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Experience with DLP Lamps

My concern was regarding the OEM bulbs. However, I bought the manufacturer bulb from Mitsubishi, and it just shattered after about six months. I noticed that the OEM bulbs are much cheaper.
 
i bought my dlp in 2004 and remember hearing that bulbs lasted like 4 years max.

well i watched my tv probably on average like 6 hours a day for years (i'd keep it on in the background and what not) and it never went out until like 2010. bought a new one from samsung's website for like $130 or so and it took like 5 minutes to replace and worked like a charm.

the picture was noticeably brighter as well.

the colorwheel on the other hand that was a process to replace. took a good hour or so but thanks to youtube it really was not that difficult.
 
steelodon said:
My concern was regarding the OEM bulbs. However, I bought the manufacturer bulb from Mitsubishi, and it just shattered after about six months. I noticed that the OEM bulbs are much cheaper.
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This normally indicates that you touched the bulb or otherwise contaminated it with [finger] oil. It causes hot spots that stress the bulb until it shatters. As an FYI it is pretty impressive when a 4000watt HID projection lamp explodes because someone touched it.
 
I bought a ShopJimmy bulb in June for my Samsung DLP TV. I didn't want to spend the 2x as much for the official replacement model because I didn't know for sure what was wrong with my TV (randomly shut off after 2-7 minutes).

Anyway - no complaints so far. Picture quality is good. Brightness is up (which is to be expected after replacing a 4 year old bulb). Didn't come with the housing so it took an extra 5-7 minutes to get the old bulb out of the housing and put the new one in but that was expected and not a big deal
 
Factory bulb went this long:



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The replacement was a factory bulb that I got off Ebay. It's still rolling, don't now how many it has on it right now. These extreme hours were a result of my kids being very young and the wife staying home with them all day. TV was turned on in the morning, and looped Mickey Mouse, Dora, Caillou, Tom and Jerry, etc, all day long. Then I'd come home and keep it on until midnight or so.

Turning them off and on a lot kills bulb life. If you are not going to leave it off for at least an hour, don't turn it off. I'd go with the factory type bulb. Think it was Phillips.
 
I still believe either the OP got a dud or goofed the install.

And I agree, the ability to actually fix the damn thing was definitely something I considered when buying.
 
soulcougher73 said:
Got to love TVs you can actually work on if you want. Color wheel, bulbs etc. End of an era.
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I guess if you can tolerate the DLP rainbows then sure. I personally find it fairly poor that the color wheels could explode though. I mean I get HID bulbs wearing out but why is it common for the DLP color wheel to explode? Also good luck repairing it the mirror chips / controllers fried.
 
I believe the light engine assembly is somewhere in the $500 range. Good luck finding a replacement TV of similar size. And with 6-color wheels, rainbows don't exist.
 
Rainbows are almost nonexistent especially on later DLP sets. LCD TV’s are great but they are fragile as hell. Just had a customer bring in a 60” set that got hit on the side by a toy that wasn’t that heavy. It didn’t even leave a mark on the side but it wiped out the T-Con interface on the screen. $1200 TV reduced to $40 worth of parts.
 
i love my DLP.

i have had to replace the bulb once. i got a full cage one from a dealer. $150 or so is what i paid.

you can get just the bulb far cheaper if you don't mind the work. i was slightly lazy.

hmm i should be due for another one soon. its going on 3 years now
 
imagoon said:
I guess if you can tolerate the DLP rainbows then sure. I personally find it fairly poor that the color wheels could explode though. I mean I get HID bulbs wearing out but why is it common for the DLP color wheel to explode?
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The color wheel has a super hot light shining right on it for thousands of hours.

My color wheel blew the day after I installed the new bulb. Replaced it and it's been fine ever since.
 
Matt1970 said:
Rainbows are almost nonexistent especially on later DLP sets. LCD TV’s are great but they are fragile as hell. Just had a customer bring in a 60” set that got hit on the side by a toy that wasn’t that heavy. It didn’t even leave a mark on the side but it wiped out the T-Con interface on the screen. $1200 TV reduced to $40 worth of parts.
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I can always pick out DLP because of the rainbows. For whatever reason, no matter how "anti-rainbow" the set is I can always see it. Well except for the wheelless DLPs.
 
Pacfanweb said:
The color wheel has a super hot light shining right on it for thousands of hours.

My color wheel blew the day after I installed the new bulb. Replaced it and it's been fine ever since.
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Still doesn't sound like a good reason to me. Since that is how they are expected to operate, they should be fine in that environment. I worked with a 15 projector theater running 2000 to 4000watt Xenon arc lamps and the only documented replacement of any of the filter glass was when a bulb exploded and took the glass with it over the 40 years it has been running.
 
imagoon said:
Still doesn't sound like a good reason to me. Since that is how they are expected to operate, they should be fine in that environment. I worked with a 15 projector theater running 2000 to 4000watt Xenon arc lamps and the only documented replacement of any of the filter glass was when a bulb exploded and took the glass with it over the 40 years it has been running.
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How many of those filter glasses spun at over 7000 rpm for several years, in addition to enduring thousands of hot/cold cycles?
 
Pacfanweb said:
How many of those filter glasses spun at over 7000 rpm for several years, in addition to enduring thousands of hot/cold cycles?
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I am not sure what the spinning has to do with it. It adds additional stress to the part but it should be engineered to handle it. Considering that the DLP projection units spin at 14,400 RPM and cycle with each movie IE 4 times a day 365 days a year. Since those units are 4 years old that is just under 6000 cycles and none of those have had a color wheel explode. I guess it has to do with the home unit quality more than anything.
 
imagoon said:
I am not sure what the spinning has to do with it. It adds additional stress to the part but it should be engineered to handle it. Considering that the DLP projection units spin at 14,400 RPM and cycle with each movie IE 4 times a day 365 days a year. Since those units are 4 years old that is just under 6000 cycles and none of those have had a color wheel explode. I guess it has to do with the home unit quality more than anything.
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Yep. The bearings get a little loose and vibrate a bit, and it takes its toll on the wheel.

And since movie theater DLP projectors are like 30k+, I'd suspect they are a bit more heavy-duty than a home DLP that cost 3k 9 years ago.
 
Pacfanweb said:
And since movie theater DLP projectors are like 30k+, I'd suspect they are a bit more heavy-duty than a home DLP that cost 3k 9 years ago.
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Probably a mix of price and quality control, which are somewhat related.

imagoon said:
Also good luck repairing it the mirror chips / controllers fried.
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It's really not that hard, but it's not super cheap either. It cost me between $150-200 to replace my Samsung's DMD panel.

DLPs are interesting though because I can't recall any other TV type that has moving parts in it.
 
I personally wish we had seen more of the multichip DLPs. Those looked great to me. 3 chips / 3 fixed filters firing at the screen. I guess they are more costly than the wheel approach. It sucked because I am one of those people that can see the rainbows in most sets. Only the 3 chip ones looked stable to me.
 
imagoon said:
I personally wish we had seen more of the multichip DLPs. Those looked great to me. 3 chips / 3 fixed filters firing at the screen. I guess they are more costly than the wheel approach. It sucked because I am one of those people that can see the rainbows in most sets. Only the 3 chip ones looked stable to me.
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You might have seen them if the market for rear projection hadn't bottomed out. There were more advancements in projection technology in those 3-4 years then the 8 years since.

A real shame too. I love front projectors. The FP market piggy backed off the success of rear projection market. There is still is no better way to throw a 100+ inch screen.

You were more likely to see single chip DLP with laser or LED lighting rather than 3-chip systems. The light path in a 3 chipper is very complex and the lenses are very expensive. Samsung had a LED based DLP 6 years ago. It was on the market, what, a year before being discontinued?
 
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