gradual dimming of vfd

hi all,

i thought i saw a posting on this before, and i did check the faq, but couldn't find anything. my display has gotten progressivly dimmer over the past few months. this is not the eratic dim problem that others have experienced. i sent my player in a year or 2 ago for this same problem only when i noticed it was difficult to see the display even at night. now that i'm noticing the problem again, i'd like to make the repair myself. even after i recieved my player after the first repair, i still had to do a quick resolder of a cold joint not 3 months afterwards. it's been great for the past year. is there documentation of what i need to check as far as voltages and signals to diagnose a dim display?

thanks

greg

MKII 20+20 Blue/PolFace

ps. yes, my dimmer setting is at 100% ;-)

is there documentation of what i need to check as far as voltages and signals to diagnose a dim display?

There is documentation of one possible failure point here, though I find it odd that you've have the same problem a second time after having had it repaired once already.

I recommend talking to support about it before turning on the soldering iron.

I was gonna say that it could be due to cold weather but then I saw you live in Florida, so you have no such problems.

It's funny you should mention the cold weather problem. If my empeg gets cold my screen does not come on at full brightness until I reboot a few times, play with the dimmer controls for quite awhile or the unit warms up. Is this a fixable problem short of always taking the unit into a warm place?

Is this a fixable problem short of always taking the unit into a warm place?

It might be this problem....

I dunno about the capacitor thing tfabris linked to, but my player shows up pretty dim if I leave it in the cold, so in typical "don't do that" fashion, I just don't leave it out in the cold anymore.

Since it only happens when it is cold, I guess its a balance of risking something happening during shipment for the "fix" (which David is more than willing to do) versus just bringing it inside when it's cold. I think it's easier (and safer) to do the second especially since adding the capacitor may/may not cure this specific problem.