LaCie Electron 22blue

[karmeck]

I have a LaCie coming in but can't find out what version. To me it seems to be 4 versions (I?, II, III and IV) . I also don't know if it even matters other then connection options.

Spoiler

Anyone know what version I'm geting?

[Steamflogger Boss]

I would guess the first one. I have a IV and the IV is at the end of the name on the monitor itself.

[Xer Xian]

Yes, it's the 1st version. It doesn't really matter apart from lower max supported resolution. And age.

[karmeck]

Thx.

[BazookaBen]

I have the IV, it has two vga connectors instead of one vga and one bnc. It has a max horizontal range of 140kHz. That's one of the highest of any CRT as far as I know, though only useful if you have a pretty powerful pc to drive super high resolutions

[karmeck]

I have the IV, it has two vga connectors instead of one vga and one bnc. It has a max horizontal range of 140kHz. That's one of the highest of any CRT as far as I know, though only useful if you have a pretty powerful pc to drive super high resolutions

Nice.

Is the LaCie kinda dark or is it ju me. Or are dell monitors very bright.

[BazookaBen]

I have the IV, it has two vga connectors instead of one vga and one bnc. It has a max horizontal range of 140kHz. That's one of the highest of any CRT as far as I know, though only useful if you have a pretty powerful pc to drive super high resolutions

Nice.

Is the LaCie kinda dark or is it ju me. Or are dell monitors very bright.

At 480p? It's going to look dark because of scanlines, I use an Extron RGB to boost the signal a little.

At higher resolutions? It's bright enough in a low-light room, and I've never seen more natural contrast in a display. But yours is older than mine, so you might need to adjust the G2 voltage.

[karmeck]

I have the IV, it has two vga connectors instead of one vga and one bnc. It has a max horizontal range of 140kHz. That's one of the highest of any CRT as far as I know, though only useful if you have a pretty powerful pc to drive super high resolutions

Nice.

Is the LaCie kinda dark or is it ju me. Or are dell monitors very bright.

At 480p? It's going to look dark because of scanlines, I use an Extron RGB to boost the signal a little.

At higher resolutions? It's bright enough in a low-light room, and I've never seen more natural contrast in a display. But yours is older than mine, so you might need to adjust the G2 voltage.

Oh, I see.

Currently I think I'm on 720p with thees settings from retrotink.com
hdmi_timings=1280 1 80 72 216 720 1 5 3 22 0 0 0 60 0 74239049 1 #720p

I did try to use my hdmi2vga that worked so well with my Dell monitor. It boots fine but when I start a game the monitor goes all bonkers on me and fades out. To my knowledge the games and frontend should run from the same resolution settings, but clearly something differs.

[karmeck]

Whit this monitor I got the , what he claims to be, orginal vga cable. One end has a USB connector, what is it for?

[BazookaBen]

Currently I think I'm on 720p with thees settings from retrotink.com
hdmi_timings=1280 1 80 72 216 720 1 5 3 22 0 0 0 60 0 74239049 1 #720p

I did try to use my hdmi2vga that worked so well with my Dell monitor. It boots fine but when I start a game the monitor goes all bonkers on me and fades out. To my knowledge the games and frontend should run from the same resolution settings, but clearly something differs.

What sources devices are you using?

Whit this monitor I got the , what he claims to be, orginal vga cable. One end has a USB connector, what is it for?

I think most LaCie's have a USB hub on them, so that cable is for feeding the hub.

[karmeck]

Currently I think I'm on 720p with thees settings from retrotink.com
hdmi_timings=1280 1 80 72 216 720 1 5 3 22 0 0 0 60 0 74239049 1 #720p

I did try to use my hdmi2vga that worked so well with my Dell monitor. It boots fine but when I start a game the monitor goes all bonkers on me and fades out. To my knowledge the games and frontend should run from the same resolution settings, but clearly something differs.

What sources devices are you using?

Whit this monitor I got the , what he claims to be, orginal vga cable. One end has a USB connector, what is it for?

I think most LaCie's have a USB hub on them, so that cable is for feeding the hub.

I'm on a raspberry pi 3b running recalbox. And a vga hat from retrotink.com

Recently found this thread regarding my goal to run it at 240p
https://github.com/libretro/libretro-me ... -405713092

The usb get enough power from a vga cable?

[kel]

The VGA cable with USB could be for the LaCie blue eye colorimeter which sends and receives data on the I2C lines of the VGA input.

I picked up 2x Electron blueII monitors from different places and they were both too dim. I think it might be due to ageing components, maybe a common issue as I now have an Electron blueIV which is a lot brighter and also has a function to compensate for brightness loss by testing each color of an internal test pattern and adjusting the beam current settings to match the original brightness from when the monitor was new.

For the Electron blueII monitors I just adjusted the sub brightness option in the service menu as a way around the issue.

[karmeck]

The VGA cable with USB could be for the LaCie blue eye colorimeter which sends and receives data on the I2C lines of the VGA input.

I picked up 2x Electron blueII monitors from different places and they were both too dim. I think it might be due to ageing components, maybe a common issue as I now have an Electron blueIV which is a lot brighter and also has a function to compensate for brightness loss by testing each color of an internal test pattern and adjusting the beam current settings to match the original brightness from when the monitor was new.

For the Electron blueII monitors I just adjusted the sub brightness option in the service menu as a way around the issue.

I c.

Here we have an image

Spoiler

That was running at 2048x240p@120hz

Here is an image of the smpte colorbar from 240p test suite (720p@60hz)

Spoiler

After looking at it. Looks kinda fine. This is at 8300k

How do I enter service mode?

[ShadowofBob]

The VGA cable with USB could be for the LaCie blue eye colorimeter which sends and receives data on the I2C lines of the VGA input.

I picked up 2x Electron blueII monitors from different places and they were both too dim. I think it might be due to ageing components, maybe a common issue as I now have an Electron blueIV which is a lot brighter and also has a function to compensate for brightness loss by testing each color of an internal test pattern and adjusting the beam current settings to match the original brightness from when the monitor was new.

For the Electron blueII monitors I just adjusted the sub brightness option in the service menu as a way around the issue.

Interesting. I have a 19" IV I picked up last fall that is on the dim side w/ a slight blue tint. Was going to adjust the G2, but didn't realize there is a service menu option and brightness/color compensation feature.

[kel]

On my 22" its an option called constant brightness in the first screen on the user menu, just after Degauss. If you select that option then it should flash through 3 test screens, red, green and blue and then compensate for any lost brightness on each color and save to eeprom.

Here is an image of the smpte colorbar from 240p test suite (720p@60hz)

Spoiler

After looking at it. Looks kinda fine. This is at 8300k

How do I enter service mode?

Looks a bit dark to me. you should have 3 different shades of black in the bottom right corner as far as I'm aware.

To get the service menu up for the Electron blueII you have to:

(1) Turn power on while holding down the CONNECTOR SELECT button
(2) After step (1), release the button after one to two seconds.
(3) Confirm that 00 is displayed for the counter on the OSD display, and set to 255 with the (-) ADJUST button.
(4) set to 05 with the (+) ADJUST button.
(5) When the adjustment item select button {RIGHT side} is pressed, the factory mode will be entered.

The method may be different for yor Electron blueI though.

[BazookaBen]

As a lacie owner, I still keep PVM's and old tv's around for 240p stuff. 240p 120hz on a pc CRT has a double image effect with 60fps games that negates one of the best advantages of CRT's: motion clarity. You can see the double image effect by going to TESTUFO.COM and looking at the 60fps ufo at 60hz, then again at 120hz. You'll see it looks way better at 60hz

The only way I'd be satisfied playing on a pc CRT is with an OSSC set to 960x720@60HZ or similar with a scanline filter

[karmeck]

On my 22" its an option called constant brightness in the first screen on the user menu, just after Degauss. If you select that option then it should flash through 3 test screens, red, green and blue and then compensate for any lost brightness on each color and save to eeprom.

Here is an image of the smpte colorbar from 240p test suite (720p@60hz)

Spoiler

After looking at it. Looks kinda fine. This is at 8300k

How do I enter service mode?

Looks a bit dark to me. you should have 3 different shades of black in the bottom right corner as far as I'm aware.

From this YouTube video and others with it I'v learned that only the line touches the right should be visible.
https://youtu.be/ovmH0Xe8JyM

I got inside service mode and understand you can press + and - to increase or decrees value. But what dose that do?

[kel]

That Youtube video is showing calibration for NTSC broadcast video levels which are 7.5IRE as black. On the Help page of the 240ptest suite or at least the SNES version anyway it states that for PAL and video games in general black should be set to 3.5IRE (the inner most bar of the pluge pattern).

EDIT: heh nevermind, looks like it's be change to this now "NTSC levels require black at 7.5 IRE, but for games you should always use full range RGB. Although this system can only output 3.5 IRE in gray, it can output lower luminance levels in each". I must be still using an old version or something .

+ or - to increase or decrease which value as there are many? If you are referring to the sub brightness value then increasing it should increase brightness and decreasing it should decrease brightness. Or am I missing your meaning, maybe you mean the the first value that needs to be changed to 255 and the 05? if so then you are not quite in the service menu yet.

[karmeck]

That Youtube video is showing calibration for NTSC broadcast video levels which are 7.5IRE as black. On the Help page of the 240ptest suite or at least the SNES version anyway it states that for PAL and video games in general black should be set to 3.5IRE (the inner most bar of the pluge pattern).

EDIT: heh nevermind, looks like it's be change to this now "NTSC levels require black at 7.5 IRE, but for games you should always use full range RGB. Although this system can only output 3.5 IRE in gray, it can output lower luminance levels in each". I must be still using an old version or something .

+ or - to increase or decrease which value as there are many? If you are referring to the sub brightness value then increasing it should increase brightness and decreasing it should decrease brightness. Or am I missing your meaning, maybe you mean the the first value that needs to be changed to 255 and the 05? if so then you are not quite in the service menu yet.

Ah now I understand. I made it in. Sub brightens at 190 and upp made my monitor started a high pitch noise. So I lowered it back to 187.

If I set all colors to 100% the monitors gets brighter. I'm just worried it will wear out faster that way.

[kel]

Are those color settings for the bias or gain though? The bias settings are for brightness and the gain settings are for contrast so if the monitor is too dark then you would need to increase the bias of each color. If it's ageing components that are causing the issue then increasing these values should just compensate but if it's an ageing tube then unfortunately it's already starting to wear out anyway and this will probably only give it a bit longer at full brightness.

[karmeck]

Are those color settings for the bias or gain though? The bias settings are for brightness and the gain settings are for contrast so if the monitor is too dark then you would need to increase the bias of each color. If it's ageing components that are causing the issue then increasing these values should just compensate but if it's an ageing tube then unfortunately it's already starting to wear out anyway and this will probably only give it a bit longer at full brightness.

The setting is for gain.

[kel]

Maybe your monitor has a different issue to mine then. If increasing the gain of each color fixes your issue then that sounds more like a problem with contrast.

[karmeck]

Maybe your monitor has a different issue to mine then. If increasing the gain of each color fixes your issue then that sounds more like a problem with contrast.

The regular contrast is set to 100%, which is somthing I have come to understand people have difrent options about. But it seem to me to be set like that from factory as reseting video settings have contrast at 100%.

Brightens is at 43%

[kel]

My LaCie monitors are packed away at the moment but looking at the service manuals for them it does seem that the default setting for contrast is 100% like you said.

Which parts of the image were too dark on yours, was it the lighter colors or the darker colors?

[karmeck]

My LaCie monitors are packed away at the moment but looking at the service manuals for them it does seem that the default setting for contrast is 100% like you said.

Which parts of the image were too dark on yours, was it the lighter colors or the darker colors?

Here is a color bar test screen

Spoiler

Red look a little dark. It was at 72% increasing it to 100% only helped a little but did not help white levels.

[kel]

It's hard to tell from a photo as I might not be seeing exactly what you are seeing but to me that definitely looks like a brightness issues, not a contrast issue. The colors are supposed to be faint under the "1" column but to me it looks more like the 2-3 column on your photo with red being even worse like you said. The contrast looks a bit high to me with the furthest columns not being distinguishable from each other. You should probably be changing the Bias settings rather than the gain settings until you can only just see the colours under the "1" column.

[karmeck]

It's hard to tell from a photo as I might not be seeing exactly what you are seeing but to me that definitely looks like a brightness issues, not a contrast issue. The colors are supposed to be faint under the "1" column but to me it looks more like the 2-3 column on your photo with red being even worse like you said. The contrast looks a bit high to me with the furthest columns not being distinguishable from each other. You should probably be changing the Bias settings rather than the gain settings until you can only just see the colours under the "1" column.

What's is this Bias setting you speak of? I have not found it under normal settings.

[kel]

The bias settings are in the service menu. There should be one for R, G and B of each color temperature profile, unless the ElectronblueI doesn't have temperature profiles in which case I would imagine that there will be just one for R, G and B. Don't forget to make a note of the original values just in case it makes things worse for any reason.

[karmeck]

The bias settings are in the service menu. There should be one for R, G and B of each color temperature profile, unless the ElectronblueI doesn't have temperature profiles in which case I would imagine that there will be just one for R, G and B. Don't forget to make a note of the original values just in case it makes things worse for any reason.

Looking at the only service manual I can find it seems bias settings are under fact 3. Which I don't have.

Spoiler

To me it seems my older model do not have this setting.

[BazookaBen]

I've seen brightness labelled as R/G/B "cutoff" on some TV's. Try looking for that