Old Projectors!

[Gaz169]

Has anyone got any good ideas what I could do with 3 old-ish (4/5 years) primary school BenQ MX660P projectors. They probably need a bit of a clean and possibly new lamps, but seems a shame to just get rid!

[Duranis]

Anywhere they could be set up for "Art" use? A blank wall space to stick large sheets of card/paper on to then use the projector to throw pictures on that the kids can colour/copy?

 

Maybe use for "decorating" area's, set up in the entrance way of the school pointing at the floor or a wall with a short welcome slideshow running on it?

 

If you have a spare laptop/PC sitting around and a web cam I'm sure there are some DIY interactive projector display projects around on the web somewhere which could be quite good in a school.

[Danp]

I had one running in the office displaying a simple webpage with falling snow on it.

[HarryMonkey]

Has anyone got any good ideas what I could do with 3 old-ish (4/5 years) primary school BenQ MX660P projectors. They probably need a bit of a clean and possibly new lamps, but seems a shame to just get rid!

 

If you can't find a use in school, how about the donating them to the local scouts/guides/kids sports group, I'm sure they will be most appreciative.

[snagrat]

eBay them!

[Grey-gear]

Have them around for loan out to staff, they can come in handy for weddings or other similar events.

[VeryPC_Colin_M]

Trade them in for cash back with brand new Casio's?

[3s-gtech]

As they're MX660Ps, destroy them with fire. Godawful, horrendous, shoddy rubbish. I like BenQ stuff too, but they're the worst model we've ever had.

 

I should add - every single one of them that we had (six perhaps) went blurry and lost any ability to focus after a fairly short life. Only ever had very isolated odd other models do this before, but all of these did it, from different batches. Out of warranty, of course.

Edited January 4, 2016 by 3s-gtech

[hardtailstar]

If you can't find a use in school, how about the donating them to the local scouts/guides/kids sports group, I'm sure they will be most appreciative.

 

Yes, yes do this!

[witch]

Donate them if possible.

My old ones went to my children who set up movie rooms at university!

[MrEprise]

As they're MX660Ps, destroy them with fire. Godawful, horrendous, shoddy rubbish. I like BenQ stuff too, but they're the worst model we've ever had.

 

I should add - every single one of them that we had (six perhaps) went blurry and lost any ability to focus after a fairly short life. Only ever had very isolated odd other models do this before, but all of these did it, from different batches. Out of warranty, of course.

 

We have a number of these (about 7 or 8 of them), one got destroyed in a fire (good riddance!) and the others (bar one) have all lost their ability to focus too. At the moment, I've been purchasing new lens assemblies from China via Aliexpress and fitting them to the ones we have spare/lying around with actually good results (i.e. it fixes the focus issue).

 

As I have found (from 3 which won't focus properly and a heavily used one which won't focus at all), the reason these lose their focus is due to BenQ using cheap polycarbonate lenses that aren't particularly resistant to heat, which then causes them to warp from the heat from the lamp. The lenses i'm buying in have reportedly better heat resistance and should fare better but we will see.

 

EDIT: Changed bulb to lamp, I have a colleague who'll moan at me if I leave it as bulb...

Edited January 5, 2016 by MrEprise

[VeryPC_Anthony_L]

Depending on the age of them there are firms who will buy them under a WEEE Scheme