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Author Topic: My first deceased ICP certificate battery Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-06-2019 10:40 AM                     Oh yeah...every DCI compliant device is designed with a suicide mission too  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-06-2019 11:00 AM                        This strikes me as a design failure. Would it have killed them to add a second battery or capacitor to power the memory when the primary battery is being replaced?  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 09-06-2019 11:24 AM                        Yes; decryption certificates have to be stored in volatile memory per DCI rules, as an anti-piracy measure. However, there is no rule which says that the battery that maintains that memory has to be installed at the factory such as to be irreplaceable in the field, combined with the OEM refusing to offer an RTB replacement service, thereby making the board a disposable device. As far as I know, the TI Series 2 ICP is the only digital cinema component in widespread use for which this is the case.  |  IP: Logged Harold Hallikainen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 906 From: Denver, CO, USA Registered: Aug 2009 posted 09-06-2019 11:29 AM                        We have found that battery holders are unreliable at the very low currents (about 10 uA) used to hold up the security chip (private key storage, real time clock, tamper detection, etc.). So, we now solder in a LARGE battery. Harold  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-06-2019 10:50 PM                     I like the super capacitor idea. Of the mediablocks we have dealt with, without a doubt, the CAT862 (Dolby's used in the DSS200) has been the most reliable on the certificate area. I can't remember ANY having lost their certificate in the ones we service and even those that have sat for extended periods of time).  |  IP: Logged Stephan Shelley Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 854 From: castro valley, CA, usa Registered: Nov 2014 posted 09-06-2019 11:19 PM                     I did have a Cat 862 loose its certificate. It would boot okay but the secure clock date was something in the 1980s. None of the keys would work. This was back when Dolby would fix them. It came back fixed and a bunch of glue around the super caps.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-06-2019 11:23 PM                     Did it die due to defect or being off for a protracted period? I've had 3 or so CAT862 outright failures but none were certificate related. They would either not advance the show or put out nothing but white screen.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 09-06-2019 11:34 PM                        The DSP100 also seems to be very reliable as far as the certificate goes. I service a site that consists of an 11-plex theatre with a two-screen drive-in in the backyard. The main house used to have DSS100/DSP100 combos, but upgraded to DSS220/cat745 systems shortly before I started working for its service vendor. The drive-in still has DSS100/DSP100s. They have several of each on the shelf, formerly used in the main theater, and now being kept to replace the ones that die on the drive-in battlefield. Twice, now, I have powered up a DSP100 that has not been powered up for at least one year and probably closer to two, and, after a firmware update to 4.7.8.7, has worked just fine.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 09-07-2019 07:51 AM                     quote: Leo Enticknap The problem is that if you attempt to do that surgery on a living device, you could kill it if anything goes wrong, which will leave you having to provide the customer with a new, replacement ICP. That depends on how you explain that job to your customer and prove the necessity to act in time (e.g. manufacturing date/cell voltage). When the time comes, an experienced tech applying a pre-EOL battery swap on ICPs could make some nice money. This is not the typical electronic failure that MAY happen at some time or not, it WILL happen in masses. Every 'real' series 2 DLP uses an ICP, and tens of thousands have been deployed between 2009 and 2012, and more later. When performing an ICP clock battery swap, or even a typical 'reseat', I guess I would start measuring the cert cell voltage as a routine job. If properly explained, the cinema will happily pay the little extra time... Can someone supply a photo of the bottom PCB traces around the ICP batteries? - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-07-2019 08:16 AM                     quote: Steve Guttag As for GDC...they have had their share of certificate failures. GDC's solution also was that they have two batteries in parallel so the odds that BOTH batteries have contact issues at the same time is minimal. All my certificate losses have been from dead batteries and no, the batteries are not in parallel. I have had no certificate losses on the full size servers. The 1.5 volt lithiums are in series. If you measure the output of the plug on battery used while you replace the on board batteries you will find that it's 3 volts. I have never seen anything in any D-Cinema projctor corrode. Also, lithium batteries do not outgas anything that is corrosive. So battery holder contacts are not going to corrode from the batteries themselves like they might from lead acid batteries. P.S., There is, according to NEC, a super capacitor on the ICP. Just where it is at is not very obvious though. Mark  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 09-07-2019 08:28 AM                     If there is a supercap on an ICP, it is not for the cert, but for the clock battery. Having a supercap for a soldered-in cell makes no sense. The photos that I have of various ICPs (mostly Barco), and that NEC I handle personally do not show anything like a supercap. Only classic SMD electrolytics. Whatever, it should be relatively easy to save an ICP pre-EOL. Best is to learn the procedure on one that is dead-already. Then find a cinema owner willing to understand and take the risc. I have seen more complicated operations than this to be performed by cinema field technicians in technical bulletins over time. Although soldering is rarely suggested. We do know that media blocks can go brain-dead about a battery-swap even if standard procedures are followed. We know that devices can die even during a 'simple' firmware upgrade. Agreed, most media-blocks can be revived at a lower cost than an ICP replacement. Still means lost shows. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Stephan Shelley Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 854 From: castro valley, CA, usa Registered: Nov 2014 posted 09-07-2019 11:51 AM                     This location that had the Cat 862 secure clock reset runs daily but shuts down the equipment fully at night. Worked fine the night before but next day secure clock was at 1980. No keys would work.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-07-2019 01:21 PM                     quote: Mark Gulbrandsen All my certificate losses have been from dead batteries and no, the batteries are not in parallel. They sure are...that is why you can change them but only 1 at a time. I would suspect there is a diode form each so the batteries can't see each other but via diodes, they are going to alternate who is keeping the certificate alive but will drain together. However, even this scheme would tend to keep a low-current issue on the battery holder from causing a certificate loss.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-07-2019 03:20 PM                     quote: Steve Guttag They sure are...that is why you can change them but only 1 at a time. I guess you haven't done any SX-2001 or similar servers. The only servers that you can pull batteries out of one at a time are the later AR servers or the SX-3000 where each actual battery is 3 volts. The earlier servers with internal media blocks as shown in the picture have two 1.5 volt batteries in series and require the backup battery supply be plugged into the media block before removing the internal batteries... or else.  |  IP: Logged

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