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Replacing Panasonic AE3000U Lamp- Advice/Guidance & Where to buy?

#1
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8/18/09 at 6:10am
  • Joined: May 2003
  • Post Count: 77
Just hit 1809hrs last night and the "Replace Lamp" warning popped up. This is my first projector, so I'm a little anxious about the process, but it seems pretty straight-forward from reading the manual. Still, I have some questions:

* Can anyone offer some advice regarding replacing and/or handling the lamp?

* Should I use this as an opportunity to spray some Dust Off on the lenses or something?

* How about the ISF calibration I had done- is there anything I need to do or do I even need to be concerned since it was saved to my projector's memory?

* The lamp cost $400 direct from Panasonic, but it's currently $327 w/free shipping from Amazon- is that the best deal to be had on it? I've seen it less elsewhere, but those resellers' reputation/ratings are less than perfect...

* What about this Relampit website I've seen mentioned... anyone have any experience w/them?

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

Thx!

Edited by Philippe Kline - 8/18/2009 at 01:48 pm GMT
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#2
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8/20/09 at 4:08pm
  • Joined: May 1999
  • Post Count: 1,366
Relamping isn't difficult.

Generally.

And it may suddenly make the projector "like new" -- except you never realized it wasn't.

Question: is it in "econo" mode, or "full/high" brightness mode?  If it's in the econo mode, you should be good for a while longer more than the 2000 hours that the counter is working toward.  

Alternate question: is there any obvious signs of an aging lamp, such as fluctuations in brightness, long start-up times, flicker, wandering hot-spots and the like?  If the lamp still looks good, don't panic too much.

As for handling the new lamp, there's generally an impression of a "safe zone," caused by the reflector, housing, and maybe a glass cover-plate.  (I just got my AE3000; I haven't looked at the lamp.)  In general, don't put your fingers inside the safe zone.  Don't touch the inside of the reflector, or the arc-tube!!!  Actually, it's easiest to be safe if you only handle it by the plastic or plastic/metal frame and mounting hardware on the lamp itself.

I'd be very cautious about spraying anything around inside the projector.  Maybe the front of the lens, but make sure it's something that won't spray anything beyond clean, dry "air."  I have a CO2 thing that I use, with 16-gram cartridges from food-service.  Likewise, I know you can get cartridges of nitrogen, also food-grade.  (Shouldn't spray any oil!)  Beyond that, I'd be cautious.  Take any filters out, however, and, well away from the projector, blow THEM out.

Something I'd hesitate on is, in small projectors like these, the lamp is as much a part of the optical system as, say, the LCD panels themselves.  While it's scary that the lamp costs 13% of the projector, well, it is an important part.  Based on what you said, if I needed to order one right now, I'd either go to Amazon, or check and see what the price is from where I bought the projector. 

Leo
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