So... it's the dark and stormy night of literary fame. Cold, dreary, a perfect night for vacuuming the house and carrying junk down to the basement (ick, did I say that, I meant watching movies).

The power has flickered out for a second a couple of times, not enough to take down the PC but enough to make me think about all the rumours regarding power failures damaging a projector -- specifically, losing the fan cooling during the powerdown period and thereby damaging the bulb.

What do you think -- is this real, or urban legend ? There does seem to be some possible credibility to the "don't switch a hot filament back on again before it cools" warning, but I'm not sure about that one either.

Advice appreciated. Sony PLV-Z4, of course, running in "Creative Cinema" with the lamp over-ridden to "eco" ie lowest power.

Very good question John, I would be interested in the feedback as well. I think it has come up on AVS before, but the answers varied as wide as the "speaker break in" topic.

I know my basement HT stays relatively cool all the time anyway, and I'm not sure my fan runs much anyway after shutdown. So maybe in this situation it would not be a big deal. I know that I run my Z2 in low lamp mode, not that this matters.

Randy

John, this came up recently on Jason's(zarak)thread about his new TV. The facts appear to be that when the power goes off, both the TV bulb(if any)and the fan cooling it go off simultaneously. Since the bulb is off no additional heat is added and it doesn't get any hotter, it just takes longer to cool down than if the fan continued to run after a normal shut-off. No appreciable amount of extra wear-and-tear occurs. Restarting the bulb while still hot(e.g. if the power returned quickly)is said to be very harmful and most if not all display devices using bulbs are supposed to have temperature sensitive protective circuits to prevent this.

Indeed. I can vouch for that protective circuitry. I was involved in a training course on Friday at work and someone tripped over the projector's power cord, pulling it out of the floor jack. It took quite some time for the bulb to light up after restoring the power. Not sure of the model but it was a relatively new 3M projector.

John, these Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) are not that expensive, and will buy you enough time to power down. At $99.00 it's pretty cheap insurance to protect a $400.00 bulb. Shoot, my neighbour is even using a larger one on his sump pump.

Don't forget to check out the detailed specs and reviews.

Hey man, I was just sitting in the back of the room, observing. The lady who kicked the power out was british and you should have heard her apologize profusely.

"Oh my, I'm so dreadfully sorry."

A likely story from a Colonist. Absolutely shocking! I've never heard anything of the sort.

Bridgman, thanks for asking a question that I have been wondering about lately. Now I may not worry as much.

I'd worry more about the flickering than the actual shutdown because of the power surges. I'm sure you are using a surge suppressor but they have their limits. I had a board fail in my Sim projector in June which the technician attributed to large surges. It may have been caused by the huge power demands during that very hot spell. A really good surge suppressor is cheap insurance and its worthwhile to know their specs. Call me cautious, nowadays I don't leave the projector on standby but shut the power off completely.