The yellow warning light for the bulb on my Z4 just came on to tell me that I was over the 3 000 hour mark (the actual hours are only 2300, but 2/3rds of those were at the high setting). The manual says to change the bulb immediately when the yellow light comes on. How safe is it to use the bulb until it just fails totally? I have an HP screen so the picture is still very good. If the bulb does explode, can it cause damage to the insides and void my warranty with Sanyo (as they are known to void the warranty very easily)?

Bump

Never know with bulbs. Sometimes they die a slow death other times explode like a super nova! When they explode it usually dosn't damage anything but can be a mess to clean out. I think 2300 hours is darn good for a Sanyo bulb. I would get a new bulb and keep the old one as a spare.

Is the projector really difficult to clean out if the bulb does blow? I repair TV's for a living, so I am used to taking things apart.

The bulbs EXPLODE?? I would have expected them to just fizzle out or abrubtly refuse to start. In the film projection world, bulbs only explode if moved while hot, or caked in finger grease (if handled without gloves when installed). It's a bit scary to imagine a bulb randomly exploding inside such a small PJ. How regular an event is this?