Official Panasonic PT-AE3000U OWNERS Thread. - Page 158

Help or opinions anyone? Our 3000 is 3 years and 3 months old. Always been good. Replaced the lamp last year and blew out a couple of dust blobs with no event.
But just in the last month i've noticed this new thing. Bluish blotches all over but mostly neat top of image. Like watercolor. I first thought it was my screen. Just raised the screen up, put the pj on a white screen, (Facebook web page via ps3) and they are very noticeable. Watching dark type material, not really noticeable. But anything with white or very light color, there you go. Could this be The blue LCD panel going? Never seen this before.

Ignore the greenish tint of screen in pic. Crappy iPhone white balance and exposure. Image is white but bluish blotches clearly visible.

Any ideas? Thanks!!!!

It can be either dust accumulation on the LCD panel (unlikely) or overheating killing the LCD panel. (More likely, especially if you have multiple sessions each being more than 6 hours long and you don't you high-altitude fan mode)

I fear that's it. We had a few dust blobs before but they looked different. Also have been running the pj mode in normal rather than cinema a lot more lately.

running the PJ in Normal (vs Cinema) will not make a difference in terms of LCD "death" because they both run at the exact same temperature. Cinema is darker due to the red filter to compensate the bulb colour temperature but the filter is located after the LCD prism.

However, running the lamp in normal mode for more than 6 hours in too many occasions AND not running the projector in High Altitude mode, may result in what you're experiencing.

Thanks. I just checked and it IS in high altitude and Eco mode. Maybe it's just deteriorating

I usually clean the filter once a month and just checked it and it was pretty dusty. Oh well. If i can get a few more months out of it, might upgrade.

Hi all,

I'm hoping for some advice on the older Panasonic 1080p projectors....

I'm considering getting either a PT-AE2000U or PT-AE3000U. The factor that weighs largest in my decision is that I would like to minimize pixel structure/screen door effect (because I tend to sit very close to the screen and I find pixel structure more distracting than most people do). Reading the Projector Central reviews for these models, they say the Smooth Screen filter was dialed back a bit in the AE3000U, so it showed a bit of pixel structure on close inspection, while the AE2000U had essentially no pixel structure.

Has that been your experience? If there's really no difference, I'd rather have the PT-AE3000U for its better shadow detail.

Thanks for any advice on this.

Andy

You'd have to sit with your nose against the screen to see the pixel structure. I sit 8 feet away from a 10 foot wide 2.35:1 screen and there is no visible screen door.

We have a AE3000U. We sit 9.5 feet from a 112" screen and we don't see any pixel structure in the image. I can check tonight to see what point I begin to notice it, but if you are overly sensitive to it then that may not help you. I don't have a 2000 to compare it with.

Don't believe all the hype. Unless you are right up on the screen with a magnifying glass, you're going to be VERY pleased with the image.

Thanks to all of you for the replies. It sounds like the PT-AE3000U might be the right choice.

It occurs to me that a picture would be worth a thousand words. I don't suppose anyone would be willing to post a super-close-up picture of some part of the projected image from their PT-AE3000U?

Andy

^Lucky for you, I'm still subscribed to this thread.

As you probably know, the 3000 (as is quite common) generates each white pixel by overlapping 3 LCD panels (one red, one green, and one blue). My red LCD panel seems slightly shifted up and to the left, hence the tiny red corner to each of my white pixels in the following images. This is well within spec and not visible from a normal seated position; all I see are single pixel wide white lines.

These images are close up macros, taken from just inches away from my screen surface. Notice the Smoothscreen successfully makes the white pixels blend into each other, i.e. here is no "grid". This effectively gives the pj a perfect "fill factor", the problem which plagues all other brand LCD pjs on the market, often causing visible SDE if one sits too close.



Alternating white ("on"), then black ("off"), single pixel lines on top, and alternating double pixel lines below. Source is a bluray test disc with the SMPTE 133 test pattern, one of the best to use for critical focusing. [The black shadow in the lower right is from my cheap, point and shoot camera.]:



Although SDE due to poor fill factor has been eliminated, one still has to worry about sitting too close because you don't want to see individual pixels. If you did then diagonals would look like very jagged staircases and not smooth diagonal lines.

To learn more about that and to download calculators which will help [although they are not specific to Panasonic Smoothscreen technology] , I highly recommend the articles, charts, and test patterns, found here:
http://carltonbale.com/1080p-does-matter

Thank you! Those pictures are perfect. Smooth Screen is a real triumph of clever engineering.

Exactly right. Don't believe the BS put out by the self appointed experts on this forum who call Smooth screen " Panasonic Blur vision", and go on and on about " Nyquist high frequency roll off" . Having owned two Panasonic projectors with Smooth screen I can tell you that Smooth screen does NOT defocus the picture, and the Panasonics are just as sharp and as highly resolved as any other LCD projectors. It just produces a beautiful film like image, completely free of all SDE , and with none of the artificial digital harshness of lesser projectors. Which is exactly why Pannys are consistently the best selling projectors on the market. Smooth screen is the very reason that I stay with Panny's.

I have a green hue on black backgrounds all over my screen except for some of the edges. The green appears with and without an HDMI signal (the PJ can be on an empty s-video input for instance). It's not a very strong green, and not noticeable during regular viewing, but I'd like to know what's going on. Of note, I just had the PJ cleaned by a local company and he didn't see the green problem while checking it out (suggested a new HDMI cable which I got)... the green problem was there before I took it to him. Thanks for any responses!

I would suspect you have a burnt polarizer(s). They can occur from excess heat such as from not periodically cleaning the air filter, or if there is a sudden loss of power due to a blackout (or yanking the power cord from the wall) which causes the cooling fan to grind to a halt and allows the bulb to overheat the optical assembly. People who lend their machine out to friends who power it down with the toggle rocker switch, also are at risk of this.

They are expensive to replace, sorry.

Unrelated to the current discussion, sorry...

The middle-rear fan in my AE3000U had been getting noisy for the last 4-8 weeks, and eventually the unit would just shut down after about 20-30 seconds. The fix was to remove the PCB and blast the unit with 35 PSI compressed air. I was really surprised at how much fine dust had accumulated. A pleasant side-effect was that a few minor dust blobs also disappeared.

Hope this helps someone! I just installed a new lamp, and hope to get another 3-4 years out of the PT-AE3000U before I retire it.

Well, I spoke too soon. It's still shutting down 30 seconds after power-on (cold boot), but if I keep at it I can eventually get the PJ to boot. Can anyone tell me what the red "OK" text in the Service Menu means?:



Do I need to replace both lamp fans, or just the big one?

Are you cleaning your air filter periodically?

Search the thead for "service manual" and you may find links to answer your questions.

Not until recently (when my troubles started), but it is quite clean now.

Thank you!

I'm happy to report that after replacing all 4 fans with new ones, my AE3000U seems good as new. I had to completely disassemble it (remove the major assemblies), so while I was at it I carefully cleaned the LCD panels and colored filters with the lens cleaning cloth I use for my Nikon DSLR. I also blew out the lens assembly with one of these: http://www.giottos.com/Rocket-air.htm. I ordered the 4 fans from Pac Parts (http://www.pacparts.com/). It took about 3-4 weeks to get them, but it was obviously worth the wait! The whole process took me about 4 hours, definitely not for the faint of heart. I took some video, which I'll edit and post if someone needs it.

Now my problem is, I don't have a good reason to get a new projector. Maybe when the new bulb hits 2000 hours. :-)

EDIT: The fan replacement would have been much easier if I'd found this diagram first: http://www.pacparts.com/reference/330/PTAE3000U.pdf. Hope this helps someone else!

EDIT #2: Thanks to HMenke for his tutorial post, which gave me the courage to do this.
Edited by John Schlarb - 8/23/12 at 7:52pm

Well, it's due time to order a new bulb for my 3000u. Any recommendations on where to purchase? I've read to make sure it's OEM. Just looking for someone to point me in the right direction without having to read through 158 pages of this thread. Thanks.

Highly recommended seller (I bought mine from B&H in January):

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/472117-REG/Panasonic_ET_LAE1000_ETLAE1000_Lamp_Replacement_for.html

Thx for the referral John. $360 with shipping. I thought I remember someone recommending Provantage. Ever heard of them? http://www.provantage.com/panasonic-et-lae1000~7PANP07V.htm Would be $312 with shipping. How do I tell if it is genuine OEM bulb?

You can trust Provantage too. I'm surprised that they show "3000 hours" for lamp life - I assume that's using ECO mode.

I actually have just over 3000 on my bulb. Still working perfectly fine, just figure it's on it's last limb?

With 3000 hours, I'd retire it in case it fails catastrophically. I replaced mine at around 1700H because it was getting dim - and indeed, the picture was better with a new bulb.

Wow John, I'm impressed! Nice job on replacing all four fans...I have to say, that job intimidates me but now I just may dig in and try it!

The big thing I was wondering: does the "light engine" or "light path" come out as an assembly, so that nothing gets out of alignment? That's really my only concern...I just don't want to disturb internal adjustments for convergence, focus, etc.

There's a thermal sensor on the bottom that I would like to replace, as well as the other three fans that I did not get to last time...

Good job. I took a gander under the hood once and concluded it would be a daunting task, even though one of my fans has a new squeak noise [a older pj I no longer use in my theater, not a 3000] Out of curiosity, are the old fan blades caked with dust, like a computer fan often is after years of use?

Yes, there are 2 "major assemblies" that come out separately. I don't know their proper names, but one houses the lens and LCD panels, and the other is essentially the light path. The "light path assembly" has a fan on the bottom, so the only way to replace it is to remove it. Happily, everything stays firmly together when you remove these assemblies; you just have to be careful about touching the LCD panels and mirrors.

I do need to recalibrate for contrast and color, but convergence hasn't been affected at all.

Just ordered my bulb from Proadvantage. Thanks everyone.