Sony SRX-510P - E02 No Comm with PCAB

[Laszlo Chatelard]

Hello everyone,

Glad to discover a professional international forum for digital cinemas.
We own a theater room with a Sony SRX-510P since 2018, and it has been working somewhat correctly since. Our Sony vendor in France has been regularly calibrating, every 3 months, using PCAB. We calibrate often as it is a room used by cinema professionals exclusively. However, when we last tried to calibrate 3 weeks ago, our PCAB displayed an error "E02 : No Comm", and no calibration can be done.

We have been actively scratching our heads on this issue with our Sony vendor and different local Sony users and maintenance people, but with no success until now.
This is why I was wondering, has anyone has been encountering this particular issue ?

Our unsuccessful resolutions attempts so far have been :
- using a different PCAB
- Reinitializing the SY-401 board (via backup tools, and serial loader)
- Replacing the SY-401 Board
- Replacing the CPU-450 Board
- Replacing the FE-31A Board
- Replacing the CCM-69 Board
- Changing all cables

Our only hint regarding this error, is in the manual for the SRX R815P Dual System, page 44, where it is noted :
E02 NO COMM - The SDCP protocol’s “Community” is set to a setting other than ”SONY.”
Check the “Community” setting

We unfortunately have no idea where to look for to adjust this setting, as Sony seems quite opaque on these type of informations.
Our issue has of course been addressed to Veritek, which, in our case, has never been of any use (would be happy by the way to hear about your troubleshooting experiences with them !)

Thank you for taking the time to read, and if in any case you have an idea or a hint on this issue, would be happy to hear it!

Have a nice day,

[Laszlo Chatelard]

Hello,

Fortunately, we managed to find the solution. In any case, here it is so it can be used by anyone :
- On the SY-401 Board, check that all the switches visible on page 2-78 of the service manual are correctly placed to factory settings. Two of them (S301 and S501) can be easily moved by inattention when running maintenance. The S501 position of the switch has no incidence on normal operations of the projector, and there is no warning informing about their status. So not a big deal ... apparently except if you need to use the PCAB.
Funny enough, there is no hint anywhere by Sony that this particular switch would have any incidence. So we just got lucky finding out.

For whom it may concern!

Have a nice day,

[Marco Giustini]

thanks for taking the time to post your resolution here for future reference! Glad you got that sorted!

[Stefan Scholz]

Thank you for posting it. Just the same problem I had last week.
I have been asked to do service on a typical 515, which had this communication problem, when I tried last, a couple of years ago.
Since, the venue was closed due to the old owner that died.
Just this week I got the information that it needs recalibration.
I'll let you know about my proceedings.

[Stefan Scholz]

Thanks, the switch could really be an issue.
With this projector, I can do Gamma, but Uniformity tries to find points in the initiating part, waits for reply of Projector, which are missing, and stops after 3 tries wit Error 53, Points missing.
I zoomed to smallest possible, capture the full projected image, and use most lamps for best brightness versus stray light from the room.
The T-core is one issue, definitively, only little improvement for a sdhort term to be possible, but might have helped them in locating a replacement.
I swapped SY401 board, which didn't change the behaviour. Yes, I casn bring LPD 7 and so on, waste more time.
Since it was bought in 2013 10 years have passed, and it's time for a replacement. The image of the new RGB 4K large chip projectors w/ UHC lens is great. Time to go to the dump, SONY.
Or, does anyone have an idea?

[Marco Giustini]

I'm curious: are Sony still providing good support for their projectors? I mean, Stefan, do you have a Sony tech reference who can point you in the right direction or have they got rid of everybody already?

[Stefan Scholz]

Sony has stopped selling projectors effective Ma 2020. They promised to keep support for the 510 and 515 series until 2027, but primarily for their prime contract customers. What we have encountered is a steep increase in spare part prices. The 320s have an earlier end of support, but they're older and not many remained in the field except for their own service customers.
The spare part situation is not really great, parts in stock are still available at increased cost on short notice, those not in stock eventually take time, and still cost. T-Core are only available in refurbished versions, meaning you need to redeliver a defective one. (I know, there are some Chinese vendors that claim to offer good, renewed one at reasonable cost, we have never tried them.)

Our philosophy is, replace as many as possible with new RGB lasers and Ultra High Contrast premium lenses, to keep the image quality on screen on the same level. Even though this involves fairly large machines for mid sized and small screens. The light loss on UHC is substantial, nearly 2 T stops.