Acer projector DLP / DMD degradation (white pixels)...

[Koldov]

Hi all,

 

First post, please be gentle with me!

 

As the title says I have four Acer DLP projectors, all exhibiting these symptoms.

 

2 ACER X1130 (Mfg. Date : 2009.01)

1 ACER X110 (Mfg. Date : unknown)

1 ACER X1261 (Mfg. Date : unknown)

 

Having googled and found the answer to be a problem with the chip, my question is really what are the chances of getting these repaired under some sort of warranty (possibly via serial number)?

There are various websites which claim ACER have a 5 year warranty on the chip, so I would like to know if anyone has any experience with ACER, their support or warranty claims.

The main issue I think, will be a lack of receipts or registration for any warranty, as they were installed to the best of my knowledge by an outsourced IT firm before I joined, who the school has no contact with anymore (and I know for a fact that type of thing wasn't kept on top of) and who have not replied to my messages.

So, I have no idea of the actual date of installation and getting the Bursar to trawl through possibly 3 years worth of purchase orders, will be a nightmare!

 

Any helpful comments gratefully accepted...

[Koldov]

Hi All,

 

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but as we have another Acer projector going the same way I thought I might try again to see if anyone has any advice.

 

Has anyone replaced the chip on one of these, is it worth it? For the average tech who likes to take things apart is it even possible. It may well be the price of a replacement chip (£200+) and the time taken to do it may well make it impractical. Such a shame as I'm sure there is a few years left in the projector as a whole.

 

Kol.

[Mr_K]

I would suggest trying to contact the manufacturer directly as they potentially will be able to check if the warranty is still valid from the serial number.

 

If its a common fault they may repair / swap as a good-will gesture.

 

If its not in warranty then personally I would write the units off as its unlikely to be economical to repair. There are plenty of projectors available with long on-site warranties for education.

 

You should be able to get minimum 3yrs de-install / re-install warranty on an education projector, meaning an engineer on-site if you have a fault. Possibly 5yrs but normally that would be on a slightly more expensive projector. Lamp warranty should also cover 3yrs / 2000hrs.

[Koldov]

Wow! How things have changed! I can't believe it, I am updating my first post ever on EDUGEEK!

 

These projectors, sat in the I.T. storage cupboard along with loads of old equipment. I kept revisiting the issue every now and then, trying to find the purchase info/date from the Bursar with little joy. I'd cleaned them all, boxed them, researched the alleged '5 year DMD chip warranty', noted all the serial numbers. I wasn't even sure when they were bought or who from! I didn't really want to go to ACER with no info, I've never really dealt with anything like this before and I was fairly new in the job...

 

Anyway, I eventually tried the easy way out, with a fairly anonymous online Acer 'support chat', I gave him the serial numbers and waited... 'OUT OF WARRANTY' came the reply! Ok, I said 'what about the DMD chip warranty? 'Let me check for you Sir... Yes, that is within warranty'.... Woohoo! I said, I've got 5 of them! 'For that amount please contact Acer support website...'

 

Well, I did it! With a phone call to Acer support as the web form didn't really cover the issue and I didn't have all the information they were asking for.

 

However.... Here is my first projector, returned from ACER (TP MATRIX) repaired and cleaned!

 

 

Edit: Just looked at the date! It's only taken me just over a year...

 

Kol.

Edited January 29, 2014 by Koldov