GWIII buzz - Page 3  

Didn't the Sony HS10 PJ have a problem with the lamp as well? I would have thought Sony could have solved the problem.

It seems to me that the lamp and its circuitry is not robustly designed, if one double hit on the power button during the first few days of operation could cause lamp failure.

I'll be sure to be careful with my power button on the GWIII as I have been to date.

irgaac - thanks for the technical information, would you or anyone know the expected life of the GWIII bulb (50", 100 watt)? I have yet to receive a definitive answer on this.

Thanks for the compliment :)

Can you describe what you mean when you say the lamp disintegrated in the housing? These lamps have very high pressure gasses in the and I am curious if the lamp envelope failed (which should have made a very interesting noise) or if you just didn't see normal lamp guts inside the bulb and assumed they had disintegrated.


You have pretty much hit the nail on the head. With the recent reports of reseating the lamp being a possible cure I am curious to know what the "failed" lamps look like. A poor mechanical connection would exhibit the same symptoms as a faulty lamp or ignitor assembly.

If some of you who have a spare (old) lamp would be kind enough to look at them and post back answers to the following questions we may be able to diagnos this issue a little further.

Is the glass part of the lamp anything but absolutely clear?

Are the contacts on the bottom of the lamp where it fits into the housing showing any discoloration or pitting?

I started off my stint in the business working for LTM. Check the lamp socket connectors and see if there is any oxidation or discoloration.

The lamp and it's housing including the ignitor and ballast circuit are designed as a package by Philips from what little documentation I have been able to find. Philips states on their UHP site that the 100w lamp has a life of ~15000 hours. Design and operating constraints will lower that value. This is the same lamp that is used in the Smasung DLP units from what I can tell so the 8000 hour number they quote should be accurate for the Sony sets as well as long as Sony engineered enough ventilation in the set.

I doubt these problems are being caused by a few mistrikes or short run times, although both of those conditions will shorten the total hour life of the lamp. More than likely the bulbs are not seated correctly because of shocks during shipping and after a couple of thermal expansion cycles they just lose good contact. It could be something as simple as oxidation on the contacts of the bulb or the socket and the settling of the blub after a few thermal cycles may move the oxidation into the contact area. Removing and reseating the bulb in most cases would remove oxidation from either of the contact points. The worst case scenario is that the high voltage needed to start these lamps may find another path to ground when the lamp has poor contact which woiuld make this a recurring problem as the new lamps become harder to strike and would require replacement of the lamp socket assembly.

Wow that was long, sorry didn't mean to ramble for so long. :D

HTH

irgaac -

When I last worked with these lamps, back in 1971, they would generate a VERY strong electromagnetic field when striking up. Strong enough to blow analog-to-digital converters within about 100 yards. Do the present versions still generate these fields?

Not anymore, back when I was working with them, late 80's to mid 90's, they were just starting to move to solid state ballasts. From what I hear they have SS ballasts for everything now, even the big guns 12k's and 18k's. No more transformers that weigh more than a small import truck and no more exploding caps the size of a coke can. It's all square wave now also which reduces flicker a ton.

OK

Thanks HT I've got my librar card ready.
Just turned it off for the thirty minute cooldown wait - fan's just humming away

I'll report back when I reseat the bulb( what you all will probably already know - I'll try to sound original, though)

Thanks again

Good technical rambling is never too long. Thanks alot for the information and the lamp lessons. I wonder if any such lamp will actually reach 15K hours, but at least 8K hours is longer than typical PJ lamp times (2-3K hours).

No the parts of the lamp are in pieces. The filament Portion of the lamp is actually seperated from its base and just floats from a support wire. As far as the noise my wife was unlucky enough to have experienced it. she said it was a sizzling noise and then the Picture went out. The Brightness of the set had been drastically reduced the previous 3 days before this happened and I was in the process of ordering a replacement GWIII due to the dim picture. (still no stock from my dealer but may have it this friday)
The parts are still in the glass housing.

I'll try to attach some pics of the blown lamp.
sorry only one fits

Mine doesn't work either, but the lamp looks brand new. The lamp contacts look excellent, but I'll get a flashlight later and check the ones in the TV.

I just finished reseating the bulb housing.

I have replaced similar parts in front office projectors, etc. - so that's my frame of reference. It seemed like the bulb housing was not in the opening very snugly - a little more horizontal wiggle room than I would have suspected. If it were secured half as tightly as the damn front cowl - which I didn't break, but sure is flimsy, maybe it wouldn's have this problem. I know there are hex screws, but that doesn't keep the housing tight. I was thinking more like a Popsicle stick wedged in the side kind of tight. No I didn't.

So then everything turned on and off fine - five times, still OK.

Still love the picture - even after the DVE experience - I'll describe that some other time - suffice it to say that green filter is awful, haven't braved the SM yet.

Anyway thanks again for all the great information here.

DanS

PS - HT - I'm still gonna use that library card. . . .

Ok, after looking closely at the contacts on the lamp and in the TV, everything looks brand new. However I noticed when it tries to spark the lamp it doesn't buzz any more. It just kind of clicks and sizzles. Just for the heck of it I removed the lamp and tried it (with the cover back on to activate the little switch) and it did indeed buzz again. Looking closer at the actual bulb part of the lamp under stronger light, everything is intact however the bulb "tube" has a milky appearance to it. Don't know if a brand new one looks like that or not Anyway reseating again and again to scrub the contacts still has no effect. Man, I hope it's the lamp.

That housing must be sealed on the front if all she heard was sizzling, that lamp exploded and had to have made a nice POP. Judging by the gray lump of quartz at the bottom and the symptom of greatly reduced output before failure it looks like the lamp was contaminated, probably a finger print on it or something similar, before it was assembled into the lamp housing.

TV21CHIEF: That lamp is gone, sorry :( The quartz envelope should be absolutely clear. I wouldn't try and strike it anymore until they come to replace it, you might get away with just a lamp at this point but you don't want to ruin the ballast also by continuing to try and strike that lamp. The only way to get a bulb like that going again is to increase the spark gap which would raise the initial strike voltage. Something tells me the spark gaps on these lamps is non adjustable. Failed strikes ,short (less than the time it takes for the bulb to reach convection temperature) run times or low maintenance current can cause the clouding on the envelope.

After I looked at the envelope really good and saw the clouding, I pretty much concluded the lamp is shot. However, I have not abused the TV since I bought it. It comes on and stays on for 3-4 hours which won't hurt it. My hope is it's ONLY the bulb and not a ballast problem or worse yet a design flaw. I will be letting the dealer know all this and if the next lamp fails prematurely, then I'll have to ask for another TV. I don't want to give this one up and get a new one with another problem.

The lamp may very well have been in that shape when you received the set, or if the lamp was not properly seated the resistance of the connection could very well have caused the voltage to drop through the bulb. If I were to get one of these sets the first thing I would do is reseat the lamp and make sure it wasn't cloudy. That will probbaly take care of most of these problems.

Good point irgacc...with all this lamp re-seating I hope people realize to be careful not to contaminate the lamp with skin oils by touching the glass with their fingers. My $.02.

OK, some more data points. I'm not an expert in these lamping systems (just a lowly manager of a multisite computer network..), so take what I say with grains of salt.

Brief rehash: Got my 42" GWIII a week ago Sunday. Worked great for three days, but come Friday morning it would not power on with all the buzzing others and I have reported. The set was on more than 12 hours on Thanksgiving (Thursday). Reseated the lamp assembly and it worked again, right away, and worked fine until...

..this evening. My wife got home before I did and tried cycling the set 2-3 times. I got home and tried twice before pulling the bezel and reseating the lamp, this time to NO effect. I was doubly PO'd because I hadn't gotten a call from the FastTrak (associated with Ultimate Electronics) tech. After calling the store and complaining, they got me hooked up with him and he said "it's the lamp" after hearing my story and said he'd call back tomorrow with lamp availability.

I called the store back and talked to the manager, saying I thought I'd be better off ordering another set as I wasn't convinced there was anything wrong with the lamp. We talked for a while and I asked if they'd loan me THEIR 42" GWIII lamp for an hour or so to see if a different lamp would work. I told him I'd bring mine in for testing as well. They went for it, so...

...got into the store and we pulled the cooled-down bulb out of their 42" GWIII, which had the exact problem as mine until someone reseated their bulb (after my suggestion on Friday!). We put my bulb in and nada -- same green blinks, and then a LAMP light lit. We put THIER bulb back in AND SAME EXACT PROBLEM!! I asked if they had a 50" on the floor, they said they did, and I said "let's try that one." Their 50" had no problems up to this point, so we shut 'er down and cooled 'er off.

When we put my bulb in their 50" GWIII *voila* it worked pefectly. Cycled it a couple of times in a 5-6 minute period with no problems. Put their 50" bulb back in it and it worked just as expected. At this point both myself, the sales manager and another sales guy who had done their initial bulb swap all agreed that their 42" and mine had problems beyond the lamp, in the PSU or other electrical supply.

I exchanged my set, but I'm looking at 2+ weeks before getting a new one. I'm also going to go through the already scheduled tech visit on Wednesday to see if there's something fixable/testable on the PSU of this set. I'd rather get fixable electronics replaced instead of rolling the dice on different LCD panels or other optical problems.

But now here's where it gets weird -- once I got home, I put my lamp assembly back in my set and hit the power button for laughs -- LO AND BEHOLD IT COMES ON!!!

At this point, I don't know *WHAT* to think. Lamp power system problem? Lamp problem? Connector problems for lamp power? I'm kind of leaning toward the latter at this point.

My set was on for a long time yesterday (Sunday), while not as long as Thursday, it was continuously on from 2:30 PM until 9:30 PM. I'm suspecting that there is a "thermal seating issue" with the lamp power prongs. Long durations of on time are heating the power prongs and the expansion and contraction associated with cooling are preventing good connections. Reseating ultimately(?) gets the connection to the point where the bulb makes a connection suitable for lamping to work properly. This will be a mother for Sony to fix if it is the problem, as they will have to essentially redesign a bunch of parts. A defective PSU would be a much easier fix.

It'd be interesting to know what PSU and lamping parts are the same between the GWIII 50 and 42. Are they all the same?

Anyway, at this point I've got a new set on order and a tech coming out. I'm going to insist that he do a thorough examination of the set's power supply and lamping system, as well as calling whoever he can call at Sony to see if they've collected enough data points to find out if there's a soluable problem.

If they can ID a PSU problem and fix it, I'm kind of inclined to accept the set, with two conditions: 3 year warranty extended to 5 years, and a replacement bulb, gratis, for the hassle factor. This will give me a new bulb if the existing one has been damaged (either by me hauling it around wrapped in tinfoil) or by a faulty power system, and longer coverage for other problems.

Could it be that there is some conductive (or insulating) path that develops between the high voltage firing circuit and ground? Dust from the fan? I used to carry a can of Freon (now banned) and a fiberglass brush. First thing to try was to brush all the connections and then spray with Freon to remove any hydrocarbon residues. (We're talking early 1970's maintenance on PDP-11 computer boards ...). Had about a 75% fix rate.

Today, I might try an ultrasonice cleaning tank for the lamp and circuit board solder flux remover for anything that can't be removed and tanked.

I'll have my 60XBR this week and hopefully this will be an experiment I DON'T have to run!

Hmmm, seems like a trip to the local B&M store is in order to see if I can talk them into showing a prospective purchaser how easy it is to change a lamp on one of these sets so I can get a good first hand look at this assembly. I have a couple of ideas about why and how this is happening but I don't want to throw any WAGs out there just yet.

What really concerns me though is it seems the Sammy DLPs have the same lamp system but we are not seeing anywhere near the same number reports from owners of those sets about this problem.

This would fall in line with the other posts about the gas inside the envelope becoming contaminated. Perhaps the 50" had slightly more "umph" to blow past the contamination and ignite it. This burned off enough of the contamination for it to work in the original set. If there is a PSU failure, then NO lamp would light in that set. If say for instance, the PSU doesn't supply enough holding current and it allows the envelope to crud up, then the lamps will continue to fail. My set is the 50" so it's not just related to the 42" sets. The proof for me would be to get a brand new lamp and stick it in mine and see if it lights. If it does, then I will be waiting to see if the new lamp quits after a time.

This is what I'm worried about; either a PSU design problem or a connector design problem that results in long term high rates of bulb consumption or failure. I think it will be a tough problem to fix well, and not fixed well will result in a high rate of bulb failures that will be tough to explain to service people or warranty people as a design flaw, and that's if you can get them to get past the idea that the bulbs are a consumable user-replacable item.

FYI,

I looked at the bulb in my GWII. It has exactly 2200 hours on it. Mine is crystal clear. However, there is a slight amount of discoloration of the reflector around the point where the electrode penetrates the side.

I have tried not to turn it off and on in rapid succession since I have had it.

Where'd you find the hour counter?

It is in the service menu.

I haven't been in the service menu yet. Is it hard to find?

Not very. It is near the end of the categories in the projector section. The number appears with the word lamp on the left and the value on the right below the normal service menu items.

OK I just have a quick question. Is this "buzzing" sound something that's prevelant from the first time you turned on the set? Or was it something that happened after a few days? I've had my TV since Friday. Since then its turned on perfectly everytime with no buzzing sound whatsoever. It always turns on after 3 green blinks except last night when I shut it off accidently and turned it back on right away. The green light blinked about 6 times and then the TV turned on but still no buzzing sound. Does this mean I have a good set and won't have a problem? Or does this mean nothing and I can still get the buzzing sound at any time?

I can't say if I had the buzzing sound the first couple of days I had my set, since I wasn't paying that much attention and can't remember. Since my first failure to turn on I have had the buzzing sound at power up, even when the set works.

After sleeping on it, I've decided that the buzzing sound is bad, although this is just my own technical opinion, not some expert opinion. The buzzing being a function the set trying to start the lamp and facing resistance or other electrical problems.

I also think its a problem because it seems that the users who have never experienced startup problems also claim they never get any buzzing. I think this in itself is significant.

My tech should be in home tomorrow morning, which means I will get a better idea as to what the problem is. Idiotically the tech says they don't stock the lamp as a part, so I'll be damned if I know how he will test it to say it is/isn't the lamp or something in the power supply for the lamp.

Mine buzzed from day 1. It never bothered me because all the arc lights I deal with at work buzz when they power up.

The buzzing is not normal.... It is a poor contact between the lamp and socket assembly. I don't recall this being an issue in the past with the GWII. Or is it just an added feature with the new GWIII's?

What has me baffled is mine buzzed occasionally the first few weeks, didn't power up on 2 occasions, The last time it wouldn't power up I called for service, Hang up the phone and the TV has worked flawlessly ever since. It has been over a week now and the service guy is supposed to show up tomorrow.

Just talked to my dealer, my gut instinct is telling me to get a new set so that's what I'm doing. I'll take a chance on not getting bad pixels. BTW, I also don't go out of my way to look for them either.

I'm curious - inside the trim panel you have to take off to get to the lamp there appears to be a date written by hand with a marker. I think mine says 9-21-03. Do any of you see this on your panels?