Oct 16

Reverse engineering VFD-front panel from deceased Sony BluRay-player

Electronics, Teardown Add comments

While attending the 2017 edition of Mini Maker Faire at Aarhus central library (DOKK1) We (Labitat expedition) also went to the obligatory visit at OSAA (Open space Aarhus) and looted some stuff from their Limbo-shelves.

In between all the good stuff there, I found a Sony BDP-S360 BluRay-player. It went back home for exploring.

Upon powering-up it just sits there saying “Wait” on the VFD while making some mechanical noises.

As I have no interest in having a BD-player it was turned into parts. Nothing really useful was found inside. Bog-standard primary SMPS, 22 watts max output and mainboard with more or less single-chip-solution.

The mechanics had the old venerable KES-410-optical pickup (known from the ‘PS3 fat‘)

As I have a special interest in VFD’s (Vacuum Fluorescent Displays) (amongst other older display technologies) I took a closer look.

BDP-S360 VFD Front panel

It has all the power supply circuitry onboard directly – usually the Filament-drive and VEE-supply is built-in in the main SMPS, but Sony apparently went for the simpler approach here. I like that!

2 minutes on Google yielded the service manual with nice schematics and pictures of the front panel-board foil and silkscreen.

Looking at the schematic for the power supply for the VFD it’s pretty bog standard-kinda-deal here.

Transformers have always been an interesting item – for most a “black box”. I would like to know the number of windings etc. So i took out the transformer, put it into Acetone for a minute and opened the core (the outer ring lifts off, revealing the windings.)

BDP-S360 VFD Transformer pinout

BDP-S360 VFD Transformer opened up BDP-S360 VFD Transformer bottom view

I documented my findings here, in case that it might come in handy for someone else hacking with VF-Displays

 

T701:
Circular core, 10 pins.
Primary, pins 2,3,4
Feedback, pins 5,6
Secondary, VEE 1,10
Secondary, Filament 7,8,9
Tested at 160kHz
Primary inductance (end-to-end)    70 uH
Feedback inductance 2.2nH
Secondary, VEE 140uH
Secondary, filament 3uH
Winding order:
15+15 Windings 2-3-4 0.1mm
3+3 Windings 7-8-9 0.1mm
44 Windings, 10-1 0.1mm
5 Windings, 5-6 0.1mm
Voltages measured:
VEE is -18V
Filament supply is 5.4Vpp running on a -13.7V bias
Switching circuit runs at 216 KHz
The VFD-glass itself seems to be custom-part with special symbols for BD-player. I couldn’t find anything online on it.
The controller on board is the old and venerable PT6315. It uses a 3-wire interface and is very easy to interface with.
I will keep the board and parts for some more fun another day.
Update:
For kicks i tried making my own transformer on a EP-7 core with PC40-material.
Same number of turns, 0.1mm airgap (2 layers of Kapton tape)
Slightly higher output voltages, same switching frequency.

2 Responses to “Reverse engineering VFD-front panel from deceased Sony BluRay-player”

  1. Dan Says:
    April 13th, 2018 at 10:49

    Please do proofreading.

    The I is not capitalized in “As i have”

    There is no closing parenthesis or punctuation after “(known from the ‘PS3 fat‘”

    The I is not capitalized in “As i have” (Again) or “i took a closer look”

    The phrase “schematics for the power supply for the VFD” makes no sense

    The s is not capitalized in “so i took”, and there is no punctuation after “revealing the windings)”

    No punctuation after “hacking with VF-Displays”

  2. Per Jensen Says:
    April 13th, 2018 at 11:54

    Thanks! Fixed 🙂

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