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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: Anybody get the extended warranty from Barco?
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 02-01-2018 04:58 AM
It is a numbers game. With 3 screens, you are "on the bubble" on the value of the extended warranty. For 1 or 2 screens, extended warranty makes financial sense.
The big ticket item is the light engine. That will set you back $16K ro $27K, depending on model projectors you have. So think of the extended warranty as buying one of those on the 8 year plan rahter than trying to come up with it all at once. Another thing the warranty gets you is standard overnight freight included so you'll get your parts pretty quickly.
Here is another thing to consider. So you spent $5K on that ICP...do you relaize that the warranty was only 90-days? Barco has the worst parts warranty in the industry. But, if you have extended warranty, while you don't want failures because that means downtime, at least you don't add insult to injury.
Once one has enough screens, and 3 is about that threshold, it is cheaper to have their own spare parts or an entire projectorr. Think about it, if you have a 10 plex, that warranty would buy another projector each year, just about, definitely by every 2 years.. In a 3 plex, the payback is much longer but you still have that painful warranty (that goes up each year if you don't buy it all at once).For 2 or less, the money definitely works for the extended waarranty.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 02-01-2018 04:25 PM
That math does assume that all the screens in a 'plex have the same model of projector, or at least one with interchangeable parts. The alternative strategy of keeping a spare projector, or spare big ticket parts (ICP and light engine), only works in that case. For example, I service a 13-plex that has 4 x DP2K-15C, 4 x DP2K-32B, 2 x DP4K-32B, 2 x DP-1500 and 1 x DP-3000. You'd need to keep five light engines in stock to cover any of them going out.
An extended warranty is basically a limited and very specific insurance policy. It provides partial relief against a revenue-earning piece of machinery going out of action, and the certainty that if that happens, the economic damage will be limited to the revenue from lost shows over a known timeframe. The question is whether that certainty is worth the cost of the warranty. That question will have a different answer for every theater, weighing up all the relevant factors and circumstances.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 02-01-2018 07:16 PM
In answer to Scott's question, my best guess at an answer is that light engine failures are pretty rare, but not unheard of. In seven months as a service tech I've dealt with two, both of them on Barcos. The first was when the green formatter board in a DP2K-32B suddenly went TARFU - green artefacts all over the screen. Swapping the ICP with a known good one didn't fix it, and neither did pulling or reseating all the relevant connections. Our loaner light engine is currently in that projector, and the deceased one is now in Belgium being repaired.
The other was in a DP-2000. One of the coolant quick release couplings sprung a leak, all the coolant leaked out, and the green (again) DMD toasted before the temperature sensor registered an alarm and shut the lamp off. After repairing the cooling system and refilling it, the red and blue was still OK, but the green DMD was out. So that wasn't really a light engine failure per se, but the side-effect of the liquid cooling system failing.
That projector was totaled - not worth the cost of a new light engine, all the components that had been doused in coolant, plus the tech hours needed to fix it. It had already done 60,000 hours of runtime.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 02-03-2018 06:31 PM
The projector I was called to and discovered that a failed cooling system had FUBAR-ed the light engine, was, I am 99.99% sure, caused by an unscrupulous tech using cheap, no-name coolant rather than Barco coolant: I saw a bottle of O'Reilly's branded stuff, about half full, in the booth, and the traces of moisture remaining around the chassis were green, not blue. Furthermore, the O'Reilly's coolant was full strength concentrate, not diluted to working strength. If that had been put straight into the projector's liquid cooling circuit as is, it would have been too thick to circulate properly, I'd guess.
I wonder how many other pumps and light engines have been killed the same way.
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Barry Floyd
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1079
From: Lebanon, Tennessee, USA
Registered: Mar 2000
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posted 02-05-2018 03:53 PM
We have extended warranties on both of our Barco's and our GDC servers.
The first set of extended warranties on the Barcos weren't that bad, as it was just an additional two year warranty tacked on to the end of the two year factory warranty. This past year, we bought the bullet and bought an additional 3 year warranty on both machines. It was expensive, but one Saturday night in the summer with a dark screen would cost me as much as the warranty, so it made financial sense.
I had a "Switched Mode Power Supply" go out in one of my projectors one night about 11:15p.m. early in the season on a Friday night. It didn't go all the way out, but I could tell by listening to the fans inside the machine "something" wasn't right. I called the Barco tech support line and the technician walked my through troubleshooting and stayed on the phone with me until 5:15 a.m. the next morning. Because I had the extended warranties, he found a new switched mode power supply in a parts warehouse in Las Vegas and put it on an airplane headed to Nashville within 2-3 hours. I paid a little extra ($115.00) to get it here expedited, but I drove to the Nashville airport (30 minutes from my theatre) and picked up my part at the Delta freight terminal on Saturday morning and had my projector back up and running by 3 p.m. We never went off screen, and we didn't miss a show.
In that particular case, the extended warranty saved my butt.
Speaking of COOLANT... how hard is it to change out the coolant on a Barco DP2k-23B? I'm due for a change, and have two bottles of coolant in my parts cabinet. Is it something I can do or do I need to call somebody. I've been to the Barc o Level 1 certification classes in Rancho Cordova, but we didn't cover coolant changes.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 02-05-2018 06:20 PM
It's not at all difficult, but to do it properly, you do need:
- Two lengths of hose, long enough to reach from the projector to the ground, one with a male Series 2 quick release connector on one end, the other with a female one.
- A large (e.g. 100ml) syringe
Barco sell these as a kit, which is probably the only way you can get hold of the quick release couplings.
Start by emptying the coolant reservoir: remove the light engine covers, then remove the upright piece (with the level gauge stamped out of it) covering the reservoir and the two hoses attached to the bottom of it.
Holding a bucket by the side of the projector, tip the reservoir into it (with the pipes still attached), then undo the cap, and let the coolant pour into the bucket. You might find it easier to have an assistant hold the bucket while you empty the old coolant into it from the reservoir.
If there is any residue or gunk in the reservoir, you may need to remove it to clean it out. To do this you'll ideally want a spring-loaded hose clamp removal tool (though it can be done with a pair of pliers and some patience). Pulling the hoses off the barb couplings on the bottom of the reservoir takes both strength and care. If the reservoir is seriously gross and disgusting (which it shouldn't be, if it's only had Barco coolant in it and hasn't been left too long between changes), wash it in the top rack of a dishwasher.
Once the reservoir has been emptied, cleaned and reassembled, undo the quick release couplings from either end of the light engine, and attach your drain hoses. Place the end of one of them in the bucket, and then use the syringe in the other to push the coolant out. Now fill the syringe with new coolant, and pump it through until the light engine portion of the circuit has been refilled. Repeat these steps with the pump/radiator half of the circuit.
Now reassemble the cooling circuit and fill the reservoir with fresh coolant until about an inch below the top. Keep the bottle of fresh coolant handy, and then, using Barco Communicator, put the projector into refill mode. The level in the reservoir should immediately drop, rapidly. Add coolant until it settles around the max mark. You should see the liquid agitating gently through the hole in the top of the reservoir. Give it a minute or two for any air bubbles to work through the circuit and out of the top of the reservoir, then replace the reservoir cap. Look for leaks all the while.
Now strike the lamp, and have the temperatures window open in Commmunicator. The light engine temperatures should rise to the high 20s/low 30s of celsius, and hold there. If they go up and keep going up, shut the lamp off and investigate what could be going wrong. Otherwise, run the lamp for 10-20 minutes after the numbers stabilize, and if they stay stable, the job is done. Feel the pump for excessive heat and vibration, too.
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