Epson 8100 - replaced bulb and now Pink / Blue bands

The blue and pink stripe are common with your base design. I had a 6100 it developed it by 1600 hours, and slowly got worse and worse. As I understand it maybe a diffusers or something else in the LCD optics getting burnt, it is not the bulb. There might be a way to fix it but it is probably not worth the money.

When you changed your 2400 hour bulb you got a big jump in brightness, perhaps it was there before but not bright enough to catch your attention.

Try and zoom you pj out a little bit more, overscan if you will, such that the affected areas are off the screen.

Good luck.

Sounds like a god diagnosis kmann', but when you say "common with your base design", the 8100 has as much or more in common with the 8350 as with the 6100, is this something folks are seeing with the 8350 as well? It's certainly been out long enough

The 8100 was not a giant leap over the 6100, nor is the 8350 for that matter, the base designs are related (yes they are tweaked a bit not a whole different beast). I am sure the 6100 and 8100 shared common parts. You don't really see any about the pink / blue issue for the 8350 I guess they changed out that part from the build, for sure Epson knows all about it and lost alot of money replacing pjs under warranty because of it for a few years.

I have seen reports of the pink and blue lines on the 6100 6500ub, 8100, 8500ub for sure. You see it on used projectors for sale a decent amount of the time. I am not an expert with the issue I just had a projector that had it and did a bit of research.

The bands are usually caused by the PLC moving slightly out of position. This movement can be minute, but it causes pink and blue, or yellow and blue bands depending on the type of projector.
I have a panasonic that had yellow and blue bands. The shop diagnosis was (of course) new LCD panels. I read up on this and found an obscure post about this. Opened the projector and with my thumb pushed the first (after the lamp) and the PLC glass element firmly back down with a sudden CLICK.

Perfect white screen again.

I believe this is exactly the same issue, as the PLC and it's lens sits just after the lamp and gets very hot. It polarizes the light before going through the light path.
The heating and cooling cycles make it move.

Please.... do not mess with this if you are not comfortable with opening and cleaning LCD projectors. But this SHOULD be the fix for the epsons as well since all LCD's
use the same basic elements.

The OTHER, but less likely possible case may be the lamp itself being slightly out of alignment in relation to the PLC and the input lens, causing the same problem.

Good luck with this. I know I can fix my own projectors, but I hope this helps out in some way with all the Epsons out of warranty out there.

Oh yeah.... white gloves are mandatory! DO NOT touch any elements with your bare fingers!

DO NOT DO THIS AND BLAME ME IF YOU MESS UP YOUR PROJECTOR!!! I have done this with 100% success, but I am a certified tech.

Edit: I found this page: https://sites.google.com/site/epsonpowerlite5500c/home

Same basic idea, it shows clearly the PLC and how it shifts, etc. And how to fix it.
Edited by Tinman - 2/18/13 at 8:49pm

The Lamp in the picture is cooked. It has dimpled and distorted. The top and bottom bands MAY have something to do with the integrator or condenser lenses that sits after the end of the lamp. You may be able to reach in and move it slightly or turn the unit over and shake it up and down and hope it falls into place. If not you will have to open the unit and put it in its proper place. The white gloves are used to prevent your body oils from getting on the arc chamber and to prevent Mercury from getting on your hands. You can touch the lamps outer reflector all day long with your hands but NEVER touch the center post or the actual lamp element itself. It looks like this is a sealed lamp but I can't be sure. I'm guessing that something in the light path is slightly out of alignment or the lamp is not quite seating properly in the projector. It might just be a case of reaching in with your finger and giggling the lens in the lamp chamber with the lamp out.

Good Luck

Bohanna

If you took off the top and moved the diffusior or the integrator lens around and that didn't help I'm thinking it may have to be serviced by a professional. I don;t think that it could be from the lamp being out of alignment unless it's WAY off the mark.

here is a video of the narrow beam that a uhp lamp projects to show you that after the narrow raw beam leaves the lamp it gets diffused and funneled around the projector. I guessing that the miss alignment is somewhere else.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87vGWMSTfEI


Good Luck

Bohanna

Can you post a few clear pictures of the inside of your projector? I can ID the lens from there specifically.

The problem should be at the rightmost lens, it's apparently where the auto iris is sitting. The faceted lens just to the left of the metal shield. There may also be another lens to the right of that just after the bulb. Those 2 lenses usually cause a misalignment of the light beam going through the optics. It looks like you have to unscrew the auto iris to get to them. Then press down firmly on each one to make sure they are fully seated in their slots.

It's hard to see, but both lenses may actually be on the left of the iris. They are multi faceted. just to the right of the curved lens.

I was going to suggest the same thing. Some people call it the fisheye lens. I'm guessing that the problem lies in this area ,,, one of the lenses has somehow loosened and is a bit out of place
MAKE sure IF YOU remove the other polorazing glass filters for cleaning you put them back in the same place and facing the same DIRECTION. If you do remove them do them for cleaning do it one at a time and put one back before you do the next Also pay attention to which side of the glass the polorizing filter goes on so you can put them back facing the same way.



Bohanna ,

Hi folks,

I own an Epson 8500 UB, and this issue has reared its ugly head after about 3 years of ownership. My original lamp failed at about 2,000 hrs, which in and of itself isn't horrendous even if it is only about half of advertised lamp life. However, in hindsight, this issue started when the earlier lamp must have started to fail, and was perhaps related to the projector heating up more than it should.

Just before the lamp went really dim, I noticed is that the fan started to be less effective. It started to make a clicking sound unless I removed the air filter -- which you can't do long term for obvious reasons. But that told me that the fan couldn't pull enough air through the air filter to properly cool the lamp and other internals.

I replaced the fan with one that has a higher CFM to add more cooling power. Also more noisy, but whatever. Trying to make a >$2,000 appliance last more than 3 years trumps a little extra fan noise.

When I replaced the fan, I took the opportunity to look for any pieces that were visibly un-seated, but I never went beyond the bottom circuit board -- not having the nerve to take the 3 LCD ribbon connectors off the lower circuit board. Behind that circuit board is where I would have found the optics assembly, according to the pictures above. Thanks for those!

Net-net, I have a new lamp that gives me good brightness, but unusable top and bottom parts of the screen. Watching 2.35/1 content is wonderful, because the top and bottom are hidden. But we use this device for everyday TV watching and gaming.

I contacted Epson to get a list of authorized service dealers in order to see how much it would cost to get a proper diagnosis. I'd happily spring a couple hundred bucks if I can get 5 more years out of this thing. Their response, paraphrased, looked like this: "here is the list of service centers in Canada, but this issue is known, is related to a defective optics assembly, and would cost more to repair than buying a new projector. We have a loyalty program if you would like to buy a new projector".

Thinking this is their planned (and hopefully fair) answer for this clear manufacturing issue, I enquired further about this loyalty program. It seems as though I got about $80 off MSRP on a ~$1200 projector. Underwhelming is an understatement. Insulting is more like it.

Here's a link to a statement by Art, the well-known projector reviewer, after he contacted Epson upon multiple reports from owners who had this issue occur during the warranty period: http://www.projectorreviews.com/blog/2010/03/08/epson-home-cinema-8500ub-projector-9500ub-projector-redline-update/

So I'm going to push this issue. I buy Epson in part because they have a reputation of standing behind their products. This is now unusable, and this is not acceptable after 3 years. I'm ok spending some money because this is out of warranty, but offering me $80 off a lower-end model is not even close to a fair response.

Thought I'd share my experience. If you're interested, I'm happy to report back here after I've spoken with Epson.

Quick update. I tried Epson twice, but no luck. My only recourse as a consumer is to not buy Epson again ...