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.

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Those are kind of hard to impliment when your projector is plugging into an outlet on the ceiling...

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Touche. Once again, I put the cart before the horse. Seemed like a good idea at the time.......

That's why God made really thick extension cords.

Well, I still have that option (somewhat). My ceiling in the basement is not yet finished and I am doing a drop ceiling anyway. I could easily stick a power supply up there (above in the ceiling) and run the PJ cord up to the power supply (the outlet would be in the ceiling aswell, out of view from the public).

Is it REALLY worth all the hastle of having surge protector on the PJ? Will it get damaged? Is it worth the $100 and then finding a place to put it up in the ceiling?

I am sure the new projectors these days have been built for numerous scenerios in power failure.

I guess I could email Sanyo!

-Robb.

I actually do not run the fan when powering off. In the 2 projectors over the years I cut power to the projector once I'm done. I let the bulb and components cool down on its own account without the use of fan blowing in high mode to cool the unit down. Years ago (maybe about 7 I think)an AVSer did a test with his 4 projectors at work that was used fairly often. On the 2 units that cut off power vs units that were powered down using fan the bulb life on the powered off units lasted much longer based on his observations. To this day each of the projectors I have owned each lasting for about 3+ yrs each have yet to change the bulb even with the high hours.

My thinking is that a bulb is super hot and it gets cooled down quickly. Do this many times the components ends up contracting and expanding too quicky and eventually creates cracks.

This is just my personal observation. I have yet to change the original bulbs that came with the unit. My dad X1 is past 3000 hrs and it as good as it was years ago,.

Interesting... so you're thinking the bulb might actually last LONGER if allowed to cool down at a slower rate.

I agree, this is interesting. My fan runs very quietly during operation to keep air circulating. I would think that if you just shut everything off, the heat would not be exhausted efficiently, similar to computers and/or servers.

sirquack: Computers are different. If CPU core temperature is not kept cooler than a certain limit the CPU will burn out.
bridgeman: Both my dad and the person who I sold my old infocus X1 has higher numbers and years with their first bulb than for instance my cousins X1 who has already changed the bulb once. I have told my dad and the guy I sold my X1 to cut powr off on the projector. There is still working fine.

Please note these are my personal observations and this is what I do for my setup and it works for me. I can not be responsible if you diminish the life of your bulb by using my methods.

Here is an interesting thread that disqualifies what I just mentioned.

http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/2/176314.html

As I mentioned this works for me and I am going to stick by it. Its been almost 3 years without issues.
Sirquack drop me a message a year from now and see if yours and my unit is still all fine and dandy.

I've had my Sanyo Z2 for close to 3 years now, not sure how many hours as I haven't checked in some time. My basement is pretty cool anyway, so I'm sure that helps.

That's the other thing I was wondering. All the people with long bulb life seemed to have really cool looking home theaters. Maybe the HT gods are smiling on you

I'll vouch for the circuitry. My projector (when improperly powered off) will turn back on and display "OVER TEMPERATURE" in big scary red letters. It well then cool itself off, shut off and on until it's properly cycled itself off.

As for UPS's, they're basically a nice padding, you can even get single outlet models that you put up in the ceiling or wherever your projector is plugged in.