Hey guys,
I finally put my PJ together (mostly) and have some pictures to show you because I need some suggestions for some stuff. In the pictures, you'll notice that the fresnels are currently held in together by some wood and bolts, and they're not secured by anything in the box except for duct tape. Also, the LCD is not secured to/by anything, it just sits in front of the front fresnel. I need some suggestions on how I could mount both of those. Also, the images i've been getting have been very bad. I took a picture of what the light on my screen (currently just a large piece of paper) looks like with the LCD off (but still in place). You can see that there is a very big bright spot in the middle. Anything that I put up there, computer, movie, is so dim that it is very hard to watch. I probably don't have the optics set up correctly, which is causing problems.
I'm using:

2x200mm FL
220mm Triplet
10.6 LCD with genesis
Lightbox/precon/reflector from Johnzo
Thermal switch I bought,
Fan I bought

Any suggestions would be very helpful!

EDIT: Also, i just tried plugging the power into the Genesis control board, and all I got was a blinking red light (instead of the solid red light) on the little control panel that is attached to the board. Anyone know what that is? has me a little worried.

Remove your precondenser for the moment and see what kinda projection you get without it.

BTW, what are the dimensions of the precon itself because it looks aspherical.

I may be wrong but you might want to have at least 10mm between the LCD and the last fresnel (mine is going to be a split fresnel setup with 20mm between the rear fresnel, LCD and front fresnel). It looks like you have the fresnel sides that have ridges facing each other, which is correct.

See b0rna's setup as he did an unsplit 10.6 setup:

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?s...st&p=247050

What's the distance between your lamp arc and the rear fresnel?
What's the distance between the LCD and triplet?

Yeah, I've looked extensively at b0rna's, that's what gave me the idea to build a small box with 10.6
Anyone know anything about that flashing red LED on the control panel plugged into the genesis controller?

Also, i'm not sure about the dimensions of the precon, it's the one that comes with Johnzo's lightbox and reflector

Yes, several other people have complained about using the precon that johnzo sells. I don't think it's a quality issue as much as the fact that it might not be large enough.

Still, there are a lot of people using that same lightbox on a Chinese PJ forum.

Can you show a picture of the light path as it hits the rear fresnel - perhaps in a darkened room?

Can you give me some detail about that thermal switch you're using?
I might ask you to ship me one, if you can accept a PayPal transaction.

bad, bad news. The controller suddenly started working again, I hooked my computer up to the PJ (without the precon), it looked better, the light seemed to be more even all the way through. However, after having the laptop hooked up to it for maybe 90 seconds, I heard a POP, and the controller started smoking somewhere. I immediately unplugged it and let it sit for a little while. I plugged it back in, everything turned on, it worked fine, but then I heard another POP, and the same thing happened. It's not very much smoke, but i am fairly concerned. I have the power supply hooked up to a power strip, that has power surge protection, but I don't know what's wrong. There was no apparent/obvious destruction to the board at first glance, none of the components seemed scorched or anything. It seemed to come from the power input area on the board.

What kind of power supply are you using for the LCD/Controller Board?

Might want to check your controller card for burnt capacitors. While you're at it, better double-check to make sure you have the right power supply for the controller.

Also, what type of lamp are you using in your light engine? A double-ended something something. Perhaps the arc of the lamp is too large for that precon. Also, I would suggest spacing out the front fresnel a bit so that it isn't right up against the LCD panel.

The power supply that I'm using is the one from Johnzo. I'm fairly certain its the correct power rating for the controller, but if it's not, that would really suck. I didn't see any blown capacitors, it just looked like the copper lining. As for the other comments, the bulb i'm using is:
My bulb

I'm not sure about it's arc vs. the precon from Johnzo. As for the spacing between the LCD and front fresnel, that is just a temp setup until I find a way to mount the LCD in there (suggestions much appreciated).

-Chris

You really need to figure out the short or power problem before doing anything else.
The blinking red LED is likely the controller indicating power is to low, or that there is a short.
It's blinking to let you know there is a problem, and to turn it off.

You indicated that your lcd is just sitting in front of the front fresnel.
Is the circuit board on it actually touching your controller?
In the pictures it looks like it is.
Are you sure you aren't shorting the 2 circuit boards against each other?
maybe you should put an insulator between them, even a small pice of cardboard, or an index card or something.
However, if you heard 'pops', then you are very likely to have some damaged components.
Electronics don't make popping sounds without blowing some part.

yeah, electronics don't make popping noises without damaging components, however, I believe this situation is limited to the copper lining. This whole situation blows, but what can you do, right? Anyway, I'm fairy sure the lcd is fine, in the pictures it looks bad, however, if you look closely, the circuit board on the lcd is resting on the "black connector" on the edge of the genesis controller. Plastic being an insulator, I think it's fine, however, I will isolate it from now on. However, I am moderately anxious to plug the controller in again at this point, because the copper line can be fixed, but if I damage it further, it probably cant be fixed.

Copper lining? what copper lining?
And I would not trust that that plastic is necessarily holding the circuit boards safely apart.
I would be looking for spots where there are burns on the controller and the LCD circuit board, and also for capacitors that are bulging.

It doesn't look like any capacitors are bulging. As for copper lining, on most PC boards (i.e. circuit boards) the thing that conducts the electricity (like the wires) is "copper lining' Most PC boards are etched with a certain material, and then dipped in liquid, and the copper "sticks" to the etched portions, which is how those boards are made. Anyway, the "line" looks busted. I'll look for capacitors that are bulged. I think the plastic is a good enough insulator, but i'll check it and probably isolate everything differently.

thanks,

- chris.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. What do you want me to do for a picture? Do you want the lamp on, and a picture? Also, for the thermal switch, I have to look up the specifications, and I'll let you know. But basically, it looks like some sort of solenoid, and it's preset. It's preset to turn on at a specific temperature and turn off at another temp. When I'm running the PJ the fan will turn on for about 2 minutes and then turn off. I'll look up the temps and specifics and I'll post them for you, it seems to work fairly well.

Here's an example of what I was asking for:



I was wondering if the poor light spread you were seeing was because the lightbox was too close to the rear fresnel or if it was due to the precon.

And as I was mentioning before, the center of the bulb is considered the "arc". I was just asking what the measurement was from the center of your bulb to the rear fresnel.

I'm not interested in the thermal switch anymore, as I thought it was a different kind. I thought it was one of those circuits that others use to keep the fans running for a while after the bulb is switched off.

Did you use the FocalCalc to get your measurements for the box?

Actually, the board is coated with copper, and the etching removes copper everywhere except where a resistant is put, but, those are called traces. I had just never heard of someone refer to them as 'linings' before.
If you see a trace that looks like it has been damaged, then something either shorted at that point, or there was to much current flowing due to a short somewhere and that might simply have been a weak point on the trace that 'blew' before the actual fuse on the board did.

Anyway, as long as you have it working the way you need it to, that's what's important.

I did notice that you have no obvious path for cooling the LCD, as you have no space between the LCD and front fresnel for air to flow.
Just be careful, if you get a black spot forming in the center of the LCD, make sure you turn off your lamp fairly quick to avoid permanently damaging the LCD due to overheating it.

Good Luck!

Yeah, your definition is the "actual" definition. I was trying to dumb it down, and explain the etching process on the PC boards, which is why i used "lining" instead of traces. But I just needed to explain it a bit. But yeah, I don't have it working correctly because it has popped twice and smoked (I haven't tried it again since). As for my path of cooling the LCD, I have said that the arrangement that I have now is temporary. I am not going to have the LCD up against the Fresnel as a final design, I will move it/mount it, I have it like that for testing purposes. I haven't noticed any black spots, my case hasn't gotten too hot, which is good.

I don't know what the differences are between the MST and Genesis boards are but skuldfx mentioned needing to fix a fuse on his MST board:

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?s...st&p=262400

Perhaps this is something you can look into.

Popping is bad. Look at things really close.

The FL of the condenser looks to be really short, You listed two 200mm fresnels I wounder if you might need to go to a 330mm rear fresnel.

With a short fl condenser the adjustments are real touchy. You can move the lamp to about 3mm from the condenser or move the condenser and lamp back but you may need more adjustment.

Do you know the FL of the condenser?

The condenser was purchased through johnzo (who gets them through carpow, I'm guessing) and he doesn't know what the specs are.

I just found this pic of carpow's box and it looks like he's got the lamp arc at 190mm from LCD:

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?s...st&p=216818

It looks like he uses a 100W HID bulb with a very small arc:

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?s...st&p=216876

Damn... looks like he's using a 180mm rear fresnel with a 320mm front fresnel. I'm wondering if that means that I'll have to put my lightbox at 230mm as I'm using a 220mm rear fresnel. I thought the whole point of using a precon was to move the lightbox closer to the rear fresnel.

I do not know the FL of the condenser. As for placement, and fresnels and distances within my box, I'll have to wait and deal with that after I sort out my controller problem, which really annoys me.

I'm going to examine the board fairly carefully, see if I can find a fuse anywhere, and try and find the problem here.

Well....I think I found the problem with the genesis board. I examined it very closely today, and noticed two capacitors near the power input that were slightly cockeyed. They appear to be bulging out the bottom which knocked them out of line a little bit. I suppose that's why there were 2 pops and smoke twice, from both these capacitors. While I'm not positive this is the problem, nor am I positive that other components aren't damaged, they look to be the culprit. I don't understand why this happened, but I think I'll try and replace them, anyone have any suggestions?

If you post a pic, I'm sure somebody will know if it's fixable or not.

These are the capacitors i was talking about. I wanted to get an close-up view of the bottom of them, but the focus on my camera doesn't work too well. Replacing them should be fairly easy, they're listed as 220 micro-farad capacitors on the side, so I grabbed a couple of those with different voltage ratings. Anyone know how to tell the voltage rating?

EDIT: I missed it on the side, they say 16v on the side, much smaller than the other numbers. I have some 25v, 50v, and 100v 220micro-farad capacitors, does anyone know if they have to be exactly 16v?

Haphazard, dwp5, and mp2 all had problems getting the corners lit using the precon in johnzo's lightbox and a 200mm rear fresnel. I'm not sure I've seen anybody use that precon successfully, though I certainly could have overlooked it if they had.

The caps should never go bad on a new board so I would ask john before I started messing with them.

I have changed many caps like that (they may millions of faulty caps for a few years). The higher voltage is fine but the cap will be larger and the leads may be further apart so getting them into the board may be a hassle. They only go in one way, they are polarized so look for the negative pin on the old ones (the arrow stripe on the side) before you remove them and mark something so you can put the new ones in the right way.

Your rear fresnel fl is longer than the one guy that had it working with a 180mmfl so it should work. You can place the lamp closer to the condenser for a wider beam and with a 150 watt heat is not a problem. So I would drill some new lamp mount holes and place the lamp shell 2mm from the condenser. It might be better to move the condenser closer to the lamp so the reflector is still focused on the lamp.

Check your fresnels to make sure they are in the right place and not reversed.

It is easy to find the fl of any lens, just hold it up to a wall in any room with a lamp on and focus the lamp image onto the wall. The lens to wall distance is almost = to the FL.

Yeah, I'll talk to him real quick.

Yeah, I took all that into consideration except for the wider pins, hadn't thought of that, good point.

I've checked that a couple times, and they're set up correctly

Fuses.....

The fuse would have blown and it would be one pop (if any at all), not > 1.

Can you show me where the fuses are? I can tell that these two capacitors are blown out the bottom, for sure. There might be a fuse problem on top of this.

Are you sure you have the power supply connected around the correct way?

I toasted a cap on a monitor by connecting up with the wrong polarity.

The weird thing is the fuse should protect against this sort of problem. The fuse should blow to protect the caps. Once a fuse blows the whole board should be disconnected (unless there are more than one).

Fuses are normally located in close proximity to where the power comes in. It might be a surface mount component.

Yeah, I'm sure, with these Power Supplies it's like a tube connector, so there's only one way that you can plug it in.



Yeah, the fuses should protect against this, assuming this problem was caused by too much power. It could have just been two bad/faulty capacitors. Either way, the capacitors are gone.

Well....replaced the capacitors, and it still doesn't work. I'm starting to get very aggravated, as I've already had 1 broken LCD from the get go, and now a busted controller board with no more than 30 minutes of use. Anyone have any suggestions? Does anyone know 'exactly' where the fuses are located on this board?

Check out page 20 of this PDF (or do a search in the PDF using GM5221 as a keyword):

http://136.166.4.200/contents/PC/Monitors/...30S_service.pdf

I know it's not your screen but it does address a "No OSD" using this board.

I don't know... maybe it won't help - it's all Greek to me.

Looks like page 26 may be helpful too.

So does anyone have any experience with a busted genesis board like this? I replaced the caps like I said, and it still didn't work. I'm gonna plug it in and test some voltages later on to see if they come out as expected. Also, I assume the F### components on the board are fuses, am I correct? (especially since they are located right next to the DC in).

- Chris.