Mitsubishi 5500 $2,499MSP - Page 81

mulox -- What are the lights on the top of the HC5500 telling you? See the trouble-shooting pages in the manual. From your description, it sure sounds like a failed cable or video input.

What video input are you using? It could be a defective (failed?) cable. If you are using the component inputs, all it takes is one of the three cables bad to kill the video (the "Y" cable is the most critical).

If you are using the HDMI input, you may also have pulled the input connector loose from the circuit board. It doesn't take much of a downward pull on the connector to break the solder joints. You have 2 HDMI inputs, try the other one and see if it works. If it does, then you have a failed input connector.

Thanks for the reply Claus. What worried me the most was that pressing the power button repeatedly would not turn it off. I finally had to just pull the power plug, which worried me about the bulb cracking since it could not get it's normal post-shutdown cooling.

Anyway, I am using HDMI only, and I let it sit overnight. Next day I turned it on and it played just fine. I have watched 4 other movies with no problems... very strange.

mulox -- Remember, the remote has 2 different power buttons. The one on the left edge turns the HC5500 "On" and the one to its right (the middle of the top 3 buttons) is used to turn the HC5500 "Off" (you have to push it twice). Nothing will happen if you try to use the remote's "On" button to try to turn it "Off".

The single power button on the top of the PJ needs to be pushed twice, also, to turn it Off. See pages 23 & 24 of the manual, to refresh your memory.

This is easy to forget, if you haven't been using the PJ for a while. It caught me off guard once (brain fade), after we were on a vacation trip for a month and a half.

PS -- Occasionally, my remote buttons don't seem to work. I have to make sure that the remote is pointed square to the screen. Otherwise, the IR signal doesn't hit the sensor on the front of the HC5500.

I'm nearing 5000 hours on my 5500 so it's time to replace the lamp. The question is, should I upgrade the projector instead? Thoughts?

Well a good 2 1/2 years out of this thing and I think it may be toast


I shouldn't have more than 2500 hours on this lamp(low) but now it won't even turn on at all.....


Gonna try a bulb replacement, if not Mitsu wants $60 just to diagnose it.

I guess it depends on if you have the lamp set to low or high. It gets 5,000+ hours when set to low setting and about 2,500+ at high setting. 2 1/2 yrs sounds pretty good as far as time goes

My bulb just went out too - approx 2500 hours and 3 years of use.

Replaced the lamp and it works again


Odd that there was no warning or anything. Watched a movie in the morning, turned it on at night and it was not turning on. Glad its working again. New lamp is super bright. Looks like new again.


Hopefully this new lamp will get another 3-4 years out of this projector.

mr stroke,
Where did you get the lamp from.

That's a decision that only you can make. I bought a spare lamp (from a fellow AVS member), with the idea of keeping mine for another 2-3 years (I have ~3300 low lamp hours on mine, since Nov. 2008). It's been an excellent PJ for me.

So far, only the more expensive Sony HW30 (LCoS) and Panasonic AE7000 (LCD) have tweaked my interest (both 3D capable). I was interested in the Mitsubishi HC7800 (DLP), but the reports of its inadequate lens shift has soured me on it.

I'm taking a "wait and see" attitude. After about 6 months of reading the AVS threads on the HC5500 made it a good choice for me. I want to do the same on the Sony and Panasonic models. The AE7000 is the best fit, but the "glowing" posts in that thread have me worried ("too good to be true" syndrome).

Well, I bought mine in Nov. 2008, so have a little over 3 years on it now, and have used mine in low lamp mode exclusively for about 1,500 hours. About 2 months ago my wife was complaining about the picture being very dark in darker movies with a lot of night shots and dark scenes (fine in day scenes) so I started using "normal mode" for about the last 100 hours or so (I have a Da-lite High Power 2.8 screen btw).

Well I don't know if switching to normal mode has accelerated the life of my lamp, but it is not throwing any light when powering it on now. Fortunately I did invest in a spare lamp 2 years ago, but with only 1,500 hours logged + 100 in normal mode, it seems VERY premature to be the lamp... so I am reading the troubleshooting guide in the user manual now, but if anyone has any tips, it would be greatly appreciated. Just don't want to swap the lamp out unless I am certain that is the cause...

EDIT: After 1 minute of powering on, the power light goes steady red, and status blinks green. The manual says:
CONDITION: The protection circuit is working or the lamp is in an abnormal condition.
SOLUTION: Wait until the STATUS indicator goes out, then press the POWER button.
If the above solution is not effective, replace the lamp.

UGH!! This sucks, because I had a power outage a few months ago and my backup UPS battery connected to projector just died and had to replace it. I didn't think anything about potential damage to the PJ since I have watched 50+ movies on it since that outage... so is my only option to replace the bulb now??? Is there a way to reset the protection circuit? I have read online that it could be a bad ballast lamp power unit, since the hours of usage are so low. Seems there is a way to reset the lamp operation time without replacing the lamp, but don't know how safe this is... ?

Have had my 5500 for almost 2 yrs now and still doing good. Crazy question. Thought I heard someone talking about software or firmware upgrades the other day at a store. Is there such a thing for the 5500? If so, how do you go about it? If not, chalk it up to a crazy question.