[KevinHunt]

Hey Austinites.....are any of you most excellent at soldering circuit boards? If so, I would like to employ you for a fix. It is my Pioneer pro510hd CRT rear projection set. I thought the set was on it's last legs but have just finished a huge 18 page thread over at AVS detailing the problem and the fix. Should be simple enough job for a fella with soldering skills. Mine are NIL! I knew there were a lot of HT Austinites on this board so I thought I would inquire. Also, does anyone know of any great, local ISF guys for a calibration and cleaning?

Hook Em'

[Mark Hayenga]

Are we talkin inline DIP stuff or surface mount stuff?

[KevinHunt]

Mark, I'm totally in the dark about this stuff so I don't know exactly what you are talking about....but it is the low voltage power supply board out of my CRT rear projection Pioneer. Looks like a computer board. There are pics in that huge thread I mentioned...I could email you a link to the specific page. I also printed out the solder directions for the most likely culprits on the board, although I would like the board gone over with a fine tooth comb. Surface mount??

[Mark Hayenga]

Different types of transistor packages are easier/harder to solder. DIPs (dual in-line package) are like op-amps and stuff, their pins are on 0.1" centers IIRC. Some stuff has pins that get much closer together (like microcomputers and such). Surface mount (SMT) have no pins, rather a pad of sorts for a connection and it gets soldered right to the board (if you've seen the teeny flat brown things on a circuit board with silver on either end, that's a surface mount resistor most likely).

DIPs aren't too terrible solder, I'm not comfortable with anything smaller than that though. If we're talking about something like a standard 1/4 resistor or TO-220 packaged transistor, it should be real easy. If this is a power supply board, it will probably be something easy like a big diode, resistor, cap, etc. Send me a link to the thread/pictures and I'll take a look. I suck at soldering, but that doesn't mean I couldn't do it, depending on what it is.

[KevinHunt]

Hey Mark, here is a site with pictures:

http://home.comcast.net/~larryh791/elitepsfix.html

and look at Dave610's post about the specific trouble spots: 4th post down

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...7&page=5&pp=30

However, many have said that the entire board needs to be looked over for cracked solder and cold solder as well as all connection pins. Almost everybody who has done this fix has declared it as a permanant fix and is pleased. Apparently the tubes are good as is the actual board itself.....just a terrible solder job qc issue from Pioneer. In the later pages of the thread, there is an ISF guy(MrBob) that has leant much help on that thread. If I can't find somebody local to help me, I can mail it to him and he'll do it. Obviously I'm hoping to find someobody good locally. Appreciate your help in looking at this.

[Mark Hayenga]

Yep, big caps, resistors, and TO-220's. Should be easy to fix once you find the bad joints. Finding the bad joints will be the hard/tedious job, but you won't screw anything up by looking. Bribe a few of us with pizza and beer (or better, freebirds and soda) and we could probably take care of it in an afternoon.

[KevinHunt]

Hey Mark, well I'll remove the board and drive it to whomever, where they can work on it at their leisure. Pay you/them however they want.....cash, cervesa...you name it. I'm very busy at work but can drop it off and pick up according to the schedule of the person doing the work. You stated your soldering skills suck ...do you know someone who is very good, or do you think you can tackle it??

[pmeyer]

Kevin,

If you are still around, did you ever get this taken care of? I'm getting ready to rip apart my 610HD for the same problem. As soon as I can get out and get a new soldering station (I want something I can adjust the power on) I'm going at it.

Any tips from your experience?

Paul Meyer

[Mark Hayenga]

After 4 months at my new job, I am a soldering guru. TSSOP's fear me.

I can fix these for you guys next time I am in Austin, assuming all it is is bad solder joints and not bad components.

[pmeyer]

Too late, I'm good. I picked up a Radio Shack soldering station (I had two other soldering irons, but I wanted something I could control temp on better). Pulled off the back, popped off the board and went at it.

I reflowed all the white connectors at top, and anything across the whole board that looked questionable. Put it back together and I'm good to go. No more blue flashes (although I still get a red flash or two in the first 5-10 minutes as the TV is warming up).

I built up enough confidence doing it that last Sunday I took off the screen and cleaned the lenses. I also went into the factory settings and cut back on the overscan a bit.

I'm on a roll...

Paul