quote: Steve Guttag

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Nobody is really getting rich there.

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quote: Alban Birch

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Just replace the Exciter and Lens by the Laser, move your Cell

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Any chance you have to get rid the cell is a positive chance! Many of the downside problems with stereo SVA lie in the cell itself, poor cross talk and higher harmonic distortion levels are a couple.

Mark
 

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Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 04-02-2007, 05:41 PM:
 
It's a mere Audi A4 although it is the 3.2 direct injection 6 speed model. No GPS though.
 

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Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 04-02-2007, 05:43 PM:
 
Sam, get a TomTom...
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-02-2007, 05:45 PM:
 
I dunno Mark...you've put in a bunch of those BACP readers and are still driving around your beat up truck with an Arbor press banging into everything!

Sam didn't get the Beamer from the red reader money...there is no way he would have taken environmentally friendly money from the red reader to go out and get a Earth warming internal combustion engine (unless it is a hybrid...which would make sense for those 15MPH trips). I say it was the THX D1138 that bought the BMW.

Steve
 

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Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 04-02-2007, 05:48 PM:
 
Huh?

I was just indirectly pointing out Mark's common and likeable tendency toward exaggeration.
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-02-2007, 06:44 PM:
 

quote:

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I dunno Mark...you've put in a bunch of those BACP readers and are still driving around your beat up truck with an Arbor press banging into everything!

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Naw, its not my beat up truck.... Its a CLACO Truck... 263,000 miles but it still runs great so why get rid of it... comfortable like an old pair of jeans. This one failed permanently at 485,000 miles... it was Earl's service van and he was hoping to get to 500K... inside it was very organized though! John Eickoff used to drive it when he worked for CLACO a long time ago... those that know John wonder how he ever fit in there...



Now my KIA Sportage may be a sad excuse for an old vehicle but it doesn't spend time on the highway in traffic... the advantage here is that it leaves full size trucks behind on those old mining roads that are too narrow for full sizers to get through... its never let me down either and hey... if it rolls off a cliff oh well..... .
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 04-02-2007, 10:24 PM:
 
WEll, 485K on a Toyota isn't too bad to sneeze at - and prob on the original motor...

Even Mark's work van with 265K miles on it isn't bad either - just barely broke in (and I bet they run Mobil 1 in the crankcase..).

Road miles doesn't hurt any vehicle, but it's the town/stop and go stuff that kills vehicles..

But, a question on the BACP units (wonderful units by the way): being that a wal-wart powers the unit intead of the power supply with adjustable trimpot to shoot up the LED voltage that the CE units uses, how do you increase the LED intensity when it's time to turn things up?
 

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Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 04-02-2007, 11:59 PM:
 
We are the only reader maker that does not offer LED current adjustment.

The Wall wart is just the basic power supply. The DC to DC convertor board comprises one side of the electronics board.

We came out with a super efficient lens that allowed lower LED operating current than the other makers so we decided on non adjustable LED current.

The tendency of a lot of techs (none here right?) is to floor the controls to make Dolby level and leave town with an LED running at 500 mAmps. We do have gain jumpers on the removable electronics board that give 6dB more gain to allow for LED aging.

In our experience the LED will make Dolby level for about 3 years and cutting links gives another 2. As they say, "Your mileage may vary".
 

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Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 04-04-2007, 02:50 AM:
 
I've been using the BACP's on our Christies for right at 4 years now with no problems. The only thing I did was to set up a relay to cut the power off to the LED power supply (a 9v plug-in transformer) so I wouldn't be using up the life of the LED too quickly. I also did this with my Dolby CAT.701 readers.
 

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Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 04-04-2007, 08:49 AM:
 
Small suggestion: Power anyone's LED system from an outlet wired across the drive motor. No parts needed and its is only on with the motor.

On mono systems that switch the "exciter" I get the AC from the motor lead and loop through the exciter contacts so that the LED goes hot at the appropriate time. Again, no parts. Louis
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-04-2007, 09:00 AM:
 
There are pros and cons to doing as Louis states. Most of these systems do not wake up in a quiet fashion...as such if the sound system is live and looking at that soundhead when you power it up, you will get a a combination of sounds from the power supply waking up as well as the LED coming on instantly. This is particularly true of mono system that don't switch to a non-sync while the film is not running.

Some supplies, like CE's LS40 have a soft start for the LED and a set of contacts that can be used to just ramp up the LED or ramp it down. A little known fact is you can have CE configure those contacts for either N.O. or N.C. operation (short to turn it off, short to turn it on). We have successfully retroed an old changeover system that used exciterlamp changeovers and it worked perfectly (Family Drive-In).

Now if you have a modern cinema processor and are switching it to non-sync or some other non-film format, then just switching the supply is no problem and is indeed recommended.

Steve
 

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