I just purchased a Sanyo PLV-Z60 projector. It certainly is very quiet, but also seems to get quite hot around the vent area. I had an older Z2 until recently, and that ran hot too. When I purchased the Z2, the first bulb only lasted a few months at an average of 10-15 hours/week viewing (at the low economy bulb setting no less). I started reading stories of the projector fan not cooling well enough leading to premature bulb failure. I decided to install a small fan that I got at Radio Shack on the side of the unit at the vent area. The next bulb lasted for the remaining life of the projector (about 4 years) and still was going strong before replacing the projector! I realize that it might have been a coincidence, but the small external fan certainly does keep the unit much cooler.

I have been contemplating attaching the fan to the Z60 as well, but was wondering if there is any downside (aside from a slight amount of noise) for doing so. Has anyone else had problems with bulb life in Sanyo projectors?

Not sure what you define as hot but the bulb runs at 145w.
If you feel heat on the vents, then the fan appears to be doing it's job of exhausting heat & cooling the unit.

Not sure what you define as hot but the bulb runs at 145w.
If you feel heat on the vents, then the fan appears to be doing it's job of exhausting heat & cooling the unit.

Here's a quote from a review of the Z60 on projector.com:

"In the interests of not totally raining down hellfire on the Sanyo PLV-Z60, I will say that this LCD projector proved to be extremely quiet during operation. It’s rated at 22dB in Eco mode, and compared to most projectors I’ve tested, it was certainly amongst the quietest. But as if to sabotage a pro, the PLV-Z60 runs extremely hot. While I didn’t take an official temperature, suffice to say that after about 30 some odd minutes of use, I could have quite likely cooked bacon and eggs on the air vent. Jokes aside, if a projector runs too hot, it could potentially cause performance issues down the road. That’s clearly never a good thing, though kudos to Sanyo for admirably stepping up to the plate by backing their projector up with a stellar three-year parts and labor warranty, which affords you some much needed peace of mind."

Here's a quote from a review of the Z60 on projector.com:

"That’s clearly never a good thing, though kudos to Sanyo for admirably stepping up to the plate by backing their projector up with a stellar three-year parts and labor warranty, which affords you some much needed peace of mind."

Tell that to the people who bought a Z1 with a similar design flaw and Sanyo told them it was their own fault for not cleaning the filter(there was no evidence of this) and denied their warranty claim.

Tell that to the people who bought a Z1 with a similar design flaw and Sanyo told them it was their own fault for not cleaning the filter(there was no evidence of this) and denied their warranty claim.

I remember similar issues with the Z2, where the fan was shutting down too quickly after power down, and the resultant heat buildup caused reduced lamp life, which is why I use a small external fan which seems to keep the projector much cooler.

Now you have me concerned Gridlock, I have the Sanyo PLV-1080 (Best Buy) version of PLV-z700, and I notice after I shut down the projector the fan only runs for about 5 minutes and than shuts down. To me that doesn't seem long enough to cool the lamp down completely.

Fan running for 5 minutes after shut down should be long enough. In general I am more concern about the fan noise/heat trade off as quoted by Gridlock.

> the fan only runs for about 5 minutes

"Only"? That seems very long. My 170W TW700 runs for about 30 seconds.

Infocus discovered that by running the fan for minutes after shutdown, the lamp was cooled too quickly to room temp and actually caused the formation of microfractures in the bulb and resulted in premature failure. They recommended that owners just shut the power off completely rather than run the fan.

Many of today's PJs only run the fan long enough to remove the hottest air from the PJ in about 10 or 15 seconds and then the fan shuts off allowing the quartz bulb to cool naturally so it won't fracture.

Tell that to the people who bought a Z1 with a similar design flaw and Sanyo told them it was their own fault for not cleaning the filter(there was no evidence of this) and denied their warranty claim.Don't forget the Z2 & Z3 people that also got the same line from Sanyo. Plain and simple Sanyo doesn't stand behind their products.

my z3 was hot enough to cook an egg, and my polarizers and my lcd block eventually burned inside, even though my filters were always clean, though i never had any problem with sanyo honoring the 3 year warranty, i sent it in twice on the 3rd year, they replaced my blue polarizer and my lcd optic block or whatever it was so when i sold it, it looked like it was new, i had about 6k hrs on it. My new sony however is very cool but about 3 times the size :)

Don't forget the Z2 & Z3 people that also got the same line from Sanyo. Plain and simple Sanyo doesn't stand behind their products.

I VERIFY THAT. Had a heck of a time getting Sanyo to honor their warranty.

I probably couldn't have done it if my dealer, ProjectorPeople.com, hadn't come to bat for me. They were great. They got Sanyo to cut the repair price from over $600 down to $150. I'm their customer from now on!

Then again, it shouldn't have cost a dime. Sanyo has this thing where they accuse you of not doing "proper maintence" and deny warranty coverage. Of course, nowhere is it defined in the manual or in the warranty what constitutes "proper maintenence" in objective terms such as numer of hours between cleanings, etc. A not-so-slick version of Catch 22.

Screw you, Sanyo. NEVER AGAIN!

Fan running for 5 minutes after shut down should be long enough. In general I am more concern about the fan noise/heat trade off as quoted by Gridlock.

5 minutes does seem plenty long; I'm actually surprised it runs that long. My concern also has to do with how hot the projector gets while it's running, before shutting down; the vent feels very hot to me. I'm concerned that Sanyo wanted to quote a very low noise spec (which it is) at the expense of projector and lamp life.

Infocus discovered that by running the fan for minutes after shutdown, the lamp was cooled too quickly to room temp and actually caused the formation of microfractures in the bulb and resulted in premature failure. They recommended that owners just shut the power off completely rather than run the fan.

Many of today's PJs only run the fan long enough to remove the hottest air from the PJ in about 10 or 15 seconds and then the fan shuts off allowing the quartz bulb to cool naturally so it won't fracture.

That may be true, but after installing the fan in my older Z2, the bulb lasted for several years well past the time the projector lamp replace light came on. This might have been my chance based on the bulb, but the first bulb only lasted about 6 months before I installed the fan.

my z3 was hot enough to cook an egg, and my polarizers and my lcd block eventually burned inside, even though my filters were always clean, though i never had any problem with sanyo honoring the 3 year warranty, i sent it in twice on the 3rd year, they replaced my blue polarizer and my lcd optic block or whatever it was so when i sold it, it looked like it was new, i had about 6k hrs on it. My new sony however is very cool but about 3 times the size :)

This is exactly what I'm concerned about. I also don't want to spend $300 every 6 months replacing lamps!

Which is why I'll never again buy any products with their name on it. It was only 13 months old with 400 hours of use before the blue polarizer failed. I cleaned the filters once a month.

In 2006 I retired my Z1 with over 2,100 hours on the bulb and its bulb was still bright. I replaced it with a Z3 and that's still going strong too. When my Z3's warranty runs out in November '09 I'll replace it in January '10 with another Sanyo. My point is not everyone has problems with their Sanyo PJs.

In 2006 I retired my Z1 with over 2,100 hours on the bulb and its bulb was still bright. I replaced it with a Z3 and that's still going strong too. When my Z3's warranty runs out in November '09 I'll replace it in January '10 with another Sanyo. My point is not everyone has problems with their Sanyo PJs.

The real point is that Sanyo does not honour the warranty when some users do have problems.

In 2006 I retired my Z1 with over 2,100 hours on the bulb and its bulb was still bright. I replaced it with a Z3 and that's still going strong too. When my Z3's warranty runs out in November '09 I'll replace it in January '10 with another Sanyo. My point is not everyone has problems with their Sanyo PJs.Yes, but when you do have an issue under warranty you expect it to be honored and not have Sanyo claim you didn't clean the filter every X hours when you did. Sanyo has taken the stance on everything from bad LCD panels to units just not turning on anymore that it's the users fault and they did not clean the filter. They have even gone as far as replacing a couple forum members filters with dirty ones that had looked like a vacume cleaner bag and returning it to them and saying this was the condition of your filter.

Okay, so I just got the PLV-Z60 and am noticing the same thing.

I was thinking about putting a fan on the side additional to the built in fan and hooking it to a 12v adapter off some unused device with a switch I can turn on and off when unused.

Anybody have any success with this? Can you share how you did it?

Thanks.

Okay, so I just got the PLV-Z60 and am noticing the same thing.

I was thinking about putting a fan on the side additional to the built in fan and hooking it to a 12v adapter off some unused device with a switch I can turn on and off when unused.

Anybody have any success with this? Can you share how you did it?

Thanks.

A fan may not help as the design of the case seems to trap excess heat inside the PJ and cooks the optical block. If there is a high altitude mode for the fan to run it faster, that might work. Otherwise, I'd sell it while it still works fine and move on to another brand.

I just upgraded my @2500-3k hour z2 purchased in 2003 first month of release. Original bulb, original filter, still looks great. Plenty of people did have the issues with warranty service from sanyo. Seems like the overall issue is how a given manufacturer balances fan speed vs risk of overheating. Smaller case, better filter to avoid blobs and quiter fan is more attractive to buyer; bigger case and bigger fans increase noise and are, well, bigger so less attractive to buyer. Reality from our end as consumers is that the failure rates are probably closely guarded secrets by the manufacturers and all we have is ancecdotal evidence, which is notorously unreliable. The folks with problems will be heard here, those whose projectors are fine are watching movies, not posting here.
Regarding external fan, be sure it is blowing in the correct direction or you could make matters worse...if your external fan is blowing in the exhaust port, you will prevent the projector's cooling system from working as designed (this has been noted with some external xbox fans and laptop cooling mats). I'd rather trust that the engineers who design these systems for a living have done their job correctly, as they know far more about this than i do.

I had the Sanyo Z2,Z4 and now the Z2000, never had one problem with any of them.

I have purchased two Sanyo PLV-Z3 projectors in a row (I bought a second cheaply as a backup). Despite regular maintenance I've had problems with both. The first projector had it's blue polarizer fail after a year, replaced under warranty. The polarizer failed a second time on year two, again replaced under warranty.

The newer projector is in year two, and it is also exhibiting signs that, you guessed it, the polarizer is failing. Granted my projector is my primary display and gets about 1000 hours use per year, but that kind of failure rate is disturbing. Luckily I've never had a problem getting repairs under warranty, although the turnaround time is hit or miss.

My understanding is that the polarizer problems are somewhat tied to heat issues.