LCD Long Term Reliability ?

[ARoss]

I have enjoyed a great LCD projector for 3 years. However, its seems to be on the way out

Its done well under 2000 hours, and the unit a Philips Munroe kinda promised 5000 hours from the bulb, a major factor in its selection.

However, there has been a green cast creeping in and now a load of pixels failing so I presume its the LCD unit which in my case has not stood the test of time.

So I was wondering if there are any medium/long term reliability information on LCD/DLP projectors ?

Is this is a familiar story or am I just unlucky ?

[harrisuk]

Have you been using it on low or high lamp power ? Personally I think 2000+ hours is not bad at all for a lamp. I have known them to go in under 300 hours. Now thats unlucky....

[calibos]

I've done 8900hrs (5000hrs on first bulb and 3900 so far on second) on my AE300(June 2003) Lcd projector and after a thorough cleaning the other day the picture looks as good as the day I got it. I run mine in Low Lamp/High fan though. Learnt my lesson on an AE100 run low lamp low fan. With my excessive hours the Ae100 lasted 3500hrs before the panels were damaged by the heat causing in my case a yellow cast to creep in. No such problems as I said with my Ae300 run low lamp high Fan.

As for your pixels failing. Its very unlikely for pixels to fail in use. They are either DOA when you get the PJ or are good for the life of the PJ. You sure its not dust you are seeing or marks on your screen.

PS when I said thorough cleaning I meant thorough!!

[dave_h34]

That big light brown/black component doesn't look as though it'll fit back in very easily!

[homeagain]

That's what the brown tape is for !

[calibos]

LOL

I'll tell what the tape is for. Do you see the leftmost copper/orange panel ribbon cable. Well the time before last cleaning session, that ribbon cable got sucked into the nozzle of the hoover. It didn't get pulled out or anything but vibrated back and forth in the nozzle at like a million times a second! Pulled the nozzle away and discovered that one of the tiny wires on the edge of the ribbon cable had been severed. Thought 'Sugar,Sugar,Sugar', I've just destroyed a few thousand pounds worth of equipment. Had a brainwave then and magnetises a needle, picked up a tiny flake of metal from one of the PJ screw heads and finally manouvered it between the ribbon cable sheath after 100 attempts joining the severed ends of the tiny wire. Result!!

Anyway while I had the PJ open this time I put some of the brown tape on the ribbon cable to make sure the flake of metal didn't work its way out while I was working on the PJ.

My first few de-dusting sessions involved just taking off the top cover of the PJ and pointing the airduster into the panel area. I would be lucky to get rid of 50% of the dust. Then I got a little braver and took the Mainboard off which involved disconnecting a few cables and a few screws. That gave me better angles and access with the airduster to the panels but still only from the top so I would still end up with stubborn dust on the bottom of the panels which would still be visible on the screen. Got rid of 80% of the dust with this method.

This last time I decided that by hook or by crook I was stripping the PJ completely. I managed to undo a very stubborn screw that had prevented me taking the PJ apart any further on previous occasions. I had worn away the philips head threads on previous attempts. I was then able to lift the optical block out which gave me access with the air duster to two fans I couldn't access properly before. Gave them a clean aswell as the internal air ducting. With the optical block out I could spray the panels from underneath aswell and was able to completely clear them of dust.

Result was a dust patch free image for the first time ever since I got the PJ and because I cleaned out the fans and ducting my running temps went down too by a significant amount.

[cyberheater]

I don't think DLP panels suffer from from degradation in the same way that LCD panels do.
I'm trying to dig up some unbias reports but it's proving a bit difficult.

[LV426]

Originally Posted by cyberheater in the signature

Why LCD!. You can get the superb BenQ PB6100 for less then 600 quid and will outperform any similarly priced LCD by quite a margin.

Unless you are rainbow sensitive. LCD for me, any day, until 3-chip DLP becomes affordable. Oh, and the BenQ PB6100 is a 800x600 resolution device. So that would be 4x3 then. No, I think I'll stick to 16x9. But thanks for the "advice".

[ARoss]

Very impressed with cleaning, shame your old projector produced a yellow cast.

My philips projector does not have fan setting that I can find. Also need to swap source as I believe pixels fail after 1/2 hours usage. Issue could be heat or faulty source.

I presume as far as quality reliability to porjectors the biggest problems are :

1) Heat damage (which can be fatal or progressive)

2) Dust .... ?

3) ????

Any other feedback on how your old projectors have 'died' or progressively declined ?

I love my TOSHIBA TLP-ET1 if anyone wants info or user tips on this unit, email me.

Howard

hsm_melody@hotmail.com