are involved with HDMI.

and fuck HDCP, fuck it in the ear.
 
That's funny because the Vivanco one has been on my "to test" list since December. I contacted the manufacturer who told me it was able to sustain 4K from HDMI (so presumably 4096×2160@24hz ?), I just haven't tried to order one yet.

Oh and yes, by the way, fuck HDCP. Optical fiber internet is just being deployed in my area, I will soon be able to receive a lot of TV channels I didn't have, including ones with very recent series or movies. But the TV decoder is a crap completely locked with the HDCP thing, anything you might record is encrypted and can only be read on it. Greedy bastards.
 
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I had a look at the forum where the guy used a Vivanco adapter, the issue he describes is something that usually happens on IIyama screens, there are rubbish functions boosting contrast for video/picture but I've always seen them leaving bright trails on the right of characters. So either it comes from his screen and he didn't realize it before, or he got a bad adapter, or his VGA cable has a problem. It might also be that he didn't plug the micro-USB power input while the adapter needs it if you push it hard.
 
I've got an SGI branded FW900 i acquired from ebay a few years ago. When you turn it on cold, you get the usual diagnostic information (Monitor is working) followed by some quick green flashes with zigzags going across. A few times the monitor has shut itself down (i guess when its so cold). I'd say most of the time the image will stabalize, although with a bright tint for the first 30mins of use. After that its all good.

Today i opened it up and had a look inside. I removed the power board and inspected it for any dry joints. I also looked at the other boards as best as i could while in situ. No signs of bad caps or anything.

I do have another perfectly working FW900, so this one to me is kinda surplus. It's not in fantastic shape, as the previous owner did not mention to me any of the two tiny scratches or the condition of the front bezel. I believe the screen coating has been removed. Two bottom screws from the outer case are missing and there was some what i believe to be dried pellets of pet food inside!

I have good experience with electronics, but CRT's are not my forté. I am debating whether to let this one go to someone else. Surely there must be a flat panel that is capable of reproducing the same level of colours by now???
 
the flashing when you first turn on monitor is not uncommon, and I think is related to a short between G1 and the cathode (although it might be related to a short between heater and cathode). What I would suggest is that when you turn on the monitor and it starts flashing, quickly turn it off. Then turn it on a few seconds later. Don't let it continue flashing while it's on.
 
Today i opened it up and had a look inside. I removed the power board and inspected it for any dry joints. I also looked at the other boards as best as i could while in situ. No signs of bad caps or anything.
From my experience with these monitors, the only clue you may have about bad caps is a well retracted sleeve on the top. Other than that, they just dry out with little or no external sign. Most are capacitors of reputable Japanese companies, they don't leak like some Chinese crap.
 
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