Those who used Pulse or trying their luck out on eBay-used item know there are two major problems of this device. One is the lens cloud, the other is calibration failure. I actually came across both problems since the first Pulse DTP20 I bought on Yahoo auction, it was the whole deal including all accessories and softwares, manuals, Monaco target, original box etc. You would be glad to get the whole package rather than the just the device and cable, right? Here is the thing to watch out. There is a grey/black rubber plate (below) : for Pulse DTP20 sitting in and many says its degradation caused device lens to cloud even gather mold. This 1st Pulse worked well and passed the calibration. But the geek inside of my kept saying how it can be ʻcalibratedʼ if the lens is smudged at the first place? Got my 2nd Pulse from eBay, lucky me it was a clean unit but doesn’t calibrate correctly. When using ColorElite, user have to pass the calibration to generate icc profiles, X-Rite freeware ColorPort doesn’t stop you even if calibration error sound beeped, it just bypasses the device and says calibration successful. Huhmm, very suspicious. For fully using the excellent ColorElite I have to own a flawless device first. That was why I decided to take the risk and give it a surgery.

Straightforward here is how Pulse DTP20 looks like when disassembled. Notice the battery is glued on by a piece of double-side tape(the white rectangle at the lower right-hand side). One single driver can do the job. What needs to be careful is how to organize those parts and assemble them in the right order. I used masking tape to glue sets of screws and the rubber slider on my cutting mat, cover the whole thing to prevent contact with dust in the air. Even so do prepare a can of ReAir or alternative for the inner parts e.g. lens glass, UV filter etc. Turn the sensor and let its lens side face up. There are 6 screws need to be removed, two in the middle, two at each corner of the lens ring, one hidden behind the serial seal and one behind the upper plastic slider. Knowing Pulse DTP20 is discontinued removing the serial seal isn’t a big deal for me, however the plastic slider is different. In my experience the slider is crucial for successful smooth reading, I replaced it with aluminum tape but it failed at the 1st row of reading. Slider’s reverse side is some sorta adhesive tape so don’t worry if you messed it up when pealing, just cut a piece of double-side tape the same size as the slider and glue it back on when all done. After pealing the slider off, take out the screw underneath (below)After taking all the screws out, turn the sensor back(lens side facing down) and let it sit on table, hold the lower part of its plastic body while slowly lifting the upper part-the one with round Pulse button-up, now I can see what’s inside Pulse DTP20.

There are two circuit boards attached together, one connected to battery the other got lens and LED flash lights imbedded. Take a close look at the lens. See those gold screws around the lens? I’ve never seen them elsewhere (maybe they are largely used inside optical equipment, just that I’m not familiar), at first I thought I need to take those tiny screws out in order to get behind the glass-Remember? I need to clean the lens & change the battery-soon I found out it just took a ACW rotate to open the lens ring. By doing that you can get behind the glass, take the purple UV filter out or even get access to the LED flash lights! For those who just want to change battery, don’t open the lens ring! Once those LED flash lights fall out you would never know how to put them back again. For reference’s sake here is a shot of the UV filter (below). I unplugged the battery and then took it out, it looks like this. (below) When I noticed it’s ʻMade in Japanʼ I saw the shinning light through thick clouds from the gloomy sky, one of my mates runs a electronics company, I asked him for the same stock or compatibles and he brought me some used ones at weekends for test. He also gave me advice on room lightings and helped me setting up the right ceiling light. We had some fun the whole afternoon plug in-and-out, heard the failure sound beeped times after times until it sounded like Zing! That is a Sanyo Ni-MH battery. He said it’s the same thing with the original X-Rite one and told me this kind of Ni-MH batteries are largely used on devices such as telephone, camera and optical equipment. Below is the telephone of my studio, the battery is just identical to Pulse DTP20′s. FrontBackSo here is the conclusion : for those who want to give it a shot changing the battery to calibrate Pulse DTP20 correctly, go and ask your local electronic store for compatible batteries. My suggestion is to go for Ni-MH battery made from Sanyo or Hitachi-would be a plus if it’s ʻMade in Japanʼ,quality guaranteed,YKWIM-and do it at home with some patience. Choose a warm, dry day and remember to clean the dust before seal everything back. If you are lucky your reborn Pulse DTP20 can still serve for 2 more years at careful use. That is it, feel free to drop me a line and I will try to answer anything within my limited knowledge. Next post will be workflow related post including combined experience of NEC MultiSync PA241, Epson Stylus Photo R3000 and Nokia N8. I’ll squeeze some time during my studio’s reform and get it done. Have fun.

Then what’s wrong with profiling using HP utility & on-board i1? I’ve checked different posts on various forums, quite a lot of users said they are happy with the standard way of profiling using HP Utility & 728 targets. I mean, it depends what you want and you know that is what you want. Standard profiling generates okay profiles in terms of speedwise and wastewise which is not bad at all, say some pro want to proof on cheap matte papers for his customers then why bother with profiling using 5000+ targets? 728 will do the job in an acceptable manner. However, when it’s the time to print THE PRINT using whatever one’s GO-TO paper, do you really think only 728 patches can generate that dead-on profile you are looking for? I know my answer is a no. So I started by googling around (Love ya, Google), and got the conclusion either get this puck or get a brand new i1 extreme.

Problem is the price. Like I said 140 grand yen is sth that I can almost buy a new Canon iPF 6300 with in Japan. X-Rite i1 Extreme is good but there is an on-board i1 already, after waiting for days when I was just about to call HP Japan to acquire the information of APS, my lucky bid came in Yahoo Auction (Yahoo Auction is Japan’s Ebay, one can get everything & anything you can & can’t imagine of. For me it’s a treasure box for digging out discount genuine inks and roll papers) with a brand-new boxed HP APS starting at 10,000 yen which was a bargain. The heart beating thing is that those bargains start off cheap on Yahoo Auction but always tend to rise high at the end due to large popularity or good condition favors. I didn’t think HP APS is something average Japanese know about but who knows what if there is some geek in Tokyo working as a freelance photographer or some print makers running their shops using Z6100 in Osaka wanting the exact same thing for CHEAP just like what I wished? That’s why I was babysitting there and monitoring the bid every 2,3 minutes at the closing night, lucky me no one seemed interested or noticed it so I got it at the starting price.

Sorry for the lengthy talk of a bit everything there, here got some shots showing what’s in the package. Part 1 is really just about the bundled i1 colorimeter so for the included profiling software (which is the core), I’ll write about it in part 2. Lineup of Spyder3 Pro, customized i1Display2 for NEC wide-gamut display and HP APS bundled i1 Display2 (below) : Forget Spyder3, I’ll just compare those 2 i1 colorimeters.Left is custom calibrated i1 Display for NEC wide-gamut displays, right is HP APS bundled i1 Display also works as a dongle for the included profiling software.They look identical outside,maybe what’s different is those filters inside. Look closer, both acclaimed Powered by X-Rite or their technology. (below) Turned them around tried to find anything different, nope, absolutely the same look. (below) Again, can you big companies like HP and NEC treat customers with a little bit heart? Are these bubble wraps all you’ve got for an expensive delicate instrument to high-end users??? I just want a storable case is it that difficult, Mr. NEC? By the way, I got my NEC PA241 and SpectraView 2 in Japan but had to purchase this custom i1 puck on BH simply because NEC don’t sell it here in Japan! Not as far as I know, how weird?? Since I use NEC PA241 as my main monitor, this APS bundled i1 seems lost its meaning somehow. According to my test APS bundled i1 just can not calibrate wide-gamut monitors at all, average dE varies but I got as high as 11 or sth which is not usable at all. Only place for this APS bundled i1 is when calibrating my iMac or 15″ PowerBook, since I use iMac as side monitor for palettes, tools and layers menu, I don’t really care if it’s that color accurate. Got descent results on my PowerBook though, more accurate and consistent than Spyder3 I would say, at least got some values if I want to calibrate a sRGB monitor besides just a software dongle. Considering brand-new boxed and how cheap I got it, a good deal! I’ll look into the APS profiling software and post it up in part 2 next time. (below)