OK.. I have a S400DD with the magnetic ballast. It worked fine until I went to turn it on this time. The lamp comes on, doesn't seem to "strike" on as before. It gets a little tiny bit brighter and then the light start pulsating inside the element. Looks like a reactor ready to blow or something from it jumping around inside the filament or whatever. Anyone know the cause of this? Do I need a new lamp or is the ballast or ignitor broke?

Thanks!

Aaron

Has the lamp been burned in? Sometimes a lamp will cycle if it hasen't been (from what I have read). Has the lamp been repositioned because it will need a new break in period if it has been(this has been confirmed). Are you using the proper S51 ballast with it?

I had my lamp kinda do this after a couple of months of use....I believe the heat in the back end of my box affected my capacitor. Switched to my eballast.

I'm betting it's most likely your capacitor. Might be leaky or shorting from the heat. I doubt it's your transformer or lamp.

The capacitor and S51 and ignitor are all outside the box so I doubt heat is affecting them. Could it possibly be the ignitor? It just seems weird that it is not "striking" on. Where would I pick up a new capacitor if that is the problem?

Thanks guys.

Just a quick note.. This projector has been working incredibly fine for the last 3 months without any problems so I think the bulb is burnt in fine. Does anyone know the specs for the capacitor so I can try to pick one up in town. Or anything else it could be?

I also just recently started experiencing this problem. I am using the S400DD with a magnetic ballast. My projector has been working fine for almost 5 months and then this started. Now when I flip it on, the bulb strikes and an arc forms. The arc brightens slighly, to the brightness of a couple candles and stops. Then ocasionally the arc will divide into two seperate arcs and kind of dance around each other then combine back together.

Does anyone have a clue which item is at fault for this before I spend the money to troubleshoot it?
Possible faulty elements: Ballast, Capacitor, Ignitor, Bulb

There are two ways to test the capacitor .....

One, is simply remove the capacitor from the circuit, and turn on your PJ with the bulb connected to the ballast/ignitor. The capacitor is in there only for power factor correction (capacitance fights the inductance created by the magnetic transformer coil). If the same problem is there without the capactor in the system, then its obviously another fault.

If the bulb fires properly without the capacitor, it will be a tad bit dimmer than usual.

Another way to test the capacitor is with a DMM on Ohm meter or capacitance meter if you have a nice DMM.

To test with capacitance meter, simply put it in that mode, and connect the probes to each end of the cap. Polarity will not matter as these capacitors arent electrolytic. The Meter will read the capacitors micro-farads and display the measured value on the DMM. If this is close to the value that is written on the side of the cap, then you are good.

The second way to test with a meter would be with a resistance (ohm) measurement. Most Meters DO NOT have a capacitance meter built into them, the nicer one usually do. So if you dont have a capacitance meter you will have to do it this way..

Put the meter is OHM mode, connect each probe to the capacitor. Then watch the number on the screen (put it onto the highest range 20Mega-Ohm range something really high like that). The numbers on the meter should start off low and then slowly start rising higher and higher.

Caps are an OPEN against DC current after they are charged. a Meter emmits DC current, and will eventually charge the cap. While it is charging its resistance will get higher and higher. If you see this take place on your meter, then the cap is fine.

since your doing all of this, you will also want to measure you voltage coming out of your Transformer. Remove the ignitor from the circuit, and the bulb. Put your meter in VOLTAGE AC RMS mode. and read the output voltage of the transformer. Im not certain on what an S51 ballast should ouput, but my guess is still in the 250V-325V range. You can check with some specs online somewhere to confirm what the voltage should read.

Good Luck ....

Thanks for the detailed explination Scuba. I will look into that this week.

Is there anyway the ignitor could be at fault? The bulb is producing an arc. Is that the only purpose of the ignitor?

Anyone had this problem and fix it?

The ignitor only functions as a device to initiate the arc. Once an arc is present, the ignitor is redundant. I blame your capacitor, or possibly bulb.

So Scuba, you are saying that if I remove the capacitor from the circuit and the capicitor is at fault, the bulb should brighten to a little less than normal? By not having the capacitor in the circuit, will there be any damage done to the other components in the lighting circuit? (ie. bulb)

I'm not Scubs, but Yes, if you remove the capacitor the bulb should light to a little dimmer than usual working brightness. If it stays really dim, then the capacitor isnt the problem.

And the only thing that gets damaged without the capacitor is your electricity bill.

Hehe. I live in a dorm and get unlimited electricity and water, so I am good to go.

Thanks for the response MMc

Not really .....

The ballast would still draw 450W that it draws, it just wouldnt ouput 400W. More wattage would be wasted on the coil. but the electricity bill would be the same, but a dimmer bulb

Which leads me to question these things. These ballast are designed to have a 90% effeciency or a power factor of .90. The select the capacitors to come up with this value. I dont understand why, they didnt make the ballast draw a lower wattage (404-408W), and then raise the capacitance so that it has a power factor of .98 or .99.

Its like the makers didnt want it to be as effecient. Myabe they had to have it draw that much for the quad input to work, not sure. Im sure they have a good reason in making it that way, but I simply cant see why, other the internal resistance of the coil (R-COIL) being to high.

Imnot sure how dim it would be compared to when working properly. If I knew the approximate resistance of the system I could calculate the percentage wattage lost, but I dont know that. All I know is the power factor is .9 , and that the cap value.

there shouldnt be any damage to anything else. The capacitor is only in the for effeciency. There will be a voltage drop on the bulb, but that shouldnt damage it

Turns out my bulb was bad. I ordered a new S400DD and it came in yesterday. Popped it in the projector and it fired up fine. Sorry Scuba but I never tested the capacitor before ordering the new bulb. I called a couple lighting places in town, while my dad asked someone that works with this kind of lighting, and they all said that it was most likely the bulb and the capacitors rarely fail. (<--that sentence is definately encroaching the realm of run-on sentences )

I also noticed that Ushio is producing a newer model of the S400DD since I bought it 6 months ago. The wires holding the arc chamber are slightly different. After inspecting the numbers on the bulb I saw that it had "07 5" written on it, while my old one said "07 4". Not that any of that really matters I just thought I would share it with everybody.