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September 12th, 2012 09:00
2400mp bulb burned out?
I have a Dell 2400mp projector that I've been using for a while. The other day, in the middle of normal use, the bulb shut off and the orange 'lamp' light came on solid. Looked in the owner's manual, and this seems like a totally normal bulb burn-out. Ordered a new bulb, and planned to install it today, but before I did I decided to turn on the projector one more time.... and the lamp lights up perfectly! Anyone have any idea what's going on? Does the orange light come on before the bulb is actually burned out, but when it's getting close? Need to use this for a performance, so I want to know if I should plan on this shutting off again in the middle of the show.... but I also don't want to replace the bulb if there's more time left on this one.
DELL-Saurabh A
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September 20th, 2012 14:00
Hi ericbeach,
The solid orange light indicator on the projector means that the bulb needs replacement. It is possible to get the solid orange light indicator on even while the bulb is still working. Since you want to use your projector at a performance, I recommend you to replace the bulb before doing that. The bulb may go down anytime and will cause you inconvenience. Do reply if you have any further questions. I would be glad to assist.
Tech Director
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September 23rd, 2012 09:00
Ericbeach, I had this same problem this spring and borrowed the same model unit from a friend for the event. Since our lamp only had about 180 hours on it, I did some playing the day after the event. Our projector came back up and ran just fine. I used it several more times with no problem. I went to use it for our fall kick-off and it died again after working fine for an hour. Projector and lamp are now at 192 hours. I ordered a new lamp and paid for next day air. The projector came up and ran fine with the new lamp for 2.5 hours. Less than 1 hour before show time, it dies. Fortunately, a friend in the rental business has a 2400MP available in his shop and brings it over in time for the show. Everything works fine. His lamp has over 400 hours on it. His is rental machine that gets banged around. Mine is mounted on a lighting pipe near the ceiling with lots of airflow. Nothing else is within 2 feet of it. It always gets powered on and off with the remote so it always has time ro cool properly.
The next day, I put the rental unit in the ceiling mount thinking maye there is a problem with my 50 foot VGA cable or the power line (115 VAC at the projector with the projector running). The rental unit runs fine showing our presentation in a loop for 2 hours. Our unit runs fine showing the blue screen that says it's looking for a signal for the same two hours. So, just for grins, I take the VGA out on the rental unit and run it to the VGA in on our unit. Within 15 seconds, our unit starts the cycle of lamp off, lamp on for a few seconds then lamp off and so on. This cycle happens three times then it dies with the lamp light on solid. I swap the two units and our unit still runs fine with no input but dies as soon as there is a VGA signal (I didn't test other signal sources). I did some more testing and this is highly repeatable. It will run a long time (hours) with only the blue "searching for input" screen but ends up cycling to a solid lamp light as soon as it get a VGA signal. BTW, the signal must be good because it projects clean image for a few seconds and the signal works on the other 2400MP.
When I took the rental unit back, my friend told me he bought ten 2400MP units for rental and 3 of them have this exact problem.
So, does anyone have any help for this? I'm told that a repair would cost several hundred dollars. Hardly seems worth it given the cost of comparable new units. But now that I've invested $$$$$ in a new bulb that I don't need, I hate throwing all of this in the junk if there is a viable alternative.
Thanks for any assistance, Bill