I am at 1800 hrs on my bulb and in the menu the time is starting to flash in RED. I know I should still have a couple hundred more at least, but I don't want to get caught either.
Anybody know where to get a new bulb for projector in Canada for a good price. I have a Panasonic PT-AE900U.
Thanks
Hey, that's the exact projector I just replaced a bulb in.
I looked online extensively. Prices on a genuine Panasonic brand bulb ranged from about US$300 to $350. Generic bulbs could be had as low as the high $100s or low $200s, I think, but I didn't consider them becuase online reviews painted a scary picture - poor reliability, burning out after 200, 500, 700 hours, poor levels of light, you name it. Many people got burned, so I went brand and ordered from B&H Photo in NYC*, the cheapest price I found. It was shipped super secure in two or three layers of packaging. It arrived the day they said it would (in 3 days). Highly recommended, if they ship to Canada.
* Somewhere, Mark's ears just perked up.
BTW, I gathered that you were at the homecoming, but I'm sorry to say that our paths didn't cross. Next time?
I checked out B&H photo's web site $301 for the bulb. That is a good price, and they will ship to Canada. Haven't checked out shipping and duties yet.
I checked the manual on the projector and it says that bulb should last 2700 to 3000 hours. No sure why in the menu started blinking in red at me with only 1800 hours.
And yes, I was there on the weekend. I seemed to have missed the group picture also.
Yes, next time, and I am sure there will be a next time!
Go authentic! I replaced the bulb in my Sanyo after about 1400 hours (long story, but it was self inflicted thanks to my kids being "cold in the home theater" and cranking the heat with a vent above the projector!!!!... Oh wait, long story stopped.)
Anyway, I found a place online where you ship in your dead bulb (or pay a premium and then ship it in later) and they will take the bulb out of the casing and put a new one using "OEM" bulbs and send it back. Cost me like $100 shipped.
it isn't as bright, and it is leaning strong to the red spectrum, when the original for my Sanyo leaned towards blue. Contrast took a dump too.
I took the bulb to another guy's house (same Sanyo model)about 2 months ago and same result there, so it wasn't the projector.
Hey Worf,
Try unplugging your projector and let it re-set. The LEDs on my DLP Samsung started blinking and I thought, oh-oh, there goes the bulb. It's six years old. I thought, what the heck, maybe it's a glitch in the sensor system, so I unplugged the TV and let it "rest" overnight. Since then, no problems. It's been great ever since.
So try that and see if the problem goes away.
Regards,
Alan
Hey Alan, have you replaced that bulb yet?
I think we bought our Samsung DLPs at the same time, and I'm still on the original bulb!
OK Alan, I will try that, although just to calrify, it's not the LED on the outside of the projector, it is in the menu where it shows me how many hours are on the bulb. Right now it is blinking 1803 in red. It used to be just stationaly and in white like the rest of the menu text.
I can't find anything in the manual about it. The projector is working fine otherwise.
I still think it's not a bad idea to have a spare bulb, just in case.
Isnt' it cool when you Google your AV issue and find our own original post on the Axiom forums?
Is this what they mean by "circular reference"?
Hey, you gave me a good idea. I'm gonna keep my original bulb as an emergency backup. It had 2700 hours on it and I got the same messages you did, but I wonder: if I reset the bulb hours counter on the menu and put in the original bulb again, would it play without those warnings, as if it were new? i.e, can I outsmart the machine? Hmm.
I don't know if your going to be sucessful at re writing he laws of physics, but hey you have my best wishes!
Hi Mark,
My Samsung DLP is still on the original bulb, which amazes me, although a friend of mine used to work in the quality-control lab for Samsung, and he told me that my generation of DLPs was spec'd at 5,000 to 8,000 hours of bulb life if you ran it in Cinema mode most of the time, which I do.
Another friend bought a "Sammie" DLP a year later than mine but he watches a huge amount of TV series and had to replace his bulb a year ago.
Mine was the generation of Sams to have an HDMI and a DVI input.
When I saw Worf's question, it didn't click for a minute that he had a front projector then I saw the model number of the Pannie. Front projector bulbs have a much shorter life because they have to "throw" an image across a room rather than a foot or two like a rear-projector. So the front projector bulbs run much brighter and hotter and don't last as long.
Regards,
Alan
Thanks Alan.
For the record, nothing about me runs either hot nor bright...
Yeah, but you've got a wife that sends you Simpson porn in your email, so you've got that going for ya.
Front projector bulbs have a typical life expectancy of 2000 hours. I started calibrating my own displays a few years ago and as with any ‘hobby’, one learns things over time by speaking to others and learning things through practical experience. In my conversations with professional calibrators (who aren’t stingy with their advice), the 2000 hour rule is a pretty good one and universally accepted as “normal”. Projector bulb design is not hugely different between each manufacture. Most projectors have a low lamp and a high lamp mode (some call this different things, but it’s all the same). If you need to run the bulb in high lamp mode to get your preferred image luminance, life expectancy dips a bit, but not much. Some projectors are not affected by this at all, like the JVC projectors. Much of this is due to how well the projector bulb cooling system works. JVC’s have an excellent cooling system, which is why their life expectancy is not adversely affected by mode. But with this cooling, you have fan noise that is increased in high lamp mode, so pick your poison.
There is a common belief that just because the lamp still lights, the bulb does not need to be replaced. This is not entirely true. Even though the bulb lights and throws an image up on the screen, unless you have a light meter, it’s difficult to determine through casual viewing if the bulb needs to be replaced or not. As the bulb performance dips, you grow accustomed to this and do not notice it. I re-calibrate my projector every two hundred hours. Every time I do this, I have to make changes to keep grey scale and color gamut under a DE of 2. As the bulb ages, the light spectrum changes. Grey scale, gamma and gamut all start to drift. Lumens also changes, so white and black levels need to be adjusted to maintain my preferred luminance, which in turn affect grey scale, gamma and gamut.
Within the first 500 hours of use on a new bulb, lumens can be expected to decrease up to 50%. Lumens will remain relatively constant for the next 1000 hours or so, and then it does a nose dive.
But, if the image is still pleasing to you, all this really doesn’t matter and it’s not worth worrying about. Once you do, you will start down the rabbit hole and end up investing a lot of money and time to get back out the hole, but never really getting out.
Front projector bulbs have a typical life expectancy of 2000 hours. I started calibrating my own displays a few years ago and as with any ‘hobby’, one learns things over time by speaking to others and learning things through practical experience. In my conversations with professional calibrators (who aren’t stingy with their advice), the 2000 hour rule is a pretty good one and universally accepted as “normal”. Projector bulb design is not hugely different between each manufacture. Most projectors have a low lamp and a high lamp mode (some call this different things, but it’s all the same). If you need to run the bulb in high lamp mode to get your preferred image luminance, life expectancy dips a bit, but not much. Some projectors are not affected by this at all, like the JVC projectors. Much of this is due to how well the projector bulb cooling system works. JVC’s have an excellent cooling system, which is why their life expectancy is not adversely affected by mode. But with this cooling, you have fan noise that is increased in high lamp mode, so pick your poison.
There is a common belief that just because the lamp still lights, the bulb does not need to be replaced. This is not entirely true. Even though the bulb lights and throws an image up on the screen, unless you have a light meter, it’s difficult to determine through casual viewing if the bulb needs to be replaced or not. As the bulb performance dips, you grow accustomed to this and do not notice it. I re-calibrate my projector every two hundred hours. Every time I do this, I have to make changes to keep grey scale and color gamut under a DE of 2. As the bulb ages, the light spectrum changes. Grey scale, gamma and gamut all start to drift. Lumens also changes, so white and black levels need to be adjusted to maintain my preferred luminance, which in turn affect grey scale, gamma and gamut.
Within the first 500 hours of use on a new bulb, lumens can be expected to decrease up to 50%. Lumens will remain relatively constant for the next 1000 hours or so, and then it does a nose dive.
But, if the image is still pleasing to you, all this really doesn’t matter and it’s not worth worrying about. Once you do, you will start down the rabbit hole and end up investing a lot of money and time to get back out the hole, but never really getting out.
Proof of bulb break-in.