WARNING! Pioneer Elite RPTVs: Do not remove back of optical cavity (1 Viewer)

[Robert P. Jones]

This is reprinted from an Elite focussing thread, on another forum. It is critically important information, so I'm giving it its own post here.
It is very important if doing optics cleaning or optical focussing, or the Duvetyne op, or any other reason to get into the optical cavity on an Elite:
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Whatever you do, NEVER GO INTO THE OPTICAL CAVITY THRU THE BACK, ON AN ELITE UNIT!!! You'll be digging a grave for yourself.
On the unit I experienced this on, there were a couple of weird, uncommon-head screws holding the back on the unit, among the regular Philips head screws. DON'T DEFEAT THEM! THEY ARE THERE TO PROTECT YOU FROM YOURSELF! A small flat ecge screwdriver can be used to circumvent them, but you'd be shooting yourself in the foot, just like I did on one of them, just to be a smartypants and get in anyway.
Certain of the older ones - and possibly the newer ones, I don't know - have the bottom edge of the mirror bracketed into the removable back, and the top edge bracketed into the body of the TV itself.
You separate those by taking the back off the unit, and your mirror slips out of the top one and does a nosedive straight into your fresnel screen!!! No way to stop it once it's in the process. Once you actually know what you have done, and the damage is on the way, there's nothing you can do to stop it, because you're standing there holding the back of the optical cavity in your hands, which has just pushed backwards and into your hips for some unknown - uh, oh - reason...
And it's big, heavy, and extremely ungainly. You're stuck with that huge peice of plastic in your hands, and can't do anything but endure the horror of what is about to take place, at your own doing. And what DOES then immediately take place, right in front of your eyes.
I've seen it break the mirror and totally trash the fresnel screen, costing bundles.
ALWAYS GO INTO THE OPTICAL CAVITY FROM THE FRONT, on an Elite unit of ANY age, just to be safe.
To go in thru the front:
The front's frame usually comes off via unscrewing the Philips head screws at the bottom of the frame. You get to those screws by removing the ornate plastic plates that say Pioneer, etc. on them, that are about a foot wide and an inch tall, forming the cosmetics separating the screen above from the speaker grillcloth section below. One on each side of the unit, you stick your fingers under them and they pull off easily if done gently, once the speaker's grillcloth plate has been yanked off. That takes a little more force...
The screen frame comes off by lifting it straight up or out at a 45d angle and then up. This reveals the 2 layer screen sandwich: the fresnel closest to the mirror, the lenticular facing the viewer.
The screws to remove this sandwich are then pretty obvious.
The upper left corner's holder will be the only one where you actually have to remove a screw. The others allow their holders to be removed by just loosening up their screws a bit and de-slotting the holders from them.
Be sure NOT to grab the screen by its attached aluminum brace at the top of the 2 layer sandwich, laying horizontally. It is NOT attached - just laid on there for bracing and derippling purposes - and the stack will fall out of your hands directly, if you try to hold it via this piece of aluminum.
Also beware of turning this sandwich sideways once it's off. Keep it horizontal, or the very flexible lenticular will have a tendency to waffle and bend in half on you, via gravity. I had one split itself on the edge of the frame on its way to the ground once. Cost a bundle to replace.
After you're in that far, I suggest that you perform my Cantilever Technique - found at the Keohi Tips and Tweaks website - for the most comprehensive and exacting optical focussing available, on any RPTV.
Mr Bob
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Robert P. Jones
Image Perfection
San Francisco Bay Area, USA
[email protected]
510-278-4247
www.imageperfection.com

 

[Julian Data]

Hey Bob,
Thank you for the very insightful info as I do have a 610..
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[Robert P. Jones]

Glad to help.
When it comes time, and for anybody with an older Elite, you might want to check out my info on Cleaning the Optics, on the Keohihdtv forum. Remember that whenever you so a search on something I've written, it's for Mr Bob, without any puctuation.
Comprehensive, stem to stern calibrations need only be done when new and every 2-3 years thereafter to keep your RPTV new looking and sparkling for life; but for the sparkling part, optics cleaning needs to be done every year without fail on the general surfaces like the mirror and tops of the objective lenses. The deeper optics will probably also need done whenever the general optics cleaning is done, once you've cleaned the general optics and can really see in there, down to the coolant covers, and see if they also are coated with dust.
You do this by removing the screen sandwich - FROM THE FRONT!!! - and looking not into the mirror, but straight into each lens itself to the outer, nonimage area, the dark parts of the coolant covers under the lenses, backlit by the image in the center of the CRT. You do this while keeping the actual, highly bright image out of your eyes, out of your field of view, so it won't blind you as you are trying to see the dark areas clearly.
If you move your head back and forth and see the magnified, backlit dust staying in one place while the rest of the dark and nonimaged area behind it, and the magnified specks of dust on the rear of the lens pack in front of it, go back and forth in opposing directions, you know you're seeing the coolant covers themselves being dirty. If you don't see any dust there, backlit by the CRT's image - TV has to be ON for this test - you don't have to worry about the coolant covers, those plastic transparent covers which contain the coolant itsef, which is up against the CRT face, inside.
At that point, if the coolant covers do indeed show up as dirty, the lenses need to be removed one by one, each coolant cover professionally cleaned, and the lenses reinstalled - again one by one so they don't get mixed up with each other. Focuswise, each lens turret has been critically set for its own CRT, if you have implemented the Cantilever Technique and/or it was already perfect from the factory, and/or you have already done a superlative job of optical focussing yourself, even without the Cantilever Technique.
RPTVs, with proper care and feeding like this kind of optics cleaning, and after stem to stern calibration when new and periodically thereafter, and when not powerdriven in torch mode by running Contrast at max all the time - which overly heavy and constant electron bombardment will eventually mulch up and uncrisp the phosphors - with this kind of care, RPTVs can stay looking new or better than new, for 10-15 years after purchase.
Mr Bob
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Robert P. Jones
Image Perfection
San Francisco Bay Area, USA
[email protected]
510-278-4247
www.imageperfection.com

 

[Julian Data]

Is there a certain time you have to flush out the dirty coolant?
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[Bob Sorel]

Ahhh.....the subject is Pioneer Elite RPTV's....gotcha!

 

[Robert P. Jones]

Julian -
You never know ahead of time if you'll have dirty coolant, at least I never have. If it's there, it'll be obvious in the coolant in front of the picture, if you look straight into the lens itself.
On older Philips units - read that Magnavox, Sylvania and Philips - I have usually seen the red be pristine, while the green and blue are trashed. I think they use some dye in the red that precludes growth of those cooties...
On older Sony's, it's usually been all 3 guns if it's any guns at all, and not always. Some stay completely clean while quite old, where only the coolant covers need cleaning.
I have NEVER seen a Mit, old or new, need coolant replacement. I'd love to know whose coolant liquid they're using, but they ain't telling, at least back when I actually asked, 10 years ago, when I needed to replace coolant in another brand of unit, and didn't want to have to do it all over again another set of years down the line.
Bob Sorel -
Sorry, I thought EVERYBODY knew Elite was Pioneer. Oh, the abbreviated buzzwords we use in this endeavor of ours...
Sorry, I should be more specific in a general title like that. I would change it right now to simply include Pioneer in front of Elite if I were allowed to, but I don't know of any way the title can be changed later, down the line, by the actual poster himself.
If any moderators are reading this, please take my last paragraph as permission to do that change.
Thanks -
Mr Bob
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Robert P. Jones
Image Perfection
San Francisco Bay Area, USA
[email protected]
510-278-4247
www.imageperfection.com

 

[Dan Wesnor]

I believe this warning applies to all Pioneer RPTV's.

 

[Philip Hamm]

Mr. Bob et al:
Although this thread is extremely advanced and appropriate for the advanced area, I'm copying it to the Monitors forum so that it will get the most exposure by people who need to see it.
BTW my 5 year old Mits still looks like new.
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Philip Hamm
AIM: PhilBiker

 

[Robert P. Jones]

Philip -
Thanks for adding the "Pioneer", in the title.
BTW, this initial post did appear a day or two ago here, but obviously drew a lot more attention where it was before.
If your lenses are sealed such that no dust can get in, or if you have an ionizer on closeby outside your unit, that could explain why your optics still look good. Usually after 5 years, the internal coolant covers are pretty bad, and of course your mirror and the tops of your lenses are going to be really trashy by that time, due to the HV inherent to CRT use statically charging all the particulates in the air, no matter how small.
It shows up whenever a really bright object is up against a completely black background, and the dust makes that brightness "bleed" into the blacks, creating a hazy halo around the bright object, where it should be crystal clear black instead, with full detail exposed rather than covered up. This lighted-up dust compromises your ability to see into the dark areas and see the detail there. It precludes any ablity to have your picture "gleam" with transparency and sizzle, all of which is restored when you have everything in the light path cleaned professionally, including the coolant covers beneath the lenses.
Mr Bob
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Robert P. Jones
Image Perfection
San Francisco Bay Area, USA
[email protected]
510-278-4247
www.imageperfection.com