Auxiliary cooling fan test.

I thought I would try an experiment with my projector. It's a Sharp XR10X 2000 lumen XGA machine. I have been reading a lot about bulb life as a function of cooling etc and thought I would do a test and see what I could discover. I have read reports where lowering the temp. 12 degrees can double the lamps life span etc so here is what I did.

I have a non contact infrared thermometer that measures surface temperatures and is repeatable to a few degrees. I took readings with the projector off at 4 places, (mine is ceiling mounted so when I say top it's the projectors bottom.) I measured the case top bottom and the air intake and exhaust. I took 5 sets of readings each one half hour apart, (the time it took to stabilize.)

All temps are in degrees F

First readings (power off) top 74, bot 74, in 77, ext 75

Second readings (eco mode projector fan low) top 99, bot 99, in 89, ext 155

Third readings (eco mode projector fan low) top 91, bot 96, in 91, ext 156

Forth readings (eco mode projector fan high) top 88, bot 93, in 84, ext 143

Fifth readings (eco mode projector fan high and the addition of the external fan)
Top 79, bot 74, in 73, ext 118

The external fan is located 4 inches from the projector case and roughly blowing in line with the air intake of the projector. It's a Dayton 110VAC equipment fan model number 4WT46, 115 CFM, 3100RPM, 20w, .24 amp, and 49db. This fan is more than likely twice as big as required but is what I had on hand for the test. At 49db I'm surprised it's not that loud. My theater most times runs in one of to modes. Ether sound cranked up pretty well or late night usage is with headphones. So in my case it wouldn't be a problem. In fact I quickly tuned out the new fan sound very much the way I did when I went to high setting.

Conclusion: if your projector has a high fan setting that will override in eco mode there is a 14 degree drop doing so with this projector. Adding the aux fan such as this will lower you another 25 degrees.
If you are at high altitude or high temp or have a problematic projector known to overheat something like this might work for you.

The setup shown below in the thumbnails was just a makeshift setup. I think I will refine the idea some and see if I can decrease the sound level some by mounting the fan away and ducting the air to the projector. Also I may control the fan thru a temp switch.

Filters? What are they?
One of the nice things about the XR10X is a sealed optical path.

The fan I used and showed in the opening post is bigger than needed IMO but was on hand and I thought I would give it a try by way of an experiment. AC or DC both would be a good way to go and both can be found in about the same CFM and db ratings. Just if you go AC you don't have to mess around with a wall transformer is all. If your projector has a 12VDC trigger output that would work great to run the fan but I would use the trigger to pick up a relay and let the relay control the fan.

I wouldn't recommend anyone trying to shoe horn a fan inside their case and I was trying to be careful with the placement I did not to obstruct the louvers on the side of the case. That's why I left it back 4 inches. Sure the placement I did was very inefficient but it did result in a 25 degree drop in the output air temp. some of the air is flowing across the case and cooling that and that should help with sinking heat from all the electronics inside the case not just the bulb. That's why I did temp measurements 4 places on the case.

Yesterday I bought a digital thermometer, the indoor outdoor type and the outside range goes to 158F. What I'm going to do is mount the outside thermocouple a few inches in front of the exhaust opening and mount the base unit on the wall. Now that I have a few benchmark readings I'll be able to keep my eye on the temp. The other nice plus is it will tell me room temp and humidity. Good to know in a basement theater. Once I get it hooked up I'll post some pictures.

I may play around with a couple more location changes with the fan also.

Tom

You read my mind. The only problem I have in doing such is measuring the temp. The readings I took were of the exhaust louvers taken with an inferred measurement.

At best the method I'm using just gives an indication of the temp inside the projector and the temp of the bulb. I'm assuming by lowering the temp of the air leaving that I am in fact cooling the bulb better. How much better is the question. By adding more volume of air just by dilution I'm sure I'm seeing some of what I reported.

My feeling is moving more air cant hurt and even if only 25% of what I measured is actual real heat reduction it cant hurt to do this.

Georgeorwell

That was my thoughts also when determining how far back to place the fan. I didn't want to cause something that would alter what the projector did normally. At first I was thinking just cool the outside of the case and blow some of the heated air away from the air intake. But then I found that it seemed to help a lot by blowing into the louvered vent on the side of the projector opposite the fans.

Tiggers

I'm assuming that fan you linked is just 12VDC I didn't see the voltage listed. Anyone using a 12V fan can just get one of those little wall transformers rated at 12V and enough current to run the fan and wire that to the AC. I always save them when I throw stuff out phones etc.

I haven't heard of that but then again there are a lot of things I haven't heard of. I think mine gives some kind of warning when the hours hit some mark. But you can also reset the hour counter in the menu. So I guess I don't really know.

Heat is a big killer of all kinds of electronics not just bulbs. Dust buildup is bad but because it holds the heat in. my XR10X has sealed optics but the rest of it isn't sealed so hopefully I'm helping it out all over with the fanning.

I cleaned up the project a little and added a digital thermometer.
Thumbnails below show the setup as it is today. The inside reading is the room temp and the outside reading is the projector hot air outlet. The probe is about 1 inch from the projectors case and right in the main air flow. I watched it tonight over about 5 hours and the temp stayed around 120F with the aux fan off it was running around 145-150F.

So my guess is I'm seeing a cooling improvement of at least 25-30 degrees internal.

I had a couple over to watch a movie over the weekend and had the projector and the new fan running when they came down to the room. I didn't say anything about the fan just thought I would wait to see if there were any comments. I had the surround sound set fairly high and asked them during a preview if it was to loud and they said turn it down a little the movie was a pretty quite movie with lots of dialog. And I didn't notice the fan noise within the first minute of the movie. Once my mind was occupied with the movie.

After the show I pointed out the new fan that hung directly over their heads for 2 hours and they both said if you wouldn't have mentioned the fan they wouldn't have heard it.

It has already become second nature to flip the fan switch on as I enter the room and its on a minute or so before starting the projector but runs 5 to 10 minutes after I shut the projector down just because that's about how long it takes me to get around to it.

Tiggers

I like your idea about the fan you found having a built in thermal switching and that could work out good. I would try just one fan to get started and measure the temp like I did to see what improvement you get. At 17db each I know you could use 2 and not ever hear them running. The cooking thermometer should do ok for testing I think.
Good luck on finding a projector and getting started I'm still totally blown away with my Sharp XR10X for 700 bucks projectors like this are making front projection affordable to just about anyone that wants to try it out. And at 2000 lumens it's defiantly a light cannon.

I haven't posted to this thread in quite some time and I did have my first lamp failure. The projector I have I have grown to love the PQ I have and the extreme brightness is key to my overall ambient light viewing abilities. But unfortunately this projector became one of many problematic projectors that suffered from premature lamp failures. I would like to have posted back I made it to some better than advertised lamp life but I didn't. I did exceed a lot of others with the same projector but there are so many factors that go into lamp life (some within our control and some based in blind luck) so I wont speculate on how much my aux fan helped or didn't. But I do feel safe in saying it didn't hurt. And my gut feeling is still that cooler electronics is happy electronics.

I have also added a few of the little 12v jobbies to my surround receiver and the big carver amp that drives my two 12 subs. And the results there didn't need a temp probe to see the results, that carver could have doubled as a cook top before the fans and now is always cool to the touch. I powered the fans off the plug in the back of the receiver that is switched on when it is powered up making those fans automatic on and off.

I redid my mount a while back but retained the fan and temp probe.

SgtHollywood

Looks good come back and post some photos when you get the ducting done also.

I just got two of the 12v smaller fans (much quieter) and I think I’m going to retire the 120VAC fan also.

I now have fans on the power amp (subs), the surround receiver, and the DVD burner all 12VDC very quiet and all running cool now.

Wow that's about the only thing I didn't try. I was standing on my head for a half hour pushing those buttons. The book I got with my lamp never mentioned power off. Thanks for the tip. And yes we were within 30 hours and pretty close to the same number of months. Like I said before I got a lot of enjoyment for the cost of the replacement lamp. Yes it should have went at least 30% longer at least.

I had a group over the other night and I started getting strange artifacts on the picture. First I thought the bulb was messing up again. It was strange they would last for exactly 3 minutes and then go away and then start again each time for 3 minutes. The mystery was solved when the wife came down the stairs with 5 bags of microwave popcorn.