Monitoring Projector Usage

[Jamman960]

Does anyone here keep an eye on how much their staff are using projectors?

 

We had a new batch of IWBs/Projectors installed during the summer and one of them has recently come up with a "clean filter" warning which is set to appear at 500 hours usage, I compared this to other new installs that I consider to be used by more IT literate teachers and found that they had only used the projector for around 160-360 hours each, even projectors installed the previous summer had only just reached 900 hours in heavy usage classrooms.

 

If anyone else monitors their projector usage could you list your average usages? It seems as though the teacher who had managed 500 hours in 1 term with a 2 week half term break has left it on from the moment he got in to the moment he left each day.

 

I'm going to start documenting the usages at the end of each term or whenever I clean the filters... in the end its going to be the IT dept that pay for the replacement bulbs

[mullet_man]

I would have it was pretty impossible to document usage as the projector will count the hours used even if no PC/Laptop was attached?

[featured_spectre]

I have the teachers log the time they switch it on and switch it off in each room, then I sum up the hours to match the rooms. If a room is off (give or take an hour) then its fine, but anything more then I ask all the teachers for their time in explaining why its off.

[flyinghaggis]

I'm going to start documenting the usages at the end of each term or whenever I clean the filters... in the end its going to be the IT dept that pay for the replacement bulbs

 

I think you're best bet is to try show your bursar/accountant that there's an annual running cost for every projector and they need to take into account that it should be treated as a consumable like printer toner. It's not really something that should directly affect your annual budget IMO.

 

If you asssume an average running time 35 hours a week * the amount of school weeks in the year and divide that by the cost of the bulb (taking into account the ratio of how the projector life divides into the the amount hours usage in a year) you should be able to get some indications of how much it will cost you to replace the projector bulbs as an annual cost.

 

We've been trying to work out similar figues for our PCs/etc to try and factor it into an annual budget. Problem being that management keep buying new PCs whenever staff ask for them and then complain when we have to keep increasing our annual spending to keep all the PCs in the school on a 5 year refurb cycle!

 

They dont seem to realise that once you buy a PC / Printer / projector/ etc that it generates a costant ongoing cost from the moment you install it in terms of licences/consumables/repair/replacement and maintenance.