Recommendation for projectors to replace PRM-20s?

[realtnt]

Hi all,

 

We got a number of PRM-20 projectors (the orange ones!) that I would like to replace. A couple of them are not working (thankfully these are from empty classrooms as we're in transition from 2-form to 3-form) and I'm looking at what the best alternatives would be. The new classrooms have 70" ActivPanel Touch which are awesome, but we can't replace the old boards with these because of the cost and some of the other classrooms have Casio XJ series ones. Haven't been too happy with the Casios as we've had to replace one because of dead pixels and at least two others have developed more dead than alive pixels!

 

I would like something bright(er) and do away with the recurring cost of bulbs. And did I mention relatively cheap? :-)

 

I'd appreciate any feedback from anyone with first hand experience.

 

Thanks

[Mr_K]

Hi,

 

Are these mounted on a round tube boom arm or the newer square type boom arm about 1m away from the board? Either way you will need a new mount to retro-fit a projector on to the same boom arm.

 

RA technologies seem to offer a mounting solution that works.

 

Do you know the throw ratio of the PRM-20 as I cant find it on-line? WXGA short-throw projectors are fairly common and i'm aware of manufactuers offering upto 5yrs hardware warranty and lamp-life can hit 10'000hrs even with non LED/Laser projectors. Just need to be careful of the throw distance.

[Mr_K]

Found the throw ratio from the projector manual. Its a ratio of 0.49.

 

BenQ MW820ST will fit nicely with the replacement mount mentioned before. Might need some small adjustments but its about spot-on for throw.

[realtnt]

Thanks for the info. Very useful!

[MbroTech]

We recently got some Epson EB-420 for this very purpose.

 

Epson EB-420 - Epson

[36Degrees]

I can't comment on the specific projector as we don't have short throw but I've just replaced all our old Sanyos with Epsons. With some you can upgrade your warranty for free if they don't have 3 year as standard. Deteils here: Warranty registration system - Epson

[jon_nais]

I second the EB-420's and the RA technology mounts, we have replaced all of our PRM10/20s with these and they are great.

Yes you are not getting away from replacing lamps, but the long lamp life is good and the warranty support with Epson is fantastic!

[HTCPCP]

For us, standard projectors are Epson EBX-11s or 20s and short throws are usually Hitatchi due to price constraints, but if any of my schools had the money, then it would probably be Epson again. Epson support is great, even if you can accidentally get a whole projector when you want a bulb...

 

However, word of warning, I have had only bad problems with BenQ UST projectors, replacing bulbs can be a nightmare and have had 2 projectors just out of warranty completely die on me...