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Author Topic: First Legitimate Breakdown... Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-24-2014 09:59 AM                     Well folks it finally happened. One of the 212 NEC's I've installed actually had a legitimate breakdown. On this NC-2000 the igniter failed in an unusual way, and it did not keep this projector off the screen. The first show would run normally but when the projector got it's lamp on cue at the start of the second show the lamp wouldn't light and it threw a "Lamp Unlit" error. Rebooting the projector always lit the lamp on the second and all remaining shows. I've had this same error happen when a lamp looses its seal, but the lamp was fine. At any rate, rather than reboot after each show I had them leave the lamp on during operating hours for a couple days. Parts should be in today and weren't uber expensive. So if any of you ever get a "Lamp Unlit" error and the issue can't be traced to the lamp itself then it is likely the igniter that is bad. The igniter in this unit was dated April 2010 and it is one of the older NC-2000's that I installed, but certainly not the oldest one. Mark  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 04-24-2014 12:06 PM                    How do you decide if a breakdown is legitimate? Are you saying it has never happened that a setup could not project where the cause was the projector (not the bulb)? Is this like legitimate rape?  |  IP: Logged Andrew Thomas Master Film Handler Posts: 273 From: Pearland, TX, USA Registered: Jun 2012 posted 04-24-2014 01:42 PM                     That is interesting. How far apart are their showtimes? I've seen the "conventional wisdom" suggest that less than 30-45 minutes between the end of the show and the start of the next one and you should just leave the bulb on anyway. What is your position on that?  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 04-24-2014 02:12 PM                     It happens. I had to replace a "Start Pulse Generator" - fancy name for a igniter in a BARCO a couple of years back since I had a failure error in bulb ignition. To make the determination, I had to condemn the bulb by swapping out modules, then to condemn the igniter swapping out igniters with another unit to come to the conclusion of the failed unit. Got a new igniter in the next day, half hour to do the swap and all was good. A bulb can last longer if turned off and can rest for at least 20 min compared in wasting hours and adding age on a bulb by leaving it on all the time. Granted, the igniter's age is spared if one leaves the bulb on all the time but where is the money really spent on here? So, who is winning here - the bulb or the igniter - being the igniter is built for endurance while the bulb doesn't have those attributes. -Monte  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-24-2014 05:25 PM                     This is a busy site especially on weekendz anx wben thd kids are outa scbool. Breaks are generally a minimum of 30 minutes. No, they generally do not leave the lamps on at any of the sites I service. Never been an issue since all of the lamps are Ushio and they are rarely ever operated past the 100% warranty time. There are a couple of Drive Ins that let them run all night but they do run intermission count downs and such. @Steve K., I don't count broken switches or bad hard drives. A broken switch hasn't caused a lost show to my knowledge. They are easy to bypass. Also haven't had a switch break in over a year. Never on the big NEC's. Still waiting for an OS drive to fail... but for the most part I am already ready with spare drives in place in at least the busy and furthest away locations. Mark  |  IP: Logged Ken Lackner Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1907 From: Atlanta, GA, USA Registered: Sep 2001 posted 04-25-2014 09:26 AM                     I wish this was Facebook so I could Like Steve's post. Then I would Unlike it so I could Like it again.  |  IP: Logged Jarod Reddig Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 513 From: Hays, Ks Registered: Jun 2011 posted 04-25-2014 03:21 PM                     Ya I wish there was a selectable thumbs up icon or like you said a "like" icon to click for those posts you really enjoy or agree with.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-25-2014 04:51 PM                     Legit breakdown = Where I actually have to get in the truck and drive to the site and fix the sucker.  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 04-25-2014 11:04 PM                    Leave aside the server since your post was about the projectors. So you've never had any (non trivial, like the switch) hardware failures, at least none that weren't DOA?  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-26-2014 02:32 PM                     Nope. I did have a bad ICP module in a couple week old NC-900, made it difficult to boot up but once it was up it was fine. That's literally about it. Again, it didn't keep them from running their shows and that one is relatively close by. The worst disaster I had was a number of years ago when a 6KW lamp blew up in a Series 1 CP-2000. But that's what happens when a theater hires a manager who ignores the lamp change warning. Mark  |  IP: Logged Randy Pryde Film Handler Posts: 32 From: Casper, WY, USA Registered: Feb 2013 posted 04-26-2014 11:36 PM                        Mark has referenced this incident on Film-Tech so many times that I cannot let it go unanswered any longer. The 6kw lamp was NOT over warranty. This CP2000SB had LiteLoc engaged for Dolby 3D presentation. The lamp was running at 110% when it exploded. We immediately checked two other locations with identical equipment and lamps and found that they were also running at 110% at 500 hours. At the time Mark blamed Christie for bad software. Christie made good on the lamp and reflector and I ate the remaining $12,000 in repairs. I think that it is unprofessional to blame a manager you don't like. If you bite too many hands, there won't be any left to feed you.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 04-27-2014 12:04 PM                     I would continue to blame Christie for allowing lamps to run at 110% just to claim a brighter picture. 100% is 100%, despite what some athletic people may think. Christie's lightloc doesn't really worth with the Dolby filter wheel in there...it never gets a stable reading. Barco the only one that I've seen that reads consistently with that.  |  IP: Logged Jim Cassedy Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1661 From: San Francisco, CA Registered: Dec 2006 posted 04-27-2014 01:16 PM                     quote: blame Christie for allowing lamps to run at 110% I always wondered about that. A couple of months ago I was at a theater to solve a small problem, and I was scrolling through the info screens and came across the "Lamp Voltage" & "Lamp Amprage" display on their Christie projectorthingy. Even with my poor math skills, it was immediately apparant to me when looking at those readings that the 2K bulb was being run at over 100%. Why would they do that? It doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Since I was there to fix another prolbem, I went back to fixing that.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-27-2014 04:15 PM                     Randy, I still have the files from that CP-2000 here on my server! Light Loc was turned on because we were led to believe that it would work properly. And yes, the lamp was set at a relatively high power level because that's what it took to get the level near spec for Dolby 3-D. The lamp was about 40 hours give or take over it's 100% replacement warranty of 600 hours even though it is rated for 900 hours life span. Christie did eventually come out with new firmware but I remember that it still did not address the lite-loc issue when used with Dolby. In fact to this day I can't think of a single manufacturer's lite- loc in series one or series two that is really 100% dependable. Although at least Barco and NEC will not allow a selected lamp to exceed it's 100% current rating. Hence, I do not use them since that occurrence. As far as liking the manager or not... That is completely false, and he and I actually had a nice long talk in person this past January when I stopped in the theater. I actually have a hard time thinking of someone that I truly dislike. I actually got along with him and his dad very well while doing work there. Is it really his fault? He's the one in charge. Since at the time we had no remote access to monitor the operating time on the projectors one has to rely on the one person in charge of the operation to do it. And at that point in time no one was running lamps past the 100% warranted hours. I still don't have a single customer that goes past it to this day. Your lamp was still functioning at 600 hours and had it been changed in a timely manner the whole episode would have never happened. Mark  |  IP: Logged Randy Pryde Film Handler Posts: 32 From: Casper, WY, USA Registered: Feb 2013 posted 04-27-2014 08:51 PM                        I have said my piece and will leave it at that.  |  IP: Logged

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