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Author Topic: NEC Fan Error Code "220"?? Jim Cassedy Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1661 From: San Francisco, CA Registered: Dec 2006 posted 08-09-2016 02:31 PM                     I got a call from a theater I sometimes look after that they had 'red lights' on their NEC 3200S. I couldn't get much more much info due to a language barrier. So- - logging into their NECdigitalprojectorthingy, I see the following error code: Since I don't have a list of NEC error codes, I'm assuming it's telling me that it's time to replace one (or more) of the cooling fans. But which one(s)? All of them, or does this code refer to a specific fan? The projector was installed about 3 or maybe 4 years ago. Don't know if this helps, but here's the fan log: I also scrolled back through the temperature logs and didn't see anything unusual. How "urgent" is action required on this? How long can they continue to safely operate before they get into big trouble? (I know they're going to ask me this!) (hint)  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 08-09-2016 03:23 PM                     AC ON is "Fan 6". It runs ANYTIME that there is power to the projector...including in standby. So it will burn up the time but if you look at the RPMs you'll likely see that you are fine. NEC conservatively puts the error out at 20,000 hours. The MTBF on that fan is 80,000 hours. So you are likely fine for another 20,000-40,000 hours. Fan 6, by the way is the lower of the two fans that reside behind the front filters. It is blowing on the card cage (something has to keep those cards, enigma, IMBs cool in standby). As for error codes, they are in the manuals. To reset the fan, go to the "LAMP" section of the DCC and you'll see the buttons in the lower right for clearing such things.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-10-2016 07:57 AM                     I have been starting to replace these fans once the projector hits the 5 year old mark. Some are approaching 60k hours of on time and these two fans and the ICP are what I consider critical fans to the life of the machine since they cool the card cage, I also replace the ICP battery at 5 years since it is pulled out to get to the ICP fan located in the CPU module above it. Mark  |  IP: Logged Kerry Fleming Film Handler Posts: 46 From: Boynton Beach, FL, USA Registered: Mar 2003 posted 07-19-2017 07:13 PM                        I am dealing with this error code on a NEC900C-A. DCC log shows that Fan #6 is running at 92%. Temp log appears normal in all areas. This is apparently a run time oriented response. Can anyone advise me if Fan #6 is operating at all times this model NEC projector is "On" or in "Standby as in other NEC model projectors mentioned in previous posts? My guess is that it is! NEC Tech Support recommends replacing ALL of the fans once this error message appears. Too costly!  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 07-19-2017 09:52 PM                        I've only been a service tech for a month and a half, but have already encountered this twice! Scares the hell out of the owners of the projectors, because it also gives you a red tail light. Ironically, one of them is at my former workplace as a projectionist... Error codes are in the service manual, and NEC also have a site that allows you to search for them, as so: But I'm afraid you have to be an employee of an authorized service partner to register on and have access to it. I've also been told by co-workers who have been taking these machines apart for many years that the actual life expectancy of the fans in NEC projectors is way longer than NEC officially advises and recommends replacement at. You could decide to take the risk and simply reset the fan hours without as much as taking a panel off. But if you do that, the logs will show that you did it, and if you later need to make a warranty claim for a seriously expensive part that goes bad, I guess you could be asked to prove that the fan(s) were actually bought and installed in order for that claim to be honored. I'm guessing that one part of the equation is how regularly the air filters have been replaced. If they've been swapped out with every bulb, the airflow through the projector should have stayed pretty good and excessive strain on the fans avoided. But if the filters have been allowed to become plugged up, gross and disgusting, the fans will have been straining against a partial vacuum, with all the stress on bearings and motors that implies.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 07-20-2017 05:51 AM                     Leo, The logs will also show that the fan speeds are in their proper range and the temps were in their proper range.  |  IP: Logged Kerry Fleming Film Handler Posts: 46 From: Boynton Beach, FL, USA Registered: Mar 2003 posted 07-20-2017 08:30 AM                        I am told the NEC projector warranty is for (2) years. After that you can obtain a "Parts Only Warranty" for $1272 per projector per year. Ours are 2 years/3months old. We take very good care of our equipment. The air filters have been changed regularly. Air flow is normal. Fan logs give a percentage of efficiency which is obviously derived from fan rpms. The operating temps are within normal ranges as well. This error code is obviously timer generated. Not failure oriented. I have reset the Fan log. Depending on the state the projector is operating in. Not all fans will be running. That is why I am trying to identify which fans get the most use.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 07-20-2017 03:10 PM                     I have never found the parts warranty from NEC to be at all advantageous. Out of 334 NEC's I installed I have replaced about a dozen power switches, two NC-900 lamp ballasts, one NC-1200 lamp ballast, and the focus motor on one Minolta lens. Now that's a dam good track record for going on a little over 6 years. Now the NC-900 does not have quite the track record the larger machines have, but considering how rushed it was and that there are so many of them out there, the overall picture is not all that bad. All of my customers have however taken advantage of the GDC extended warranty that covers the media block. No hard drive coverage as they are cheap expendables anyway. I have lost two GDC media blocks because of certificate batteries dying before I could get to them and GDC will replace them for you. No extended warranty and you are S.O.L.! GDC sells the extended warranty directly. Mark  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 07-20-2017 11:01 PM                        An extended warranty (on any big ticket consumer or professional appliance, not just a projector) is fundamentally an insurance product just like any other. You are buying peace of mind that you won't face an unplanned expenditure over the term of the warranty. The vendor of the warranty wants to make a profit on them, obviously, and so they will do the same math as an insurance actuary to set the price of them. Therefore, the probability is that you will end up spending more over your ownership of the product if you buy the warranty rather than "self insure" for unplanned repair costs, but the down side is that you (the end user) have to be able to write that check if you lose the gamble.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 07-22-2017 11:03 AM                     Well, there are extended warranties that are a reasonable deal and there are ones that aren't. The NEC warranty is not a good deal considering how reliable NEC's have been around here. If one is doing booming business and needs a write off then go for it. The GDC warranty if bought direct on the other hand IS a good deal that won't break any theater's check book. And they offer multi-year discounts. That same GDC warranty from Strong is about 2K dollars from Wrong which is an absolute rip off. I have had two SX-3000's lose the certs and the GDC warranty provided replacement servers the next day. I just swapped one out in Idaho yesterday. Both these SX-3000's were 3 years and a few months old when they lost the cert. So changing the batteries out on these is very important. Its easy to do. Mark  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 07-22-2017 02:06 PM                        Maybe the expensive NEC warranties are because, as you say, these projectors have such a good reputation for reliability that a relatively small proportion of the overall risk pool buys them, and those that do, buy warranties for older projectors and are thus more likely to make a claim? Without wanting to stray too much into politics, it's the same underlying problem as with Obamacare: healthy people aren't buying the policies (despite the tax penalty), so the overall risk pool is smaller and higher. I once heard the argument (could have been on the Clark Howard show, but can't remember), that for extended warranties on autos, the price/reliability relationship is the opposite to the one you'd instinctively expect: as a general rule, cars that are more reliable cost more for extended warranties. So very few people buy one for a Honda Civic, and those that do are doing so for a specific reason that puts them at higher risk of a claim: they know that they haven't maintained it very well, they use it in a way that puts a lot of strain on it (e.g. lots of short journeys starting from cold), etc. etc. But at the other end of the scale, BMWs and Subarus have such high breakdown rates as a proportion of the total number of units in service that a much higher proportion of owners want to cover themselves with an extended warranty, and so a lower proportion of the total warranties sold ever have a claim made against them. Agreed on the importance of regular replacement for media block batteries, and it's not just GDC. I had a weird issue last week: Barco DP2K-15C / DSS220 / cat745. Theatre called: server wouldn't connect to IMB. To cut a very long and convoluted story short, it turned out that both the projector's signal backplane and the cat745 IMB had gone bad. The guy at Barco I spoke to thought that the problem could have started with an IMB battery beginning to die and causing weird things to happen between the IMB and the backplane. It kinda makes sense: the server could communicate through the cat5e link wire (so pinging 130.1.1.1 locally from the DSS220 did get a response) but not through the backplane of the projector. After the backplane was replaced, the projector showed an IMB physical tamper error after the service door tamper had been cleared, and so the cat745 had to be replaced as well to get that screen up and running. There was no low battery warning in Show Manager or the server logs, though. That having been said, that IMB had been in service for five years, and I didn't look to me like the battery had ever been replaced.  |  IP: Logged Stephan Shelley Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 854 From: castro valley, CA, usa Registered: Nov 2014 posted 07-22-2017 02:14 PM                     Cat 745s do not have field replaceable batteries. They are rechargeable and do so while in service. Just like link decrypter batteries.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 07-22-2017 05:22 PM                     You are mistaken Stephen! The CAT745 DOES have a changeable battery. There is a cover over the battery and a temporary battery holder right next to it. You put in the coin battery while changing the main one. Once the main one is finished, remove the coin battery and move on to the next one. Perhaps you are thinking of the CAT862. I don't think the NEC extended warranty is excessive for what it is as compared to other manufacturers. In general, if you are single or twin, then a projector warranty makes quite a bit of sense (long term). Odds are, before that projector gets to be 10-years old, you are going to lose something on the light engine/prism (stuck pixel, even) and the cost of replacing that/down time while being repaired) will be offset by the yearly warranty price. If you have an NC900, it isn't a matter of if, but when something in that unit craps out. Once you hit 3 screens, the cost benefits of extended warranties start to diminish and for 4 and up, you are better off owning your own parts source or even a spare projector to be put on line in an emergency (perhaps the NC1000). The annual cost of a lot of extended warranties far exceed the cost in parts.  |  IP: Logged Stephan Shelley Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 854 From: castro valley, CA, usa Registered: Nov 2014 posted 07-22-2017 06:58 PM                     Your right Steve I was thinking of the 862. BTW just had a cat 745 die much like Leo did but in this case the backplane was fine. This one was 3.5 years old.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 07-22-2017 07:12 PM                        The replacement 745 I swapped in had a supercapacitor soldered to the board in place of the dual battery arrangement (CR2477N in there permanently, and a holder for a CR2032 that you insert temporarily while you replace the main one). So it looks like a design change happened part way through the production run.  |  IP: Logged

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