Faulty Projector Bulb (LampsDirect)

[Achandler]

Hi All

 

I thought you might want to be made aware of an issue I have had with a bulb from the above company. The bulb in the projector had 411 hours on it.

 

The projector was workign fine, then rather suddenly (over 15-20 minutes) projector went dark, so it was became barely readable. We replaced the bulb in the projector with a new one and the image is now bright however, the colour wheel appears to have gone, as there is now specs on the image.

 

Below are two pictures of the bulb that has failed, it is almost like there is a plastic cover on it that has delaminated and bits have flaked off. Personally I suspect that these bits have then been sucked into the projector and damaged the colour wheel but I can't prove it, it is merely a coincidence. The response from LampsDirect is along the lines of unelss you can prove that the lamp caused the wheel to be damaged then we aren't interested, they aren't even interested in replacing the bulb. However, will happily let me let them service the projector and pay for a new colour wheel from them. Which I won't be doing. Has anyone else seen a lamp do this?

 

 

[dgsmith]

Out of interest, was this a genuine OEM lamp or one of the compatible ones?

[Achandler]

Sadly a compatible otherwise I would have the projector in a box on the way back to the manufactuer by now. The warranty on the projector had run out so we didn't purchase an OEM.

[Oaktech]

I bought a batch of 10 lamps from them 2 or so years ago - I got less than 500 hours out of any of them and I got a proper :censored:ing from my line manager over it. Chalk it up to experience and buy genuine, my friend. It is not worth the grief.

[Boredguy]

Where possible I don't get compatible bulbs unless the price is just too high (such as one for a Sanyo SE20 I ordered yesterday) The compatible ones we've had from other suppliers in the past either cracked the bulb like yours, or just were not the same brightness. Thankfully I'm very good at cleaning the insides of our Sanyo's and not had any major damage but it's a learning experiance =/

[Achandler]

The bulb isn't cracked, it is almost that there is a layer of plastic over the end fo it that has delaminated itself, the bulb has obviosuly gone dark because this is stopping the light passing through properly. I am well ware that compatible bulbs might not be as bright or last as long but I have never seen a bulb go like this usually the glass around the filament goes or the filament itself breaks.

 

I suspect I coudl actually clean the glass and the bulb would be bright again.

[m25man]

Did you clean/replace the filters along with the bulb?

So many times I've seen bulbs replaced (because they had probably overheated due to blocked filters) only for the replacements to blow shortly after!

 

Don't wait for the warning messages, clean your filters regularly and the bulbs will last longer.

[Achandler]

We clean the filters every holiday, so it had been about 5-6 weeks since it was last cleaned before the bulb failed.

 

Can I make this very clear, the bulb is not blown, it still turns on and will light up just very dimly because of what appears to be some form of delamination of a layer of something that was on the glass.

[3s-gtech]

It actually looks like the covering from the colour wheel has stripped off and sprayed (while molten) onto the lamp, as it has got mega hot. I suspect this is the issue with the non OEM lamp.

[ricki]

Have had lamps fail in the past due to overheating of the projector they looked similar to this Richard

[simonw]

I try and clean filters every week, with a 'deep clean' every term. Found this the best course of action.