Interactive Whiteboards

[tmcd35]

How often do you replace yours?

[Vegas]

50 smartboards here, oldest now 7 years old and not had to replace one........we do have a budget in place for the one's outside of warranty.

[powdarrmonkey]

When they break (not yet).

[Quackers]

Still got some bought 9 years ago and still working, not had a fail yet.

[john]

When they die they will get replaced

[tmcd35]

Excellent, thank you guy's. a 7-year replacement strategy doesn't sound too unrealistic then!

[rad]

Only thing that can go wrong is when "numpties" put pen on the board that is then scratched off causing the smartboard surface to stop working.

 

Had pen on the board but not yet had a board stop working. Normally the lead that goes for us.

[dbrown]

Last year we reached IWB in every classroom, hall and library, so now we have started replacing the smaller ones with larger ones. No boards (TDS /Promethean) have yet failed, but several projectors have needed replacement and I expect more projector failures.

The board replacement policy is a teacher policy. I am much more concerned to replace projectors: many (Sanyo SW 20,30,35) are deteriorating (misconvergence, poor & very uneven illumination, not improved by new bulbs) and I would like to move up to XGA resolution.

[Linfit]

The boards themselves tend not to fail. We have Cambridge Boards, various models, and some are now 5+ years old. We do have power supplies fail from time to time but have only had to replace boards when they have been physically damaged. (One had a kid throw a stool at it and it didn't survive that).

 

The projectors are much more of an issue and these seem to last about three years before they start to deteriorate: you can keep them going longer but we get reduced brightness, weird colour variations (Hitachi ones like to go purple) I think because the optics get fried by the constant exposure to heat. Most classrooms are very hostile environments for projectors: exposed to tons of dust, left on too long, turned off too quickly, physically exposed. I'm amazed they last as long as they do.