Amplifone convergence help please

don1400

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Hello,
I recently brought a 25" Star Wars cockpit back to life and am having a time getting the convergence correct (tube was replaced at some point and convergence was way off) . I'm a bit confused by what I read and the illustrations in the manual concerning the purity rings compared to the ones I have on the game. Illustrations of the purity rings show 4 tabs and the purity magnets, the rings I have are 6 tabs and I'm guessing the end rings away from the set screw are the purity magnets.

RINGS.jpg


I placed those over the gap closest to the yoke, is this the correct placement or should it be the gap closest to the end of the neck tube or am I all wrong?

NECKTUBE1.jpg


Thanks in advance for any help.
Rich H
 
If I read your post correctly you are saying that the tube you currently have is NOT the original 100degree Amplifone 25" tube. If this is the case it has been my experience that you will really never get the monitor to converge perfectly no matter what you do. However you can get it very close and acceptable for use in the game.

Are you using a vector pattern generator or just the SW test patterns?
 
If I read your post correctly you are saying that the tube you currently have is NOT the original 100degree Amplifone 25" tube. If this is the case it has been my experience that you will really never get the monitor to converge perfectly no matter what you do. However you can get it very close and acceptable for use in the game.

Are you using a vector pattern generator or just the SW test patterns?
Yes the original tube was replaced, the only sticker on the tube is a warranty tag from Academy color tube for 1 year. There's also the raised glass lettering stating its a 100 degree tube, 25V100.
Convergence was horribly off, the yoke was loose and detached from the rubber stops and the rings I believe were on backwards (set screw towards yoke)
My main concern is do I have the rings in the correct place so at least I'm starting out right.
Thanks,
Rich
 
They only show 4 because the first set is for the purity adjustment, the last 2 sets for convergence.Use the gap closest to the yoke for the front of the rings. You can slide it around when doing it to see what effects it has and fine tune it.
 
Convergence is the exact same steps used on the WG K6100 series.
Start on page 10
http://www.cityofberwyn.com/manuals/tm183-3.pdf

What concerns me is you have no clue what yoke is on that. If you have a mismatched yoke you can really screw up several items especially that precious Amplifone board set. And I'd bet that's why this tube is sitting there not working. Last person had no clue these monitors are specific.

First thing you need to do is either:
A) Have someone get the part number off an actual K6100 yoke to ensure that's what yours is
or
B) Have some one Ohm out their K6100 yoke for you and tell you what their readings are. Then you need to Ohm out your yoke.
 
Convergence is the exact same steps used on the WG K6100 series.
Start on page 10
http://www.cityofberwyn.com/manuals/tm183-3.pdf

What concerns me is you have no clue what yoke is on that. If you have a mismatched yoke you can really screw up several items especially that precious Amplifone board set. And I'd bet that's why this tube is sitting there not working. Last person had no clue these monitors are specific.

First thing you need to do is either:
A) Have someone get the part number off an actual K6100 yoke to ensure that's what yours is
or
B) Have some one Ohm out their K6100 yoke for you and tell you what their readings are. Then you need to Ohm out your yoke.

Don't know if this helps but the following is printed on the back of the plastic square on the yoke: Triad-Utrad 9A2806-001D 17-8232. Anyone know if this is the correct yoke? Aside from the stickers on the tubes for MFG and such is there any other way to tell if it is an Amplifone tube?
Rich
 
If I read your post correctly you are saying that the tube you currently have is NOT the original 100degree Amplifone 25" tube. If this is the case it has been my experience that you will really never get the monitor to converge perfectly no matter what you do. However you can get it very close and acceptable for use in the game.


I've been working on two 25" LOW res tubes (so NOT original) on two different SW cockpits. One had a WG6100 chassis, the other Amplifone.

Both showed the same problem, I cannot get the blue to converge correctly horizontally.

When I set it perfect in the center, it will be below the white lines (when on the raster test screen) on top and above the white lines on the bottom part.

I've worked on both machines for about 6 hours and never got it perfect, so I have to agree on this.


From your pictures, I actually think you have the right yoke there. I'd have to check the numbers but Triad does ring a bell.

The ring set is OK and the screw is on the right side. From the manual it is said that the first ring (the purity ring) has to be over the gap that is neared the screen part of the tube (so AWAY from the neck).

Nice to see a link to my video here by the way, but this will only help you with the end-convergence. (That video is done with my own 100% original Amplfone set-up by the way...it had ultra-sweet convergence from the start, except for the minor corner solved in the video, I'm a lucky man)
 
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FYI - The 25" Amplifone setup used a K6100 yoke. No idea about the part number can't help you out there. Hopefully someone will post their yoke info for you.
 
Nice job Level42

So you need to simply follow the directions for setting the magnets depth and convergence found in the link I originally posted for the K6100.
 
Nice job Level42

So you need to simply follow the directions for setting the magnets depth and convergence found in the link I originally posted for the K6100.

Great, thanks, I kinda got the idea, about 30 years ago I built a Heath Kit TV, the convergence was same proceedure but had actual magnets around the neck face. Spent a lot of time on it but I eventually got it.
Just curious, considering there aren't any mfg labels on my tube were there any other tell tale signs indicating it's an Amp?
Thanks,
Rich
 
The 25" used the K6100 yoke because the K6100 yoke was designed for a 100 degree tube which is what the 25" and the 19" K6100 versions are. However the tube you keep referring to as Amplifone was made by Rauland. The part number is A63AAXOOX for the 25" tube. Tell tale sign?? No idea.
 
Well, you have to know what to look for. Look closely at the screen when it's off. How big do you recon the pixels are ? Compare it to a regular CGA monitor (low-res game). If the pixels are about the same size or bigger (after all this is 25" and the pixels will be bigger on a 25" low-res tube). When turned on, you will see "trapezoids" on diagonal lines on a low res tube, much more then on a med-res.

The general appearance of the back of the tube is red, but this sure isn't a definite clue as the latest one I worked on also had a red appearance on the back-side.

The type nr. was torn away, I'm pretty sure that was done deliberately to hide that it's not the original tube...

The tube is pretty "bulby" (Sorry, can't find a better word) compared to other tubes.

Here's a pic of how mine looked when I first bought the cab:

web.jpg
 
The general appearance of the back of the tube is red, but this sure isn't a definite clue as the latest one I worked on also had a red appearance on the back-side.

The type nr. was torn away, I'm pretty sure that was done deliberately to hide that it's not the original tube...

The tube is pretty "bulby" (Sorry, can't find a better word) compared to other tubes.

Here's a pic of how mine looked when I first bought the cab:

web.jpg
[/QUOTE]

Seeing the pix of your tube jogged my memory, I have the same 5 letters and digits on upper left rear of the tube in my game AWX00, they are extremely faint, but there. Just forgot about them since you can barely see them. Don't know what they mean though.
Rich

CRT1A.jpg

CRT2A.jpg
 
So, is this the present tube or is it the one that was swapped out ?

Looks original med-res (Rauland) to me....

Notice that there is not a single convergence strip on this one. Look at my tube how many they needed.

I can't believe that it didn't have a single convergence strip and still was converged properly (the edges/corners).

So, my questions: is that the tube in your machine now ?
Can you provide a pic or video of it running the white test-screen (like the one I used on my video)?
If the convergence OK in the CENTER of the screen ? This is the starting point. When doing "main" convergence you will have to ignore the edges and corners. I'd say there's an imaginary circle of about 20 cm. in the center that you should be looking a, not more.
 
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So, is this the present tube or is it the one that was swapped out ?

Looks original med-res (Rauland) to me....

Notice that there is not a single convergence strip on this one. Look at my tube how many they needed.

I can't believe that it didn't have a single convergence strip and still was converged properly (the edges/corners).

So, my questions: is that the tube in your machine now ?
Can you provide a pic or video of it running the white test-screen (like the one I used on my video)?
If the convergence OK in the CENTER of the screen ? This is the starting point. When doing "main" convergence you will have to ignore the edges and corners. I'd say there's an imaginary circle of about 20 cm. in the center that you should be looking a, not more.

The tube in pix is the one that came with game, the reason I believe it is not original is a warranty sticker from Academy Color Tube for 1 year, but for all I know it could be original tube, maybe some kind of work was done on it and that's the warranty sticker. I agree my tube looks a lot like yours, I'd be jacked if it's an original Rauland.

CRT4A.jpg


When I finally got everything working and fired it up, picture was far off convergence, yoke was loose, unattached to the rubber wedges (only 2) no plastic strips and rings were attached with the set screw nearest yoke. Last night I spent a little bit of time trying to converge pix when I realized putting a large mirror in the cockpit and trying to align it by looking at mirror wasn't going to work since I cannot see the grid alignment clearly enough, so I stopped and decided this weekend I would build a frame to hold the tube and set it in back of game to see alignment lines close up. This is the pix of what the convergence looks like after about an hour last night. Tried to get a sharper pix but I couldn't.

CRT3A.jpg


I do have some of the white strips to eventually use, I've seen your video several times and your convergence looks amazing. After I make the frame for the monitor, I'll have at it and we'll see how close I can get. Now if I can do something about the pincushion problem......
Thanks Rich
 
Nice job so far!
Your remaining convergence issues will be almost cleared up by using the magnetic shunts. I say "almost" because it's not uncommon to have a slight error in convergence. You set it the best you can and forget it. I hate to burst your bubble but the pin cushioning issue won't go away. Star Wars was designed to be run on a 90 degree tube. As i mentioned earlier the yoke is from the 19" K6100 which also has the pin cushioning issue because those tubes wer also 100 degree.

Clay Cowgill had created a pin cushioning corrector long ago but alas - he no longer makes/sells them.
 
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