Running the XJ-A140 With Missing Diodes

[XDev]

if a video could be made showing how to do this..oh man it would be a god send!..if even a picture showing the location of the contact pads would help.(if there is one i will be looking for it so please forgive me if i double up on topics already shown in pictures or discussed)

.now with these mods will the function buttons/remote functions still work?..like how to get to the menu to adjust color (that ones iffy) or sharpness and contrast and format?

DTR....let me know how you fair with that and what your technique was and if it was successful...have you previously modded these projectors for laser-less projection before?

i wish i could download this forum directly to my brain! i need and want all the info in it.=)

All buttons works good, but I don't test remote control (I think, it will work too).

This is the 2 easiest ways to make modification illustrated on pictures below...
a140_nolamp1.jpg

OR

A140-2.png

[kobra000]

cool cool that seems pretty straight forward.

[flecom]

didn't work for me

/edit

ok tried it again, it works, sort of, the projector is functioning (if I put my flashlight where the LD's were and look through the lens I can see my desktop) BUT, the red LED will not light... any suggestions?

[kobra000]

didn't work for me

/edit

ok tried it again, it works, sort of, the projector is functioning (if I put my flashlight where the LD's were and look through the lens I can see my desktop) BUT, the red LED will not light... any suggestions?

What color was your desktop while looking through the lens with a flashlight? im curious to see if the LCD is responsible for any color adding in this system ,if it is them perhaps we can still use a white HP led. i know the single LCD systems are rather easy to get a projection out of..take for example the virtually un-findable Citizens Mini projector circa 1990-1991...a single LCD with like a hardware store lightbulb behind it..or the Phillips LCP 5200 circa 1990-94 both very straight forward projectors with a single LCD and much like a hardware store flood lamp behind them. Im almost certain this can be done with the casio XJ-a...

[flecom]

there is definitely some stuff going on with the dichros/filters...

theres no LCD as this is a DLP projector

I used a 3W LED flashlight pointed into the LD mirror and while looking into the lens to see the output I had shades of white/blue/green

I was running a test pattern (google testpat.exe, its from IBM, thats what I was using)

[kobra000]

Wow no LCD?.

then cany anyone idtenitf this peice..its from a this websight which shows acomplete tear down of the projector

http://omegalabs.eu/html/kek_lezer.html

.a140_szetszed26.jpg

[LesioQ]

DLP chip with PCB.

Piotr.K

[kobra000]

Ok but light still passes through it to create the projection correct?

[LesioQ]

Nope, it's actually a mirror, a controlled array of 800.000 of mirrors.

Piotr.K

[kobra000]

i was wondering since it uses a Phatlight Led for the red...would it be possible to run a blue phatlight led (and hope the phosphor wheel makes some green light) or just run a phatlight blue and phatlight green to complete the RGB color "gamut" i think is the word. Im exploring all avenues of LED light at this moment.from Phatlight LEDS to Luxeon Rebels,to the HiPow Chinese cartridge style LED's... Also does the wavelength of the Blue Lasers have an important bearing on it? like will the phosphor wheel only do its job when a 445nm Blue/IR/UV laser hits it? or will any blue light source suffice as long as it get through the lens gauntlet and into the DLP chip?

[LesioQ]

Switching to blue+green LED wouldn't be that easy, as You would have to make a separate switch for the LEDs, synchronised with phosphor wheel controller.
All this in order to emit blue only when blue is required, then only grenn when required.

I guess in no color wheel DLP projector, the sources are switched on sequentially, with green being a result of blue emission + proper phase of phosphor wheel.

Piotr.K

[kobra000]

I see what your saying..ugh that sounds a like a heck of a lot of work...has anyone ie member of this forum sucessfully thrown a decent to great image without using the lasers? anyone?

[flecom]

still can't get the Red LED to light... maybe we need some of that data on the removed pins going to the LD/LED driver board?

[kobra000]

still can't get the Red LED to light... maybe we need some of that data on the removed pins going to the LD/LED driver board?

Is the Red led a constant burn? or does it fluctuate in intensity according to whatever is on the screen? i was going to suggest running the LED on its own independent driver/power source so its always on,but the projector microprocessor (its gotta have one for self checks) might pick that up and throw the shutoff or standby code....the pins you speak of,are these the pins on the flex connector that we were told to isolate? or something else entirely?

[flecom]

ya two of the pins that were isolated were something TX and something RX

not sure if it burns constantly... i would imagine not... but I think we would be ok if it ran all the time for testing

[kobra000]

ya two of the pins that were isolated were something TX and something RX

not sure if it burns constantly... i would imagine not... but I think we would be ok if it ran all the time for testing

hmm to my understanding RX means to receive and TX means to Transmit... this sucks i haven't gotten my projectors yet (still trying DTR middle of the month usually sucks) so im using this forum to "bone up" on all the modding procedures and the trial and error. If someone could be so kind as to re-cap what connectors we are supposed to isolate (i believe #4 we didnt need to isolate,i remember seeing that in a previous post) that would be great. Ive saved the pictures showing where to place the short wire,which brings me to this question,could a thin piece of piano wire or guitar wire be used for the short wire to short the c509 connector? i was just wondering as i do not have anything incredibly small (just lots of 10 and 12 awg automotive wire) or would it throw things wacky if i were to just clip the tail off a resistor/transistor of some sort and use that (my pops told me the guitar or piano wire might not sodder correctly but i wanted others opinions on this)

what if we were to systematically isolate each connector from the system and notate its function or lack of function,and then systematically short each contact pad to see its function/ lack of function,this is the only way i can think of that will help us find out why the red led is not coming on when the c509 is properly shorted and the connectors everything properly isolated. lol as i am still a noob to this forum if this has been previously done,please disregard me as a rambling fool that i am.lol.


thanks everyone for your input,advice and recommendations,they are greatly appreciated.


thanks

Keith.

[flecom]

yes RX = receive TX = transmit

[krazer]

I havent had time to look in depth at what exactly this mod is doing, but from what I can tell so far it is completely cutting off commjnication between the projector motherboard and the laser/led driver board. I do know that the same microprocessor that runs the lasers is wired to run the red led, so at first glance it looks like it will require more than just simple rewiring to get the red led going. This advancement is really great for me, now I no longer need to trick the projector into thinking the driver board is in tact, and just need to spoof the projector side to convince the driver board to turn on the led.

The idea of using an external driver may be the best bet, beacuse it will allow you to run the red led continuously, so that you see the red greed and blue parts of the image (all in red of course) giving a much more 'normal' looking image than having just the red channel.

[kobra000]

Ive been talking with Caleb aka Boldsword via email and he has said that he got his projector running by the following method that i have cut and copied an pasted

"you only need to have pins 4 and 9 on the connector to the main board jumped out and it will run. However in order to get the red to light the laser power supply needs to sense that it's driving a load, so you gotta pick up some power resistors."

he said this method got his going with a rudimentary picture also-

"I'm gonna take a pic of what I did to my projo, I can't tell you if the buttons on top still work, b/c my cat killed that part for me remember? All my functions work perfectly with the remote, I even took one of my small lasers and dropped it inside so that it shone down the light path the way the factory lasers do, and I had picture and everything ( a small dim picture lol, but it wan only one poorly aimed laser, and the batteries are low.).

All I did on mine was short two pads with a jumper wire, so it's even simpler than what you put.
I don't have any power resistors yet, gonna pick some up. I ran a small resistor bank just to verify that I would get the red to light and it worked perfectly, until my resistors went up in smoke lol. Didn't hurt anything, just need to get some more serious resistors, I was only using half watt resistors, when the resistors needed should be like 20 watt lol.
I'll try and take some pics."

Caleb/ Boldsword...please please take pics.i cant wait to see them try this on mine


thanks

Keith.

[flecom]

thats like what Krazer did initially... used some big resistors as a dummy load

[laserdj]

Why don't we try to replace the whole array with one or more beefy blue leds?

[platinum]

Why don't we try to replace the whole array with one or more beefy blue leds?

This has been my curiosity in all of this...

[flecom]

well how many LD strings were there? 3 or 4 right? could we put some giant LED's that might emulate a string?

[laserdj]

There are plenty of leds that can deal with this current, but they usually run at a lower voltage (array runs at 32V)

[Things]

I've also wondered about just throwing a few blue LED"s in place of the diodes. If you used a few blue LED's and made an array of then, you could probably get close to the operating voltage.