Optoma HD65 Warranty and service question

[harwooda]

Looking for a little advice from those in the know about how Optoma customer service is likely to react to the following.

Had a HD65 for about 6 months and was in general quite pleased with it.

About a month ago on a few occasions when I first turned it on I noticed that the lamp was flickering very briefly off and then back on for maybe the first 2 minuets of operation. I spoke with Optoma who duly sent me a return form.

I haven’t had time to get the form sent back but decided to watch a film this evening. I don’t have a very light controlled room and with the days lasting a bit longer I decided to set the projector to bright rather than eco which it has been in for the rest of it’s life (about 380 hours total).

After watching it for a couple of hours this evening turned off as usual only to hear a loud pop after the cool down cycle which must have been the lamp as it's now not working at all.

I have never had any power cuts or shutdown that didn’t have the short 10 second cool down as working in IT I have it backed up by a ups.

I think that 380 hours even if they had all been in bright mode is quite a stretch from the 2-3 thousand quoted from lamp life expectancy. My question is so you think that Optoma will see things the same way.

Also am I just unlucky with a duff lamp or is the projector likely to have a fault that has caused the lamp to fail?

[Clarner]

Do a search as there have been a lot of posts regarding HD65 lamp failures, lots around 200 Hours or less. Incidently the lamp timer on my HD65 doesn't seem to equate to real time, e.g. after watching about 3-4 hours of content the lamp timer has only increased by 2 hours. I run mine in low lamp mode and don't know if this affects the timer? On the question of Optoma service, I have found it to be excellent, if you can relate your lamp failure to a common problem with the HD65 you should be in a stronger position. Good luck!

[harwooda]

Thanks for that.

I have done a search. always do before posting and spotted a couple of posts relating to 200 hour lamp failure but none of them (that I found anyway) had any resolution to the issue.

Also dug out my original recipit and it's now 8 months old. I've only used the thing for about 3 months as the rest of the time my house was it bit's getting the room setup for the projector install. Must get a thread together in the DIY or gallery section.

I've sent over an RMA request to Optoma and and hopefull that they will be kind and with repair or replacement.

Is it normal for there to be an almighty crack noise when the lamp pops? It was so loud it woke the girfiend who was not even in the same room!