Written by Correy Pelletier
When you insert your new projector lamp bulb, it’s very bright, but with every use, it gets dimmer in small increments. You won’t notice it in the beginning since the increments are small. Over time and as you use the projector and lamp for many hours, it will start to fade. You might not notice it’s fading and the only way to know the difference is a side-by-side comparison with another projector that has a new lamp.
If you choose to not replace your lamp, over time it will become dimmer. And you may be okay with watching on a dim projector until the end of its life, while others prefer to watch on a new bright screen until it gets below a certain brightness level.
If you don’t replace your lamp and you are reaching the end of its life, warnings may appear on your projector screen stating, “replace your lamp”. The lamp will still continue to work in most cases. In some projector models, however, there is a hard stop that is coded on the lamp or once it hits a certain number of hours, the projector will not turn on anymore. If that happens, you will be forced to purchase a new lamp and install it.
When you install the new lamp, you will need to reset your lamp hour counter, since most machines will not know that you are putting in a new lamp. The projector lamps that have microchips will tell the projector that a new lamp is being installed and it will reset the hour counter automatically.
If your projector model is a standard model or it doesn’t have a microchip or have an auto-shutdown when it hits a certain number of hours, then two things can happen at the end of your projector lamp’s life:
1.) The lamp fails to ignite and the projector will no longer turn on. This is the best-case scenario as you simply need to take out the lamp and replace it with a new one.
2.) The lamp blows during use and glass fragments are scattered inside your projector.
What we at MyProjectorLamps recommend is to know approximately what your average hours of use will be for a projector and lamp. Take note:
1.) Check your lamp hours often enough to know when it’s getting close to the end of its life.
2.) When you are within a few hundred hours, buy a new replacement lamp.
3.) Write down the current hours of your existing lamp before immediately replacing your old lamp. If the old lamp is still working, keep it as a backup.