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Think I'm gonna cry... (Infocus X1 related)

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Think I'm gonna cry... (Infocus X1 related)

Old 06-17-05, 11:07 PM
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Think I'm gonna cry... (Infocus X1 related)

Bought my Infocus X1 back in September. Haven't used it excessively (somewhere between 200 and 300 hours) but have loved every minute of it so far.

Tonight, my son asked for me to put on a movie for him. Hit the power button on the remote, the fan came on but no picture. Thing sounded like it was revving three or four times and then gave up. A light on top of the projector started blinking red three times.

Has the bulb died??? How in the world could it have died after only 200 to 300 hours of use? The room is cool. The projector is well ventilated. It worked fine for his Tarzan II disc last night and I noticed no problems before turning it off.

Worst thing is that the bulb warranty only seems to be good for 90 days so I am likely screwed! In 13 years of marriage, its the only real gift I have bought myself, and now I think I'm going to cry.

Could I be missing something? Might there be another problem? And is there a way to tell if a bulb is dead, short of plunking down $250-300 for another bulb?

I've contacted InFocus technical support, but I've got a feeling they are just going to tell me tough luck and to buy a new bulb.

This just plain stinks!
Old 06-18-05, 10:09 AM
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Sorry to hear this. Bulb life is a rated average not a guarantee. This is part of owning a projector.
Old 06-18-05, 03:07 PM
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Find out what the lamp warranty is. Probably 90 days/500 hours. It's more than 90 days, but less than 500 hours. So raise hell and see what you get. Otherwise...buy a new lamp.

Unless you bought it at Costco. In which case, exchange it for a new one.

I should add....that sounds exactly like a lamp dying, not something else. Sorry.
Old 06-18-05, 03:29 PM
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Originally Posted by Spiky
Find out what the lamp warranty is. Probably 90 days/500 hours. It's more than 90 days, but less than 500 hours. So raise hell and see what you get.
I'm pretty sure that the lamp warranties are xx days/xxx hours, whichever comes first. So, he's probably out of luck with that option.
Old 06-18-05, 05:19 PM
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Kind of guessed it would be a bulb dying.

But that brings up the big question: Why would a bulb die so fast?

It was used for practically a twentieth of its expected life. Might it be due to a flaw in the projector? I would hate the idea of looking at less than 300 hrs of life expectancy per bulb. A dollar an hour is not what I would call cost efficient.

In other words, should I have the darn thing checked before even replacing the bulb???
Old 06-18-05, 08:27 PM
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Originally Posted by TheAllPurposeNothing
...
In other words, should I have the darn thing checked before even replacing the bulb???
Either that OR ebay that bad boy, throw in a few hundred more and pick up a brand new 4805.
Old 06-18-05, 08:51 PM
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While it probably is a bulb, did you try turning unit off (switch on the side), then unplugging it for a few minutes and plugging back in?

I had a lightning strike close to my house and I thought it blew my X1 as when I tried to power up using the remote, nothing happened. I unplugged for a few minutes and when I plugged back in, everything was fine. (had to do the same for my receiver as well), guess I got lucky!
Old 06-20-05, 12:26 PM
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Tried unplugging and plugging. Removing and cleaning the screens on the bulb assembly. No change.

As it is, I heard back from Infocus today. They reiterated the warranty info but said that the lifespan for this bulb was extremely short and that they think it is worth taking a look at.

So they are going to send me an RMA and check it out for me. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that it isn't the bulb (the rest is still under warranty). It didn't seem to give any of the telltale signs of bulb wear (dimming picture, for ex.). It just seemed to work one day and not the next.

Won't get too optimistic as I don't need that big of a letdown again. But perhaps there might be some light at the end of this tunnel (or projector).
Old 06-21-05, 12:57 PM
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Originally Posted by TheAllPurposeNothing
It just seemed to work one day and not the next.
The last place I worked had a few projectors setup for comptuer use. This is exactly what happened to one of them. Worked fine for a morning training session and didnt work (powered on but no picture) for the afternoon session.

Have you pulled the bulb out?? you should be able to look at it and tell if its blown or not...
Old 06-21-05, 04:59 PM
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Originally Posted by TheAllPurposeNothing
It didn't seem to give any of the telltale signs of bulb wear (dimming picture, for ex.). It just seemed to work one day and not the next.
I'm not familiar with the Infocus X1 but I do work with a lot of projectors... In my experience, you're not going to really see a dimming of the light, etc. Some projectors automatically detect the lamp on hours and will flash a warning when your bulb life is up. Others, the bulb just goes out, like that. Granted, I mostly deal with Epson and Boxlight (also Infocus every so often) products... But in every case with every bulb that I've changed I couldn't tell a difference in the brightness of the image. Unless of course, it was a blown bulb.

But yeah, it does sounds like a bulb from what I know.


Originally Posted by Brian Shannon
Sorry to hear this. Bulb life is a rated average not a guarantee. This is part of owning a projector.
Pretty much... Most folks that I know practically shit themselves when I tell em' how much an average bulb costs.
Old 06-22-05, 01:31 PM
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The reason I mentioned the dimming was because it seemed to be a repeated trait amongst X1 users on the avsforums posts about the X1. In just about every case, there was mention of the brightness of the bulb dropping as the bulb was dying.

The projector was just picked up by FedEx Ground. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. Even if the bulb is likely dead, 250-300 hours is an extremely short life. For some reason, I get the feeling that there was something wrong with the projector to account for it. If I'm right, its my hope tech support is able to fix it to prevent more 250 hr. bulbs in the future.
Old 06-22-05, 03:52 PM
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Originally Posted by Johnny Zhivago
Pretty much... Most folks that I know practically shit themselves when I tell em' how much an average bulb costs.
What about an above average bulb? Qualia, anyone? Lamp costs more than my PJ and at least 3 times more than the X1.
Old 06-22-05, 06:29 PM
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That is awfully short. My X1 bulb has like 1300 hours + on it last time I checked. Infocus customer support is pretty good, hopefully they help you out!
Old 06-22-05, 06:58 PM
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Since we're on this topic, I'll pose a similar question--

Can the laser beam on a DVD player give out, and if it starts to give out, does it look like a light bulb is slowly dimming?

I ask this because the shadows on a couple of my DVD's are unusually dark.
Old 06-23-05, 10:58 AM
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That's not how it works. If the laser gives out, it simply doesn't read the DVD and you'd have nothing. It's all digital, so it wouldn't affect the brightness or color onscreen.

What kind of TV do you have, and what video cable do you use?
Old 06-23-05, 04:41 PM
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It may just be the brightness button--

I haven't adjusted that for a while, because the remote that controls the brightness conked out completely. I'm expecting a new one in the mail any day now.

I get digital cable, and I have an excellent Sony Trinitron, which I bought nearly five years ago. The quality of the picture is amazing for a regular TV.
Old 06-23-05, 10:12 PM
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Another thing you could try checking is the black level setting in your DVD player, assuming it has this setup menu item. With an Svideo or composite hookup, it should be on the normal/lighter setting, whatever it calls it. It should be on blacker with a component video hookup.
Old 06-29-05, 03:30 PM
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UPDATE:

Received an e-mail from InFocus saying that the projector has shipped from the repair center...should be here tomorrow.

Didn't actually say if anything has been repaired (aka if it was projector or bulb related). Didn't bother writing to them since I would probably have it in hand before receiving an answer.

Keeping my fingers crossed. I plan on watching Brotherhood of the Wolf and 1776 this weekend, and I'm sure they would benefit greatly from the "theatrical" experience.

Oh please oh please oh please.....
Old 06-30-05, 11:58 AM
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How frequently were you turning it on and off? That'd be the one thing you could do yourself that would shorten the life of the bulb. There was someone on avsforum who used his like a tv and it didn't occur to him that turning in on and of several times a day would kill the bulb.

My X1 is at about 3000 hours now. It'd look better with a new bulb at this point, but not enough to get me to spend $300. I almost bought a refurbished ScreenPlay 4800 from www.woot.com for $500 just for the bulb, but skipped it in hopes I can actually get another 1000 hours.
Old 06-30-05, 03:06 PM
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Think I'm gonna cry again..

But this time from joy!

Got the projector back today. Plugged it in, turned it on and...light!!

Not sure if they just exchanged the bulb or the problem was elsewhere, but I am so thankful to have it working again. I will check the bulb life on the menu tonight to see if they switched out the bulb or if the problem was likely elsewhere.

Gotta give InFocus' customer service credit. In less than two weeks, they processed it, repaired it, and got it back to me. And if the bulb was blown, they replaced it out of warranty for nothing.

Now to find some nice piece of eye candy to reacquaint myself with it...
Old 06-30-05, 03:10 PM
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Originally Posted by Roto
How frequently were you turning it on and off? That'd be the one thing you could do yourself that would shorten the life of the bulb. There was someone on avsforum who used his like a tv and it didn't occur to him that turning in on and of several times a day would kill the bulb.

My X1 is at about 3000 hours now. It'd look better with a new bulb at this point, but not enough to get me to spend $300. I almost bought a refurbished ScreenPlay 4800 from www.woot.com for $500 just for the bulb, but skipped it in hopes I can actually get another 1000 hours.
Thats the thing...over nine months, we only put 250 hours on it (some 60 of that from Alias marathons as I swept through four seasons). We would go weeks without turning it on. Its there mostly as a special occasion thing (Alias being the exception) which is one of the reasons it hit so hard when it stopped working.

Nice price on the Screenplay 4800, BTW. At that price, it almost makes the projector itself disposable.
Old 06-30-05, 03:11 PM
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Can you tell if it is the same projector? Sometimes companies will replace a broken unit with a refurb. I would also email them just out of curiosity to find out what the problem was.

Enjoy!!
Old 06-30-05, 03:29 PM
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Originally Posted by cajun_junky
Can you tell if it is the same projector? Sometimes companies will replace a broken unit with a refurb. I would also email them just out of curiosity to find out what the problem was.

Enjoy!!
Well, unless they replaced the whole projector besides the bottom plate, it should be the same (same serial number). In fact, that was the first thing I checked.

Might just contact them anyway to thank them. Perhaps I'll inquire about the repair when I do. I've got to say that I am curious.
Old 07-01-05, 11:33 AM
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Originally Posted by TheAllPurposeNothing

Might just contact them anyway to thank them. Perhaps I'll inquire about the repair when I do. I've got to say that I am curious.

I'm surprised they didn't even include an invoice that showed the work performed. Maybe they didn't do anything. The jostling during transport fixed it.
Old 07-01-05, 11:49 AM
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Originally Posted by yashan
I'm surprised they didn't even include an invoice that showed the work performed. Maybe they didn't do anything. The jostling during transport fixed it.
I was suprised as well.

When checking the projector last night, the bulb life read as 0 hours. At the same time, all of my settings were erased and the projector was on all of the default settings.

So, this morning I wrote to the customer service department to see what transpired. Something was obviously done to the projector to reset the settings. Not sure if the bulb was replaced since a system reset would likely have reset the bulb counter as well.

If for no other reason, I need to know just to have a more accurate reading of the current bulb's life (new or old).

Either way, its just so nice to have it back.

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