DLP lamp

had to replace my DLP lamp on my RCA 61" HDTV. what i got was a small lamp mounted in a plastic carrier case with interlock plug. this cost me $448 bucks and

1.5 month wait by the time it got to my house. i noticed when removing the old one the element in the center had obviously blew apart from his base in the center and was just hanging by the side wire with some loose glass floating around inside the envelope. in my opinion i didn't get that much time on the unit, maybe 1.5 years or moderate usage? is this normal life expectancy or did i have a dud ? when i purchase this HDTV, the first one only lasted 8 hours and the lamp went out, i made the store deliver a whole new TV set.

now, i noticed on the lamp there is a Philips number that seems to be the part number of the lamp only and not the carrier ! is it possible for me to simply get the lamp and rebuild this extra carrier unit ?, the lamp is simply held in with Robertson type screws. i don't remember the part number but its a small mercury lamp of 100W/30W level, the tv has a high and low power setting for the lamp.

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Reply to
Jamie
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You cannot substitute the lamp. The original lamps have a specific luminosity, shading characteristics, power and voltage rating, and colour temperature.

In reality, these lamps are lasting about 800 to 1000 hours if you are lucky. I know some people that are changing these lamps about once a year.

What I would recommend, is to sell the set, and get a new flat panel LCD TV. You will pay a little more up front, but the LCD should give you about

40,000 to 60,000 hours of service before it needs a new set of lamps and ballast transformer. By then, you will be more than due for an upgrade always. Under normal use, the new models of the LCD screens should last about 10 to 12 years if used for only about 10 hours per day. This would be a much more cost effective way of watching TV.
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JANA
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JANA

To generalize that the lamps are lasting 800 to 1000 hours is overly pessimistic. Most are lasting much better than that. It is likely that the RCA had the same problems that Sony and others did with Philips lamps for a while. Those problems seem to have improved quite a bit. The Osram lamps used by other vendors still seem to last longer, but recent Philips lamps seem to be much improved over those of a couple of years ago. The life of this type of lamp has a great deal of variability. Some don't last long and some do. I know lots of people that have thousands of hours on their DLP lamps.

LCD panels have their advantages, but even the best still have artifacts that are likely to be noticed by many more people than would find problems viewing a DLP unit. The picture on the better DLP products is stunning. Even the RCA DLP is far more watchable than even the best LCDs IMO. You also won't get the size out of a flat panel LCD that you will from DLP products.

Leonard

Reply to
Leonard Caillouet

My Sagem DLP has a warranty for 5 years which includes the lamp. 3 years from the maker and an extra 2 from the store.

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    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
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Dave Plowman (News)

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