Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Do you use a UPS with your projector / HT system?

Yeah Peter, but the bulb is hotter when the projector is on(with the fan running of course)than it is during the few minutes of the extended cooling period with the fan off after an occasional power failure. So there's less additional heat involved than if the projector was simply operated normally for a few more minutes(i.e., if the power hadn't failed). The previous point still applies; there's no damage done to the bulb by a power failure and no need for a UPS in the situation.

I believe I see your point now. Since power failures are (hopefully) rare, the additional bulb life added by maintaining the ability to cool the bulb during those rare occasions is negligent. As a matter of fact, a power outage that shuts both fan and bulb off should actually extend the life of the bulb. Since the single greatest factor contributing the the bulb's demise is electrical current through the filament -- and that stops as soon as the power cuts out -- any situation where the bulb is better from a longevity standpoint than when the bulb is on.

I think you've convinced me.

As long as the power outage doesn't last less than an hour and the user doesn't turn the projector back on within that hour.

So who's going to inform the engineering staff of ALL projector manufactures and tell them about this startling revelation from the Axiom board members that a fan isn't needed for bulb cooling? I'm sure they would appreciated it, as it will make them less expensive to build and put more money into their R/D budgets for researching things like....if a fan should run after the bulb is off, or if the fan should run at a higher speed if the bulb is not in economy mode, or if the fan should run at a higher speed at higher elevation or not. Oh, never mind, they already figured that out!!

I'm thinking power failures could still be harmful, depending on your model and how cleanly the power turns back on. In my area, the power company is good at getting the power back on but it tends to come back on with a bang. We (our province) tend to blow up more appliances when the power comes back on than from oddball power surges, lightning or any other reason.

Now if the projector stays off after the power outage, probably a non issue. However, if the projector is designed to turn back on with the power, lamp and all, the lamp will take the full brunt of the hit.

This may not be as much of an issue for some people anbd I have no idea if even my projector's on/off functionality works this way after losing commercial power. It's still in the box but now that you have me thinking, I might take it out to do another test.

Mike,

I'm not arguing the merits of cooling a projector bulb or trying to say the engineers who designed the projectors are stupid. As I stated yesterday in my original response, heat acts cumulatively, so less is good over the long term.

My second post agrees with John in the sense that buying a UPS simply to enable the proper bulb cooling cycle is probably not going to significantly lengthen the bulb's life simply because a power outage is relatively rare.