Projector’s lamps are like the Aquiles heal for many projects, they may have amazing brightness or vibrant colors, but if the projector lamp runs out too quickly it can be more cost-efficient to use the TV instead.
You may be wondering well aren’t projectors lamps becoming more efficient? Well… the good news is they are getting significantly more efficient with many lasting around 2,000 hours, but many are lasting nearer to 15,000 hours with new LED-based bulbs.
This sounds great, but many people still don’t know how long projectors lamps last as it varies quite a bit, and luckily there are a few ways to check projector lamp hours for you to see when they need replacing!
There are a few easy ways to check how long your projector bulb has been used for, which can help prepare you for when they run out.
Checking Lamp Life
Plugin your projector to a nearby outlet, or wherever you use it most and let it heat up for a few minutes.
Then navigate yourself to the menu or settings, remember this may differ for each and every model and brand of the projector but this should be able to get you to where you can find your lamp hours.
Then once you are in the menu tab, go to the setup or options subheading, and here you should be able to find some useful information about your projector.
From here you should be able to see a Lamp life or Lamp Hours tab, it may also be called Lamp Settings if you see something like that but not the others it could very well be that.
Here you should be able to see how many hours you have left on your bulb, the projector calculates this by how much power is being used by it each time you use it.
If your projector only has about 100 hours left on it it may be a good idea to go and get a new one as when a projector bulb starts to run out of life the image projection brightness is much lower, and colors may become harder to see.
So having a spare projector bulb around can be a useful thing, and normally you would only know your projector lamp is running out of life once it has already become a problem.
Checking your projector lamp hours every once in a while can be an easy way to stay on top of the game, and ensure your projector will be ready for your next movie night!
Manually Check your Bulb
This is a more outdated way of checking to see the wear of your projector’s bulb, and if you should look into getting a new bulb.
This is quite easy to do and you just remove your bulb, but for those who haven’t removed their projector’s bulb yet here is a brief overview of how most are removed.
- Unplug your projector
- Wait till your bulb is cold (at least 10 minutes)
- Find where the lamp access panel is and remove the screws and the panel keeping the bulb in place.
- Then grab the lamp and pull gently but with enough pressure to get it out.
Then once you have your bulb outside of the projector you can start to inspect the bulb. If you see burn marks, broken ball, or cloudy glass then it may be a sign of a projector in need of a replacement.
If your bulb doesn’t need replacing, then you shouldn’t be able to see any obvious wear on the bulb and the glass should be clear. If the glass has slight cloudiness to it this is most likely due to the intense heat this glass experiences.
If it is cloudy it should still have quite a lot of life still in it, but you may want to consider looking into replacements as it could fail quite soon.
Make sure you check with your specific projectors guidelines to see whether it is good for your projector to pull out the lamp if you are not replacing it as it may have a negative impact on the life of both your projector and bulb.
Calculate the Hours
If you have more of a vintage projector that lacks the modern information many of us take for granted, then you can calculate “roughly” how many hours you have put on your projector.
You will need to know how many hours you use your projector daily, or weekly. I am going to keep this easy and say I use my projector about 5 hours a week on average.
If you then can remember (or have receipts) when you put in your bulb. Then you can have a rough estimate of how many hours you have on your bulb.
So, if I am using my bulb 5 hours a week and have had it for two years then it is safe to assume that the bulb has been used for about 520 hours.
I will often give a 50-hour buffer as unless you know exactly how many hours your projector is being used to it is good to give a 50-hour buffer.
Then if the bulb is rated for around 1000 hours then I can say that the bulb will have about 2 years left in it.
This is a rough estimate, but if your projector doesn’t have the modern projector information then this will be a pretty good way to find out how much life is left on your projector bulb.
Each projector is different even if they are from the same manufacture they may vary quite drastically from model to model and especially from brand t brand but you should be able to find some information on how to check how many lamp hours your projector has left.
Checking in on your projector’s bulb can help you prevent failure of the bulbs, which could be an inconvenience, but it could also harm your projector if the bulb explodes or something more serious.
James has been a tech fanatic for years, from taking apart old electronics and putting them back together to now learning what more technology has to offer. He constantly is learning more regarding the tech industry. As the creator of Internet Bankroll, his mission is to provide unbiased tech information to everyone!