Bulb management for Mitsubishi Projectors

Description:

There are two different ways for bulbs to fail. Actions are dependent on which one happened.

Slow Death:

• If the bulb grows gradually fainter and fainter, it is most likely that the bulb has died. When it is too faint to see, replace it. But even so, you should inspect it when you take it out, if nothing else so that you can compare it with the Sudden Death bulbs.
• You might also save it aside to test projectors with suspected Sudden Death bulbs in the future.

Sudden Death:

• If it appears that the bulb might have suffered a more catastrophic death, you should be aware that it might be because the ballast in the projector failed.
• The ballast 'starts' the bulb. If it fails, it can burn out a new bulb immediately.
• Sudden Death bulbs are likely to have broken filaments and other signs of violent problems.
• You cannot test the ballast. Hence, keeping a few spare, dim bulbs for testing might be helpful. If you suspect the ballast, put in a dim bulb. If it starts up and works (however dimly), the ballast is ok and you can replace the dim bulb with a new one.
• Healthy ballasts 'click' when they start up. Bad ones don't. (I have not been able to hear this click.)
• If the ballast is bad, you should send the projector to AV, but realize that the decision may be that it is not economical to repair.

Other Information

• The reset procedure that you are supposed to do when you put in a new bulb, resets the clock on how many hours the bulb has been in use (available somewhere in the display). It does nothing more serious than that.

Contributors:

Thanks to John Jockusch at AV for this information

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