Ampro Resource

Tonight I had a chance to sit down and go through the ‘registration’ procecure (seems to be what Ampro calls convergence). I also figured out how to unlock things so you can make changes (20 code).

I was able to address the image wrap slightly by using the ‘phase’ to shift the image to be centered, then ‘size’ to shrink the image within the raster. I still have a little wrap on either side of the image but its really hard to see.

The registration procedure is confusing at first, but now that I’ve been through it a few times it seems to make a lot of sense. I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to be as precise as I was with the point convergence of the ECP. I was wrong. I think that the Ampro is capable of much better fine tuning than the ECP was.

I was able to get a watchable image — not perfect by a long shot. Observations: the blacks are better (I suspect the liquid coupled lenses help here) and it seems brighter (as expected with the move from 7″ to 9″ CRTs). Problems: The colour balance is off. Everything is a little green. The black detail needs some work too. So lots of work to do — but I’m well on the path.

Well, having reviewed the manual some more, I have a better idea of what I need to do.

The mechanical alignment seems pretty much the same as the ECP series. So I go through the basic steps to try to get a somewhat focused image.

Starting to look like something you’d watch, but the image seems to wrap on the edges. Going to have to read more..

Finally got a chance to go an unpack the projector. Wow. Its big. Compared to my ECP 4101 this thing is a monster. You certainly need at least one friend over to help move it around, this was part of the reason it took me until today to get it unpacked.

We popped the hood (ok cover, but its got a little arm thing to hold it open like your car’s trunk). Inside looks nice and clean. Almost no dust. The tubes look flawless. There is a sticker on the LVPS that has 1998 on it, and the ROM version is 1992.

The 4000 series was made between 1990 and 1994, so ’92 isn’t a bad guess at its age, but it could be earlier than that.

It powers up fine, but no image? We puzzle over this for quite a while. I have the manuals printed out, but haven’t read them cover to cover. The red CRT has a very, very dim image on it. The green ‘might’ have an image, and the blue looks completely off. This is looking into the tubes, there is no projected image.

We played around with all sorts of things. At one point my friend discovers the service buttons under the little cover on the remote. This exposes the ‘cut off’ button and the various colours. Half a minute later, we have all three tubes shooting a nice bright image.

Its late, enough for now. It doesn’t appaar to be a dud.

One last power up, and I get a HI BEAM CURRENT failure!? This concerns me, but it seems to come on again no problem right away.

Either way, time to hit the books and try to learn something about how to setup this projector.

The projector finally made it. The shipping company was sort of clown like — but they did manage to not shove a forklift through the side of the crate.

I did a quick inspection to make sure that it hadn’t sustained any obvious damage. The unit was very well packed. Let it warm up to room temperature (hey, Canadian winters) for the rest of the afternoon.

Later that day my brother in-law came over to haul it downstairs. It was late, so I just left it in the crate.