Inside of box gets hot, and ballasts generate more heat so you really don't want ballast inside, overheating the ballast is probably the no 1 reason for failures. Coils get hotter than eballasts but are much more durable.

A very good point - this is why myballast is outside of the box.

Sloppy wording on my part. I meant within the structure of the project, including the outer box which is open on two sides (front and back) You can see the eballast on the right hand side just below the fans. There's about 2 inches of air between it and the side of the support box.

Customer service says thye think it may be the bulb since the eballast is still trying to ignite. I'll pull it down later tonight and take a look.

One of the things I really like about this place is the way they take care of whiny hysterics such as myself.

If I was you and since your wireing for the ballast is outside the projector and is hidden with your projector mount enclosure, I would just go ahead and Use a m-ballast for backup, you can even wire it up with a flip switch to toggle from e-ballast and m-ballast. A m-ballast is like a tank, will last longer than the projector will.

Joe

Thanks for the idea. I'll have to really give that some consideration.

R

Here's the response I received from LL


Hi Richard,

If the ballast is clicking it should be working normally.

You can try getting an MH400 lamp from Home Depot and test the rig with
that.
Make sure the prong in the mogul base is bent up so it's making good
contact
with the lamp.

Thanks,
Kellie

Haven't been by Home Depot, yet. But, I took the projector down this evening. Unscrewed the bulb and examined it.

I couldn't see anything wrong with it.

I adjusted the prong in the mogul base just in case and screwed the bulb back in. How far up should that thing be sticking? Plus, it was working earlier that day. Would it have bent inward on it's own?

I also checked the electrical connections between the ballast and the bulb.

Nothing. Still didn't light.

Here's the bulb -

And the bulb end

Here's a test bulb I bought at Lowe's this afternoon. Should I try with this thing? Will I blow myself up?

You might as well try it out I'm using a coil ballast with my 400watt bulb m59 at least then you will know if it's the bulb or the ballast. If I don't hear a humm in my box then I know the ballast isn't connected properly.

DM

I just want to make sure I won't blow up the bulb if I try.

Well, I tried the test bulb. Nothing.

So, I bent the prong in the mogul forward some more and put the old bulb back in.

Still, nothing. Although, I did see an arc through center of the bulb - once.

At this point, I must admit I don't know what to do. The eballast didn't light either bulb. The arc suggests that some current is getting through, but apparently not enough to light the darned things. I just said in an email to LL customer support that the arc suggested that the eballast is not to blame, but really, I hink just the opposite is true. Not enough juice is being generated by the eballast to light them.

Further, I just found out about the new eballasts which gives creedance to my theory that the Chinese ballasts were just unreliable as a mass market product. I think I have recieved 2 bad ones in a row.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Redwolf's got one of the new eballasts coming in. We're going to hook that up to my lamp and see if it lights. This should definitively tell me where the problem is.

I think most lamps outlast the old e-ballast. It is always the e-ballast.

Return the lamp and buy a coil ballast ,for many years of service.

My eballast also recently died (at least i think) after around 12 hours of use. It also made that clicking sound. At first I wasn't sure whether it was the bulb or the ballast but after seeing your tests, I think it's the ballast as well. Sigh..there goes my several hundred dollar projector

Contact Brain. The customer support on this site is quite good.

Contacted them. Apparently there's nothing they could do.

I'm going to go ahead and get the new eballast. I've got enough money and time sunk into this that giving up isn't an option - despite the earlier rants on my part.

Don't give up!

Ok, back up and running with a revised screen. It's 3:30 in the afternoon and my son's watching cartoons on it. So, I think it's going to all work out.

Pics to follow later.

There ya go rpearsey, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, put on a good movie and truck oooonn!

Movie for tonight was Batman Begins - gotta say I like the Missippi Mud screen, too.

I'm going to be posting a series of photos over the next couple of days demonstrating my results with this screen type.

I used the following paint formula:

RS-MaxxMudd LL (for lower lumen PJ's, and for completely controlled lighting)
16 oz. Delta Pearl Metallic #02601
12 oz. Delta Silver Metallic #02603
12 oz. UPW
2 oz. Delta Pale Metallic Gold #02624
14 oz. Minwax Polycrylic - Satin finish
10 oz. distilled/tap water


I was not happy with the texture of my first effort and sanded the screen down and applied 2 more coats of the paint formula. I'm still 100% satisfied with the results but this is b/c of execution on my part. In a few months I'm going to sand the screen down and redo it with a paint gun. But, until then, the results are more than satisfactory and are better than what I had before.

1st afternoon shots -

These photos were taken between 4 and 5 pm. The room gets direct sunlight at this time of day.

Doctor Who

More of the good Doctor -

A dark scene featuring Davros -

A wide shot taken from the kitchen - excuse the mess

Batman Begins -

Now, some pics taken beginning at 9am - no clouds - bright and sunshiney

These are from the Rush R30 dvd

The whole crew -

And, now one I just snapped at 11am

For my own personal tastes -

At 4pm the projector is watchable but not if you want to sit and pay attention to the screen. However, the reason I put the projector in the main room was so I could putter around the house in the afternoon with a movie or concert on and for that it's more than watchable.

At 9am it is completely watchable and still is at 11:30.

This is so much of an improvement over my first project which became all but useless in this room until about 9pm during the summer. Now, we begin watching movies at around 6:30 or 7pm with little visual loss.

Next - early evening and night shots

One more from this morning - 11:50am

Justice League

And, now some night shots -

1st Lord of the Rings with All lights downstairs on (except for the spot light above the fireplace, because it's burnt out) -

I'm not using a tripod tonight. It's cd case on a cat tree. So, the pictures aren't as crisp as I'd like.

More LOTR - all lights on - standing next to lamp

Same shot - Lamp off

Lights off -

Under the kitchen table light

All lights off -

Lights on - Dr. Who

Kitchen lights still on -

(Deleted crappy picture of Tom Baker)

One last lights on LOTR

Yes, those are some nice clear and bright pictures. It nice to see someone else enjoys Dr. Who!. BTW what kind of screen are you using... make and model?

Fulcrum

thanks!

Dr. Who is a hoot. My son and I are trying to watch all of them from 1963 forward. Gonna take years, though.

I made the screen out of plywood on a pine frame. The paint is RSMaxxLL formula. Details are on other pages of my plog and here: http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=13023

Thought I'd check back in to the site. It's been a while since I've been able to be a regular reader/contributor. Looks like things are progressing really well, here, though.

It's been a year since I "completed" the new projector, now, and it is going strong. I run it, at least, 7 hours a day without any troubles whatsoever.

I've built a computer for it complete with anHDTV Wonder card, and this bad boy is now our primary television set. Football season was amazing! And, Lost looks great. I'll post some more pics as time allows.

Having a bit of a problem and was wondering if anyone here has encountered it.

The screen (both projection and lcd) bleeds quickly to a complete white with more and more frequency. This is especially true when I've been watching HDTV or movies.

Any thoughts?

I ran it for about 4 hours last night without using anything graphic intensive, and it did fine. It's when I run a movie or us my hdtv card that it wonks out.

I tempted to get a new monitor. Those X2Gens look really nice, but I'm afraid it might be a software problem or a problem associated with the computer itself.

Yep could be a problem with the computer, if you haven't tried yet hook another computer to it and see if it does the same thing. Process of elimination!

I had the same thing happen with my projector once. Turned out the ffc was loose. ifrst time it happened i had just put it back together after doing the brightness mod (psone screen) and just got virtical lines. Scared the crap out mf me. It happened again the other day and just became a white screen (i was playing a game and t just turned white) so check the conections.

Its been a while since this was asked, but-

I have had this happen a few times while watching movies. It does it more and more. I reseated the FCC going to the LCD board, and it seems to work OK now. My screen will show colored lines as if it were broken if the FCC is plugged in all the way. I think it is just cheap, and repeated connect/disconnect cycles is wearing out the connector. It still works if I plug it in just right, oh well .

Thanks for the suggestions.

However, I think it was a heating issue. I noticed that if I keep the house a tad cooler when the lcd is running this doesn't happen. Or, at least, it hasn't happened since then.

Strange, and a tad disappointing. I was looking forward to "having" to buy a new hd lcd.