I bought this excellent projector from Richer Sounds in February 2008 for a bargain £499. I can highly recommend it as an excellent projector for gaming and movies and, following this recent incident, I'm even more in love with it!
Basically, the image was getting 'weak'; sort of looks like watching the screen in strong sunlight. I wasn't aware of the effects of an aging bulb, but, as it turns out, the poor image was probably due to the bulb reaching the end of it's life. However, before the projector advised me to replace the bulb (which, according to the manual, it should do when the bulb needs replacing), the bulb blew up!
There was a loud 'pop' and smell of burning when I turned it on one day. It blew the fuses for the rest of the house too! I checked the bulb and found it in pieces inside the projector. There didn't seem to be any other form of life from it either - no lights or reaction to powering it up even after replacing the fuse in the power lead.
Through AVForums, I found a terrific supplier - (Terri Carpenter from ProjectorPoint, Tel 0800 073 0833
www.projectorpoint.co.uk). He very kindly contacted Optoma on my behalf and asked if they though the exploding bulb could have caused other damage to the projector. He could have just sold me a £140 bulb which wouldn't have worked in the broken projector. Many thanks to Terri and I will definitely buy the next bulb from him!
More top marks too to Optoma who sent a returns form and collected the projector quickly and efficiently and returned it to me 10 days later all fixed and with a new bulb - all done, including collections and deliveries, under the warranty!
I have no idea how many hours I got out of the original bulb, but it was quite a lot (gaming AND movies!) and I was disappointed that the bulb exploded. But, the reaction of Optoma (no fuss warranty work) and the brilliance of the projector now it's been fixed with a new bulb, means that I would still highly recommend this projector and Optoma in general.
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