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Burning Plastic Smell with new Projector Lamp

post #1 of 21
12/9/11 at 5:39am
Thread Starter 
So I just changed out my projector lamp on my Pioneer FPJ1 which is a JVC RS2 clone.

The new bulb is substantially brighter and the projected image is back to what it was when I first got the projector.

However, within 10 mins of running the projector I began to notice a burning plastic smell. I finished the movie, but the smell did not dissipate or go away.

Any thoughts on this? The lamp was not a JVC lamp, but a BHL-5009-S equivalent I bought from:

http://www.projectorlampsource.ca/

It claims to be an OEM lamp, the same JVC buys and uses, but at a lesser cost, since it doesn't have JVC's stamp. The casing was practically identical in every way, and it was a Philips lamp in the casing. Which is what JVC's uses and most people strongly recommend for this projector.

Any thoughts? Is this normal? Should I be concerned?
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post #2 of 21
12/9/11 at 9:36am
New projectors often have an odour for the first few hours, but I have never experienced this with new lamps.
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post #3 of 21
12/9/11 at 9:44am
Thread Starter 
I am going to open it up tonight to take a look for any damage. As much work as that is, I feel better safe than sorry. This is really starting to concern me.

I have read that some new bulb's do smell, but that smell dissipates over time. But the question is how much time? In some cases they say it could be dust, or oil which is burning off, etc ...

Whatever is causing it, its really bothering me, and I am hoping others chime in to let me know there is nothing to worry about.
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post #4 of 21
12/9/11 at 10:08am
I've had bulbs do that. My guess is that it is from heat burning or melting some of the insulation on the wires. I've come to expect some smell with a new bulb. My last bulb did not give off an odor and I thought that was unusual as well as welcome.
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post #5 of 21
12/9/11 at 10:22am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gary Hudson View Post

I've had bulbs do that. My guess is that it is from heat burning or melting some of the insulation on the wires. I've come to expect some smell with a new bulb. My last bulb did not give off an odor and I thought that was unusual as well as welcome.

Thanks for the feedback. Makes me feel a little better. How long did the smell last for?
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post #6 of 21
12/9/11 at 12:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by tilallr1 View Post

Thanks for the feedback. Makes me feel a little better. How long did the smell last for?

It varied. I had one bulb that smelled for weeks. My theater is in the basement and the smell would gather at the top of the stairs.

Usually though a week or two and it's mostly gone.
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post #7 of 21
12/9/11 at 1:09pm
Thread Starter 
I contacted the seller too, and it seems that maybe its not normal. At least they don't get this sort of complaint ... which I find odd. So they are swapping the lamp. Luckily my old one still works, as it might be a week or so till a new one can be shipped the store.

Bare with me here, this is my first projector, and first lamp change out. To me this is just odd fun.
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post #8 of 21
1/20/12 at 12:39am
What was the result of swapping the lamp? I am thinking about buying from the a replacement for my RS2.

Thanks,
N.
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post #9 of 21
1/21/12 at 5:39am
This has been discussed many many times. Buying other than the original lamp in the err original plastic house may cause problems exactly like you are having.

Oh no sir. The salesman at Cheap Knock Off Projector Lamps Online might say. Our cheap knock off housings are the same as the original we just have our Chinese friend make em a lot cheaper but using the same high quality and high spec materials. We know that plastic housing gets very hot and we have them make them right. Yea Siree. That plastic gets hot. And don't worry about them bad smelling fumes. They won't coat anything they shouldn't coat in your projector such as the bulb diffusion plate and they are not injurious to your health and besides you are the only one who has ever complained about one of our genuine knock off replacement bulbs and housing. Must be a mistake they made on this one in China. We will send you a new one. They cost us next to nothing anyway.

That said many have no troubles with knock offs although they may suffer later if the bulb or its housing causing something inside the projector or explodes inside.
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post #10 of 21
1/22/12 at 12:26pm
OK, I hear you. Just a pity you guys wont ship to Germany.
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post #11 of 21
1/22/12 at 1:51pm
"genuine" knock off
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post #12 of 21
1/22/12 at 2:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by AV Science Sales 4 View Post

This has been discussed many many times. Buying other than the original lamp in the err original plastic house may cause problems exactly like you are having.

Oh no sir. The salesman at Cheap Knock Off Projector Lamps Online might say. Our cheap knock off housings are the same as the original we just have our Chinese friend make em a lot cheaper but using the same high quality and high spec materials. We know that plastic housing gets very hot and we have them make them right. Yea Siree. That plastic gets hot. And don't worry about them bad smelling fumes. They won't coat anything they shouldn't coat in your projector such as the bulb diffusion plate and they are not injurious to your health and besides you are the only one who has ever complained about one of our genuine knock off replacement bulbs and housing. Must be a mistake they made on this one in China. We will send you a new one. They cost us next to nothing anyway.

That said many have no troubles with knock offs although they may suffer later if the bulb or its housing causing something inside the projector or explodes inside.

I was on the verge of buying this same lamp. Should I just purchase straight from JVC instead? Not that I want to buy a new lamp at all....the projector came up w/ a message telling me it was time to be replaced and the projector has a light on it. Projector still works fine though. Should I just keep using it as is or go ahead and replace it? It has 1900 hours on it currently. Same projector... FJPJ1
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post #13 of 21
1/22/12 at 7:56pm
We cartainly can ship a genuine replacement lamp to anywhere. All JVC dealers can sell you a genuine JVC replacement lamp. You will find after your 1900 hours, going to a new lamp will result in a much brighter picture. Your eyes get use to a bulb dimming overtime and most don't realize until they replace it how dim it has become. Further, the longer a bulb runs the greater the possibility of a complete failure including the possibility of the bulb exploading inside the machine. On balance I would order up a genuine replacement lamp.
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post #14 of 21
1/23/12 at 2:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by AV Science Sales 4 View Post

We cartainly can ship a genuine replacement lamp to anywhere. All JVC dealers can sell you a genuine JVC replacement lamp. You will find after your 1900 hours, going to a new lamp will result in a much brighter picture. Your eyes get use to a bulb dimming overtime and most don't realize until they replace it how dim it has become. Further, the longer a bulb runs the greater the possibility of a complete failure including the possibility of the bulb exploading inside the machine. On balance I would order up a genuine replacement lamp.

Thanks for the info, sent you an email to get a price on it.
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post #15 of 21
3/6/12 at 11:28am
I just replaced my RS40 lamp with one sent to me directly from JVC.. I'm smelling some sort of odor with it that also smells like either plastic or metal -- hard to tell... So what do I do? This is the first time I've turned this lamp on and I'm not sure how long I should run it before shutting it off .... but at the same time i dont want the smell to kill me....

Edit/Update: The smell was mainly coming from the front exhaust, but if you are a few feet away from it you cant smell it... so I'm chalking it up to that "new" smell... When i watched a movie later in the night the smell was about 1/3rd as strong...
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post #16 of 21
3/7/12 at 5:01am
Hi Guys,

I had similar experiences with OEM JVC lamp swap outs beginning with my RS1. What I noticed was the labels on the old lamps were always discolored and brittle. So, I began removing the labels on the replacement lamps and haven't had a problem since. Also, the other benefit I observed was the prism wasn't building up the haze that others have reported. I still clean it, but it doesn't affect the lumen output nearly as much.

Just my experience, use the info as you wish.

Cheers,
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post #17 of 21
3/7/12 at 5:14am
Quote:
Originally Posted by AV Science Sales 4 View Post

This has been discussed many many times. Buying other than the original lamp in the err original plastic house may cause problems exactly like you are having.

Oh no sir. The salesman at Cheap Knock Off Projector Lamps Online might say. Our cheap knock off housings are the same as the original we just have our Chinese friend make em a lot cheaper but using the same high quality and high spec materials. We know that plastic housing gets very hot and we have them make them right. Yea Siree. That plastic gets hot. And don't worry about them bad smelling fumes. They won't coat anything they shouldn't coat in your projector such as the bulb diffusion plate and they are not injurious to your health and besides you are the only one who has ever complained about one of our genuine knock off replacement bulbs and housing. Must be a mistake they made on this one in China. We will send you a new one. They cost us next to nothing anyway.

That said many have no troubles with knock offs although they may suffer later if the bulb or its housing causing something inside the projector or explodes inside.

You and I have tried to get this point across on other threads particularly concerning JVC lamps. Why people want to take a risk with a multi-thousand dollar projector is surprising to me. The JVC bulbs are expensive but compared to some other projectors they are comparatively cheap. Generally JVC bulbs do not give off any smell. With clones, the quality of the plastic housings could be insufficient and melt into the projector. If the bulb blows and shatters, it could cause severe internal damage. The bulb may state its x watts, but in fact is x+y watts causing more current draw than the projector is intended to provide which could damage the electronics over time. And based on my findings with a colleague who put a clone bulb in a Sony projector some years ago, the colour temperature kept changing in a very weird way as it aged...and nothing like the way the original bulb behaved. He didn't care as he was going to junk the projector anyway....but the bottom line is...buy original. If you buy a JVC bulb and it damages the projector there is a good chance JVC will help you out in some way.
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post #18 of 21
3/7/12 at 5:37am
Yeah good points. I'll put non-brand ink in my $99 inkjet printer, but I wont put non-brand lamp in my $3K+ projectors.

I think there was more temptation this time because of the fact that the JVC lamps have been dying (reports of 500-800 hours). Now if you spend $400, you're risking that the second lamp will also die early and therefore essentially pay $800 to have your projector last 1000-1600 total hours.. which essentially makes a true 2000 hour lamp replacement cost $800-1200.

Fortunately JVC has been giving a free replacement lamp to people who've had premature failure -- though it still doesn't fix the problem for future lamps... So this can be why people are tempted to pay $200 (or whatever it costs for a cheapie)... but there are more risks involved than I'm willing to take.
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post #19 of 21
3/7/12 at 11:08am
I put one of these bulbs in my projector on Feb 10. So far no smell and at 118 hours getting 533 lumens with the projector running in normal mode. The way I see it is my projector (RS-1) is only worth around $1000 and if it gets wrecked because of this then it gives me a good argument against my wife to buy a new one.
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post #20 of 21
3/7/12 at 4:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by AV Science Sales 4 View Post

We cartainly can ship a genuine replacement lamp to anywhere. All JVC dealers can sell you a genuine JVC replacement lamp. You will find after your 1900 hours, going to a new lamp will result in a much brighter picture. Your eyes get use to a bulb dimming overtime and most don't realize until they replace it how dim it has become. Further, the longer a bulb runs the greater the possibility of a complete failure including the possibility of the bulb exploading inside the machine. On balance I would order up a genuine replacement lamp.

I bought a genuine Sony replacement lamp from for my Pearl from AV Science and it smelled for weeks. I think it is a very common issue with some projectors.
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post #21 of 21
3/14/12 at 1:58pm
Thread Starter 
So here is the final story ...

They make me ship it back, even though I could drop it off for them. Just wanted a bright new projector image for the holidays, but that never happened. They received it a day later, and said they were out of stock and would order me another. Which could take a few weeks.

After over nearly two months of waiting (and calling several times to inquire what was going on), I demanded a refund. Was told it would take a week or so ... checked a week later and nothing. Contacted them back and they had no idea what I was talking about ... ... but was told they would process it right away. Another week passes ... .... nothing. Call back, and demand to speak with someone in accounting ... as they now blame the issue with that team ... talk to someone in accounting and apparently they never got the request ...

At least the accounting person confirmed the return and processed it right then and there. Finally, a week later I see the funds in my account.

The story, unfortunately, doesn't end there ... they ship me the replacement bulb a few day later.

So I have to go to the trouble of shipping it back.

Then they charge my credit card again!!!

But finally refund it a week later.

The moral of the story is stay far and away from these guys. Not worth the hassle, and they do NOT sell original lamps from JVC or any other manufacturer. They may be OEM bulbs, but the housing is NOT OEM, so they are essentially selling knock-offs.

There websites entail:

http://www.projectorlampsource.ca/
http://www.projectorlampsource.com/
http://www.documentcameraexperts.com/
http://www.projectorlampexperts.com/
http://www.projectorlampexperts.co.uk/

All the same company, for peoples reference.

Luckily, I recently saw that JVC Canada had a ebay site for selling the lamps, and they were reasonably priced with free shipping. So I now have an new original JVC lamp in my projector and it looks great!!!

Best of all ... NO PLASTIC SMELL
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