My projector lamp just blew up! (1 Viewer)

[Jens Raethel]

The lamp should hold 2000 hours.
I have problably used it 300 hour´s top!
Will the warranty cover the replacement?
I bought the Projector in May this year.Sanyo-PLV-30.
I´m depressed.... :frowning:
Please give me back my YANG!

 

[Brett DiMichele]

This is the reason I will never own a DLP, DLP-A or LCD
Projector (ever) sorry but that $500.00 bulb is a rip off.
I had a LCD Projector user tell me that "2000 hours that's
only 50 cents per day yadda yadda so it's not that bad"
Yes it is... It's not even remotely right that you have
to pay as much as $500.00 or more for a bulb that probably
won't even last 1500 hours let alone 2000. And then they
can explode and damage the LCD screen too...
If I was to buy a projector it would ONLY be a CRT.
I am sorry to hear about your misfortune (and I love your
theater) but I doubt the bulb is a "warranty" covered Item.
LCD/DLP = IMHO

 

[Herb Kane]

Brett, Brett, Brett....
You probably haven't even had a chance to get a matching pair of heels for your new blue dress and now you're on the LCD camp....
CRT projectors are great but they're not without their faults either.
I have an LCD PJ (Sharp) which I am very pleased with. The bulb is rated at 2000 hours but they are good for 3000. The PJ can be reset at 2000 hours to allow you to continue using it. Granted the brightness isn't as great as it is with a new bulb but it's not a show stopper.
A replacement bulb is about $375.00 CDN (that's about $235.00 US)....
Remember with an LCD, DLP PJ, YOU can set it up and calibrate it with relative ease, YOU can clean it, YOU can change the bulb, all for what equates to about .8 cents (U.S. cents...) an hour. I don't know where or how you entertain, but I can't do much better than that...!
Give it a year or two, digital PJ's are already close to CRT's. The technology is moving pretty rapidly.
Herb.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Herb,
Every word in my post was a again a fact. I did not mislead
in any way. No matter how far DLP or LCD technology advances
I will never own one. That is based on the bulb issue.
You may get 2000 or maybe even 3000 hours (that's a stretch)
and Bulbs for your particular LCD may only be $235.00 but the
fact is that MOST are not anywhere near that cheap and to me
I find that it is like a slap in the face that you spend at
least 2 thousand dollars up to 8 or 9 thousand dollars for
a LCD or DLP and then have to continualy throw bulbs at it.
I love watching TV and a FPTV setup would be extremly hard
on the wallet for me because it would not take long to accrue
those 2000 hours view time.
CRT Technology is proven and the fact is that most high end
CRT's far outshine thier smaller lighter LCD/DLP brethren.
And you can look forward to having that CRT for atleast a
decade with nothing more than general maintence (cleaning)
that can be done at home. Saying you can't clean your own
CRT is a lie. I get inside my RPTV and clean the CRT's on
my own.
Jens has one stunning theater (when I first joined this forum
it was the first Theater I saw and I am still in awe by it
to this day) and I feel for Jens dilemma with the bulb failing
far sooner than it should have. At the same time I wanted to
voice my opinion and the facts on the LCD/DLP technology.
You may love it.. And if it equates to 8 cents an hour to
view your LCD and you think that's a bargain for the picture
that you get. Then that is great and I am glad that you can
live with that drawback. I however can not nor will I ever.
I know, I know.. Mama used to say "Opinions are like _ _ _
Holes, Everybody's got one"
As for Jens theater what more can I say.. Well This is what
I have to say...
Jens Theater = :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

 

[Miles_W]

Hey Herb, Brett you guys butt heads on a fairly regular basis... Seconds away round 2 ( ps Brett I am Herb's second I agree with him on this thread and on the Electrostats...) especially since I own full (cough cough) range stats and a DLP proj

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Miles,

Hey that's cool with me.. I am not dissing anyone's gear

I am just saying what "I feel" about the technologies in

question.

What I say, in no way detracts from the spectacular picture

that DLP and LCD offer for the price.

I just don't understand why bulbs are priced so high. What

other bulb costs so much? You can buy tons of reel projector

bulbs which are much less expensive and they have to be just

as bright (they are projecting an image)

 

[Herb Kane]

Brett:
There are indeed pros & cons to both technologies. For me, the pros of the digital PJ, outweigh those of the CRT's. They are great projectors, there is no doubt.
Prediction though.... CRT's will be a thing of the past in a few years. People just aren't going to stand paying twice as much (3X, 4X, 5X...+) for a box that weighs 150lbs, when you can put something up the size of a laptop for a fraction of the price that will soon equal the quality of that of a CRT.
One thing though Brett, I'm not too fond of the use of the word "lie" in your reply with reference to cleaning the units. If you do service your own CRT's, that's great. I suspect however, you are the minority.
By the way, sorry for delay in getting back to you, we just finished watching "Remains of the Day"..... damn thing cost me .16 cents to watch too...!!
Regards,
Herb.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Herb,
16 cents to watch that? I would allot my time very carefuly
if I was you! ROTLOL!
Sorry I should have substituted "lie" with falacy. Yes it is
true that not "all" people can clean (or want to clean) thier
own CRT's, then again some people would never spend 3-10K on
a TV OR Projector either!
I agree that once the picture quality rivals CRT (mainly
black level control) then CRT's will become a thing of the
past for home use. I don't beleive the major players in the
CRT world will fall from grace so soon with Corporate useage
as they just last so darn long.
I wish "work" would lend me one of thier 30K Sony CRT's they
only have like 5 of them! Grrrrr

 

[John Morris]

What IS actually the warranty on these bulbs including the one which comes with the LCD or DLP units? IMO, anything less than 6 months is insulting. 12 hours a day of viewing(and who uses their projector for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week?) adds up to only 2100 hours or so. If these bulbs are being touted as being good for 2-3K hours, then they should be warranted as such. A more realistic warranty should be 1 year, which is only 1400 hours at 4 hours of usage each day. What makes these bulbs so expensive... except the companies knowledge that they got the folks that buy their LCD projectors by the balls?

 

[Jon_B]

I feel for you man. A front projector is on my to buy list. Most likely an lcd projector. I have heard similar cases where the bulb expired early. I belive the saying "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" applies here. Get on the phone and start complaining. Good Luck

Jon

 

[Jens Raethel]

Ooh Lord, I think I have started a war...

 

[Neil Joseph]

This happened to me twice while under warranty. I got them (Sharp) to replace it free. I later found out someone was powering off with the master power off switch which does not allow the bulb's fan to cool the bulb down properly. ooops! Make sure the unit also has enough air circulation and the filer is cleaned regularly.

 

[Guy Kuo]

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~slithy/news/

 

[Neil Joseph]

Herb Kane, how do you reset the bulb life on your Sharp. I asked the same question in another thread. Do the reset instructions come with the new bulb. Is it simply pressing a sequence of buttons?

 

[John Morris]

Guy: Extremely sick and disgustingly funny stuff. ROTFL! Expecially pushing the gear past it's recommneded life... wow, I guess we all need to pay heed to this...

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Guy,
I am ROTFLMAO!!! That's too hillarious

 

[Hank Frankenberg]

Whenever I read such strong, final, "never" statements like Brett's, I imagine the author has had a bad personal experience that is the basis of such subjective proclamations. My company has a line of electronic projectors (home theater is not our market, BTW) and I am the sourcing manger, so I can speak with authority here. Those lamps ("bulbs") are not a ripoff because the DO cost quite a bit of money from the lamp manufacturers, and for a good reason: they are difficult to build and they are built in extremely low volume, compared to the volume of CRT's built every day! Those bulbs are made with extremely close tolerances and it takes several iterations to get a current design correct. Also, they have to have a ballast that is tweaked specifically for the bulb model. Lamp manufacturers do warrant their lamps. We have a new product that has a specific lamp in it and its warranty is 2,000 hours and they will stand behind it. Methinks Brett or someone he knows has owned a small FPTV and had a bad experience with a dealer that did not replace a prematurely failed lamp under warranty.

 

[Leo Kerr]

Okay, I generally don't like doing it, but I'll put on my work hat now...
Some of you may recall I work in a public museum. In my gallery, we've got three Sharp LCD projectors using 1000 hour lamps. Outside of special events, these projectors run 8.5 hours per day, 364 days a year.
Most of the time, the bulbs last the full 1000 hours, however they do tend to color shift and fade rapidly in the last 100 or so hours of their life.
We've had one premature failure; about 630 hours in. Sharp pro-rated the life of that bulb against the purchase of its replacement. (Thus, we got about 40% off of the next lamp.)
In the mongo Christie projectors, using large, high intensity xenon arcs (also rated for 1000 hours,) we've not had as much luck. Most of them start getting unreliable in the 800-900 hour range, and Christie pro-rates the unused life.
Now, in past experience, at another, now defunct, museum, we had a pair of Ampro LCD-100s. Nice, simple projectors, with 2000 hour lamps. I replaced lamp #1 after it detonated on start up just as it ticked over the 5000 hour mark. The other one was auctioned off at the Receiver's Sale with close to 5500 hours on it. Again, colors had shifted, and the light output was WAY down, but it still fired every morning.
Which leads to my last rambling point. In my experience, the best way to get a long hour-count out of a projector lamp is to leave it on. Christie technicians confirm my impressions that the most stressful time (and therefore most dangerous time) is from when the ballast first sends power to the electrodes to when the lamp reaches a stable operating temperature. The fewer times you do this, the better it is for the lamp.
And now for my final, last rambling point - this time, for real. Be sure to clean out all of the glass fragments, and I do hope that your projector wasn't hurt by the explosion. Usually, they can survive a lamp explosion with little harm, but a good old fashioned worst case can totally screw a projector beyond all hope. (Well, not quite, but royally trash the optical front end. )
Leo Kerr
[email protected]

 

[Jens Raethel]

Is there a way that I can see the lamp hours?

There is no lamphour counter in the menus.

There only is a warning "lamp" that indicates when it´s time to change the lamp.

 

[Francois Caron]

Buying an LCD projector sounds very much like my experience in buying an inkjet printer. Have you ever noticed that the cheapest printers out there have very short print runs? Yet the replacement printer cartridges all seem to cost the same. The running cost of some cheap inkjet printers end up exceeding the running cost of printers two or three times more expensive simply because the ink cartridges last a lot longer.

LCD and DLP projectors seem to follow this same trend. I saw one projector which cost about $4000 Canadian, but the replacement cost of the bulb was quoted as being $900! That's almost a quarter of the price of the projector! Has anyone published a comparison of the cost of various projector models and the cost of their replacement bulbs? It would certainly help in tracking down the most cost effective projectors out there. You shouldn't have to take out a loan just to replace a lousy bulb even if it did last it's rated life expectancy.