veczar Gold Platinum Member Member 1,081 Member For: 22y 3m 14d Gender: Male Location: Victoria Posted 31/10/06 12:56 PM Posted 31/10/06 12:56 PM I really am at the end of my knowledge. My setup:I obviously have the premium ICC. I am interfacing to it via a dsub cable and custom cable at the other end (I think its Pandas design). I use powerstrip to hack the resolution and frequencies etc. I have remote boot from hibernate etc etc.The setup is perfect when the laptop is being powered by 240v mains OR laptop is running on battery. The issue is I cant use the car to power it. When I use a car DC laptop charger the screen flickers shockingly (power filter didn't help). I then tried a cheap inverter and still shocking. The best effort was my 3rd attempt which is an expensive sine wave inverter and it works awesome compared to the other two methods.However, there is still flickering. If I ground the inverter its real bad but with no ground its getting close to acceptable. I have spent a fortune on this project in money and time I really need some help. Troy (shock) has been helping me heaps hes been awesome and his guess is that this is the video version of ground loop? I really need a solution because I am so close. Thanks. Any ideas welcome.
Panda Member 225 Member For: 22y 5m 28d Gender: Male Location: Gladstone, QLD Posted 01/11/06 04:11 AM Posted 01/11/06 04:11 AM Tough one, sounds like you have tried to eliminate the obvious sources.One thing you didn't mention - is the cable that runs from your laptop to your ICC shielded?Panda
Paradoxx Colossal Member Member 5,049 Member For: 22y 1m 16d Gender: Male Location: Perth, WA Posted 01/11/06 04:35 AM Posted 01/11/06 04:35 AM (edited) How is the Inverter being powered? If it is on the same circuit as the ICC maybe you are right Panda in there being a ground loop? Maybe some more isolation is required? What if you wire the inverter directly to the battery? Might be a good idea to draw all the circuits you have tapped into (use the schematics from the manual on CD) and see if there is a possible loopback. It seems to me that if you are grounding it and it flickers there must be some signal grounding. What about an inductor on the ground wire to the inverter (to block any AC)? Edited 01/11/06 04:36 AM by XXXR6T
ZAP No boost, no bottle, just my foot on the throttle! Legacy Donating Member 7,935 Member For: 22y 7m 26d Gender: Male Location: Sydney Posted 01/11/06 05:15 AM Posted 01/11/06 05:15 AM I would try changing the display to 75Hz as it may be syncing the clock frequency @60hz.
veczar Gold Platinum Member Member 1,081 Member For: 22y 3m 14d Gender: Male Location: Victoria Posted 01/11/06 08:21 AM Author Posted 01/11/06 08:21 AM Thanks guys. When I put the inverter pos on the battery it is the same as using it in my boot! When I put the inverter neg on the battery it is better but not fixed, so im running a NEG line from boot to battery.I also found the power filter does make it a bit better if its put just before the inverter (with NO ground attached to filter).XXXR6T, What is a ground inductor?As far as the VGA cable goes im not sure how shielded it is as it was bought from a form member I think it was you panda (by my mate john).ZAP, yeh the refresh rate of the screen sux but this flickering is different to slow refresh. PS What is the max refresh of the screen anyways?
Panda Member 225 Member For: 22y 5m 28d Gender: Male Location: Gladstone, QLD Posted 01/11/06 08:28 AM Posted 01/11/06 08:28 AM As far as the VGA cable goes im not sure how shielded it is as it was bought from a form member I think it was you panda (by my mate john).OK then, if it was the one I made it is shieldedPanda
Panda Member 225 Member For: 22y 5m 28d Gender: Male Location: Gladstone, QLD Posted 01/11/06 08:37 AM Posted 01/11/06 08:37 AM I don't know what I was thinking - it must be the inverter because you say it is perfect on every other type of power- perfect on battery- perfect when plugged into the house 240V- crap when plugged into the inverter 240VDefinately sounds like ground loopPanda
shockF6 Legacy Donating Member 478 Member For: 21y 6d Location: Melbourne Posted 01/11/06 09:01 AM Posted 01/11/06 09:01 AM Hey Tim,now that were at this stage of testing with only mild success, the only thing left to do is start unplugging stuff and see if you can get the screen right without anything else plugged in.What that means is that EVERYTHING in the circuit that grounds somewhere needs to be removed and anything left that is required to show the picture must all be ground to the same point. eg. the VGA cable ground needs to be connected to the exact same point as the inverter ground. this should give you a good picture then you work backwards from there and plug in the other devices (like the audio).Ill talk to you more about this on messenger.good luck Troy
veczar Gold Platinum Member Member 1,081 Member For: 22y 3m 14d Gender: Male Location: Victoria Posted 01/11/06 10:27 AM Author Posted 01/11/06 10:27 AM I can isolate the system to only TWO ground points in a matter of 10 minutes. Those two are inverter NEG (connected direct to battery NEG) AND screen (vga cable) ground. Only master Panda knows how I can find the BA ICC ground because he made the cable!
Panda Member 225 Member For: 22y 5m 28d Gender: Male Location: Gladstone, QLD Posted 01/11/06 10:53 AM Posted 01/11/06 10:53 AM Only master Panda knows how I can find the BA ICC ground because he made the cable!This one?In the picture it is the black one (on the ICC end it's the bottom row, second from the left, on the carputer end it's top left)Master Panda
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