Turning off projectors during breaks and lunchtimes...

[Little-Miss]

This sounds like something that would've been discussed but cant see it.

 

Is it better for the projector to be left on over breaks (20mins and 10 mins) or lunchtimes (over an hour) or should i schedule them to go off?

[Dos_Box]

Not sure TBH. I do know there is a primary school near my house in Preston that likes to leave one of thiers on 365 day a year (you can see the blue square on the whiteboard in the evenings during the holidays as from the road running past). Perhaps their power button is broken?

[Andrew_C]

Off over lunchtime for sure, but a 10 min break, maybe not. And who ever leaves them on 24/7 should be sent down a salt-mine!

[Steve21]

This sounds like something that would've been discussed but cant see it.

 

Is it better for the projector to be left on over breaks (20mins and 10 mins) or lunchtimes (over an hour) or should i schedule them to go off?

 

We got ours on a 1hr auto-off, so if they're being used just need to hit a button once an hour, if not it'll go off for lunchs/after school etc (Think ours is done through the panels though, not direct on projector)

 

Steve

[Little-Miss]

I've got Epson Interactive projectors and have monitoring software which allows me to setup a schedule. Might set it up so they go off over lunch then, see how we get on.

[Jamman960]

I generally don't stress too much about them being on at break times but do ask staff to make sure they're off over lunch, my thoughts are that if we have a power cut during a lunch break we shouldn't be losing or damaging any bulbs because of it

[Pyroman]

I try and get staff to turn them off as much as i can, 45 minutes for lunch every day and 2x 10 minute breaks soon adds up

[EvLPhenom]

We get our staff to turn them off when they aren't needed and definately over lunch, I have been known to go into classrooms to turn them off if I notice it over lunch.

[K.C.Leblanc]

We have too many classrooms, I like to see projectors turned off over lunch in case the room isn't in use durring the afternoon.

[Oaktech]

i was told once by a reputable source that every strike of the lamp can knock up to 5 minutes off the overall life of the lamp. To preserve the longest lamp life, only bother turning the projector off if you are going to leave it off for more than an hour. That source also said that the energy cost involved in leaving the unit on, was almost balanced out by the reduction in lamp life and the resultant premature replacement costs.

 

This was however quoted for a christie venue projector, so the calculation may not quite hold true, but the sentiment is still the same.

[sted]

worst offenders ive seen are people who walk into a room turn the projector on then dont come back in for hours

 

ive tried setting timeouts on em people just turn off the timeout

[sonofsanta]

I'd say off for an empty period or lunch (an hour here) but between breaks, probably not worth it for the damage it'd cause the bulb.

 

over half terms though, definitely - used to do my nut in when you went back into a room at the very start of a new term and a projector was still on, the bulb 200 hours closer to death

[elsiegee40]

Breaks I don't stress about; they're only 20 minutes and it takes more or less that long for the conventional projectors to cool down

 

Most of our projectors are Casio LED now and they don't require cool down. When they were installed, I made a point of showing the staff they could just be turned off and on and they do that rather then use "No show" as they do on the conventional Sanyo projectors.

 

I do encourage them to turn off at lunch... with mixed success. They're never left on overnight.

[Pottsey]

I try and get staff to turn them off as much as i can, 45 minutes for lunch every day and 2x 10 minute breaks soon adds up

My understanding is the biggest drop in bulb lifespan is turning them off and on. Wouldn’t turning them off x2 for 10minet break per day cause the life span to drop a lot? Pretty should our projector bulbs manuals warn about turning them off then on within the same hour. Instead the manual says leave them turned on and only turn them off if they will not be used for hours.

[elsiegee40]

The biggest drop in lifespan is the number of hours the projector is used... and unless I clamped down they would be switched on 24/7

[exim]

In a perfect world it would be nice to get teachers to understand on/off requirements and all the expections to the rules, but it ain't gonna happen.

A blanket rule of 'swith it off when not in use' is the best here as rooms and classes are timetabled here like a crazy conveyor belt and you never know who needs or doesn't need to use a projector.

 

Auto shutdowns after no PC signal for 1 hour are set where possible, as teachers tend to think they only need to shut down the PC and not bother with anything else.

[Jons]

I agree with Pottsey. We examined 2 lamps installed on the same date with new projectors. The first to expire was the teacher who had been turning it off and on for lunch, about 1500 hrs I think. The lamp left on at lunch lasted 2500 hrs, again general figs. So the expansion and contraction of a hot/cold/hot/cold lamp precipitated an early demise. Nerdy, eh?

[Sylv3r]

One step at a time for us here.... i'd be happy if they turned the off on a night never mind during the day.

 

We've set them all to autoswitch off, but if the staff use the no show or freeze option it seems to be overridden. More often than not, during a half term break when I do a walk around the school I can enter a classroom and hear the fans of the projector running generally on the Thursday or Friday after being left on from the following week.

[Jons]

We need projectors with ethernet ports. Then once you have the IP addresses reserved in DHCP or static you can look at the units which are still on, using your browser.

Can even monitor lamp life too.

At the very least a batch file to ping the IP and if active tells you the location so you may go and switch it off. Especially Fridays.

 

One step at a time for us here.... i'd be happy if they turned the off on a night never mind during the day.

 

We've set them all to autoswitch off, but if the staff use the no show or freeze option it seems to be overridden. More often than not, during a half term break when I do a walk around the school I can enter a classroom and hear the fans of the projector running generally on the Thursday or Friday after being left on from the following week.

[Chris_Cook]

A lot of projectors can be controlled by serial ports (or service ports on the sanyos). I've got this idea of hooking up a raspberry pi board with a serial cable and a cheap wifi interface. Retro-fitting a network cable to each projector seems like a lot of work. I wonder what the cost is of running projectors without turning them off, and how much it would be worth spending financially automating it?

 

I think at the moment, setting the timeout and getting staff to turn them off when not in use is the most workable solution. Staff are never going to have the patience to workout how long until its next going to be used. 'Turn it off when you leave the classroom' might not be optimal, but its better than leaving them on all night.

[featured_spectre]

Generally you could have it set so that if after 30 minutes of no use it switches off. I did this and it generally cut down the energy consumption and saved the site agent a fair few man hours every week not turning them off! (With over 90 on one site, he would spend walking around, locking up, switching off projectors etc.

[Sylv3r]

Generally you could have it set so that if after 30 minutes of no use it switches off. I did this and it generally cut down the energy consumption and saved the site agent a fair few man hours every week not turning them off! (With over 90 on one site, he would spend walking around, locking up, switching off projectors etc.

 

The problem that we find with this and we have it setup here is that the projectors on freeze or blank screen don't switch off even after no signal.

[featured_spectre]

Depending on your brand of projector, you can turn it off even through this method whilst its on freeze etc. Epson and Sony projectors are good for this IME

[Marc-Engineer]

The striking of a lamp does reduce its life but the compare this to hrs used i would say if you have a break of 90 mins or more turn it off if less leave it on same with Flourecent lamps.

 

Marc

Projector Engineer

[SimpleSi]

Never do it for 10mins (think of the thermal cycling going on ) - lunchtime is up for debate

(I vote for leaving on:) )

 

Si