So, a few years back I purchased an eVo. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. But recently the bulb burnt out. So, uppon visiting the website and trying to order a new one, i found that they were out of stock. Of both types, as well as broken projectors. I'm under the impression the the bulb the eVo uses in 1.2 is a custom spec slightly shorter bulb and not obtainable from other sources. So, do I know essentially have a $500 paper weight?

Post a WTB in the trading post.

Also, are you sure that it's the lamp that's failed, and not the ballast?

I'm actually not sure which it is. I contacted support and they said they would refund the lamp if that wasn't it. It starts all the fans and what not and clicks, then waits a bit and clicks again. It tries this like 5 times then shuts off, so I don't know. I would assume the click is the ballast.

In addition it displays both orange, which would lean more towards a balast error. So, if you think it is the balast I will probably end up doing what was done in this thread.
http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=27828

I cant afford to shell out the $120.

Well, the clicking is (probably) the ballast trying to fire. When I got my eVo with a dead ballast, it didn't click at all. I put in a new ballast and it works fine.

Yes, that retrofit of a magnetic ballast was interesting. Not pretty, but functional, and inexpensive.

Is there a distinct look to burnt out bulb? I know regular halogens usually have a rattling filament, but is there anything to look for? I don't think it's unreasonable to think that the bulb is burnt out, since I've had it for so long, but the balast is a known problem.

Thanks a lot for your help so far, it will be a great feeling to get it working again finally.

Well, I tried a testing the resistance across the leads and it shows infinite resistance, so I'm taking that to mean that the bulb was burnt out. I will just proceed to purchase a new one.

No, becasue it's a HID lamp, you will get infinite resistance across a brand new lamp. It takes a lot of voltage to start up the arc, that's one of the jobs that the ballast does. It's only while the lamp is burning that there's anything like a circuit there. Basically, that's an invalid test.

Oh, alright. That makes sense. Well I guess I'll just buy a new lamp and if I have to I'll pick up a magnetic ballast as well.

whoknows wrote




Are you saying that support stated that they have the lamps available but will refund it back if you buy it and it's not the problem?

If not then...

I have an older model China made pre-evo pj which I bought used. I think the lamps it uses are of a type common in other China made pj's sold here, they are 150w MH lamps compatible with ballast type M81/E, M102/E and M142/E and came with 3 spare lamps and 2 are in the original boxes. I'm not offering them for sale but I thought if your lamp is of the same type then you could measure your lamp tip to tip, If my lamps have the same dimensions then I'll check the box information and get any names and codes.

Even if they don't match up someone else may see your specs and offer an alternative. Barring that you might have to consider changing / modifying the lamp holder to see if it will accept a more common lamp size.

That was back when they still had Type A bulbs in stock. I asked whether that included the bulb holder or not because I needed that to retrofit the v 1.2 and they never responded back, and then they ran out of stock.

From tip to tip the bulb is 4 inches long.

You should be able to easily modify the lamp holder so that it will accept any double-ended 150W metal halide lamp. The eVo has an electronic ballast, so it'll fire any 150W metal halide lamp.
The important thing to remember is to keep the center of the new lamp's arc in the same place the center of the old lamp's arc was.
I was looking for another eVo thread that I posted that type of a comment in, but it seems the old eVo threads keep getting deleted.

Tip to tip my lamps are 5 1/2 inch so yours is definitely a special shorter lamp. One of my lamps is very common and has been used here in diy projects it's the Ushio Ceramique 150w mh cmd-150/TD/942 (Ushio order code 5001319). The other box is an aquarium lamp. I don't see a code but it's a WGNLITE 150w MH 6500K WGNLITE

Obviously you would have to see if you have the room to fit the lamp and readjust the holder. Good luck.

Well there isn't enough space in the evo's lamp compartment to fit a 5 1/4 inch, but there is enough for up to 5 inches. I will probably do some research to try and find a suitable replacement if not for me just for anyone else having this problem. It would be nice if LL could post some of the findings on the page with replacement lamp out of stock notices. Does anyone know if they plan on getting them back in stock? It seems as if they've been out for a while.

EDIT: After a good bit of searching, I have found many 150w metal halide lamps, but none less than 5 inches long. There are many that are 70 watts that would fit, but I was unable to find a compatible sized double ended 150w. Do you think it's possible that the evo's lamp is actually just a 70w that has been over driven to run for significantly less hours? I don't know much about over driving so I don't know if that would be in the realm of reality.

If my math is correct I found a couple. They are double ended 114mm which I think is about 4 1/2 inches, base=RSC(R7s). I can't vouch for all the specs or availability in your area. The 10k might be too blue/white for some. The highest I've seen myself is 6500k

10mk ReefTank USA Lamp

10mk and 6500k VentureEurope lamps

I didn't look at all the specs but these are the 2, I found pretty quickly that might fit your evo light cavity. Also those sites may have more stock than just the ones I looked at in that size.

The top link certainly would work, but your right, it might be too cool. The bottom link actually disagrees with itself. Under where it says MOL=114mm, if you click on the link to the datasheet it says 135.

I had not looked at the pdf datasheets but I see what you mean. Either spec could be wrong. I also wasn't sure if the European lamps might also be 250 volts but it was a very quick search.

The evo probably uses an Aquarium lamp. The USA site does have a 6700K lamp listed but they don't give the dimensions.

6700K lamp

Contacting them might be the only way to find out what else they have. I'm sure other lamps would come up with a more extensive search.

Yah, I'll probably do a more in depth search when I get a bit more time. Thanks for all the help.

I tried to follow up on this discrepancy for you. The results are still confusing but not promising on the Venture lamp.

First I got a pdf of the Venture lamp catalog and found the section for the double ended lamps. They show 3 length types the "B" models are supposed to be 114.2mm, "C" types are 132mm and the "D" types are said to be 163mm. The lamp that matched is MH-DE 150w/UVS/FS/6K (actually 6500k). The product number is 29963. The length type is supposed to be "B" or 114.2mm. So far so good.

This is the bad part. I searched that model number and came up with this Goodmart lamp 29963 Notice the length is 5.1875 inches which doesn't match 114.2mm it's closer to 132mm or a Venture "C" type lamp length.

I also found a thread here at LL where a user (leeperry) recommends this lamp. Now follow this coincidence, leeperry says he owns a projector just like the OP (lesavoir) and recommends the 29963 model lamp as a great lamp.

LL reference Venture 29963 lamp

User lesavoir ended up buying a lamp I believe from a company in California, Atlas Lighting Supply and they carry the lamp with that code 29963. I suspect that this is the lamp lesavoir purchased and if I am correct then it wouldn't be any good for you. How do I know that? Well the rest of the coincidence is that lesavoir lives in my area and I bought his pre-built projector and he included the extra lamps he owned. I suspect that the lamp is the WGNLITE that I already referred to in an earlier post and this lamp is too long for you.

Convoluted isn't it.

You could still contact Venture and find out if the documentation is wrong when it refers to this lamp as a "B" type or if the suppliers are just misquoting the model number and ordering the wrong part from them.

That's quite an impressive rabbit trail you've managed to follow. Well, i'm glad that you've managed to get it all clear. It's a great help for me. I am probably going to try and buy a 1.1 lamp and holder from another member here because it will fit and uses a more common mounting size and type.

Well I did a little bit closer inspection on the lamp that was burned out. I found the following to be helpful:
FSL
MH-DE 150W/10k
2007-II

So, that means that the bulb was already 10k, something i had not realized. Therefore if the previous website is reliable, it would sell acceptable replacement lamps for the evo. I have just ordered one and will let you guys now.

Alright, so the bulb arrived. It turns out that the dimensions listed were incorrect. They are not actually end to end dimensions. It is about 2cm longer than listed. But, I've modified the mount and now am stuck again. I got the bulb in, but it still doesn't fire. I did a little googling and found that this is not too uncommon for a new bulb, and sometimes they have to be run for up to 12 hours to get them to light correctly and consistently. I was wondering if you guys had any help or input on this. I can get the eVo to stay on for me by putting a flashlight on the light sensor, and plan to run it overnight in an attempt to get the lamp firing. The electronic ballast in the evo should handle both probe and pulse start, right? I'm somewhat confused at the moment.

Also, I have found vague references to testing the balast with a multimeter, but no actual specifics. Does anyone know how to do this?

I'm starting to wonder if your lamp or the ballast is the problem... and leaning more towards the ballast.

To test the ballast with a multimeter you are basically checking that you're getting a high voltage output to the lamp. When the ballast tries to strike the lamp there should be a very high voltage spike, and then the voltage should come down again. Sorry, I don't know what those voltages should be for the eVo ballast.

Alright, well I'll try to get a fix on that. Thanks for the information.

Well I figured for other peoples information I would post my findings at the end of this rabbit trail. It turns out that the listed bulb the was 10k is almost undoubtedly the wrong color temperature for the evo. Although I'm not sure, after doing some reading apparently the bulbs made for LL are special custom from CoralVue? I think. But either way, even though they say 10k on the side, they are not, they are 6700 (from what i can tell at least). In addition, that bulb is way too long. They measured the length of the glass envelope in the middle and that is the stated length on the website. However, with removal of the eBalast, you could with a little removal of metal and widening of the brackets fit the bulb in, if you were in need of a new bulb. I however, was not actually. It was the ballast that was failing, apparently the ignitor was still firing though, hence the click. I purchased a replacement ballast here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/150-Watt-Metal-Halide-...6#ht_1356wt_939

This is not the only suitable replacement though, there are several other magnetic ballasts for cheap on ebay. It will not fit in the projector, but it is half as cheap as a regular eBallast and works fine, great in fact. A little wiring is required though.

Heh. I picked up an eVo 1.0, but it's got more problems than I want to deal with right now.

What that does mean is that I have a 1.0/1.1 lamp and working ballast.
Edit: Lamp that came with the eVo was dead, so the lamp that I have has (now) about 30 minutes on it.

Make me an offer that I won't refuse.

If he doesn't bite let me know I would be interested. Thanks.

I would love to, but the bulb I have probably still has a couple thousand hours in it, and I just don't have the cash right now. Sorry.

Unless of course you would be willing to trade for the other bulb I purchased mistakenly (150w DE 10k)