PT-AX100U flicker?

Switch from eco-mode to normal-mode and run it for awhile. This usually cures the problem.

It seem as though the bulb doesn't run hot enough in eco-mode. If you send it in for repair, they increase the eco-mode power so it runs hotter.

That depends on how long you run it in any one session. Sometimes it takes around 8 to 10 hours of operation in the "normal (lamp) mode" = high lamp brightness. The length of time depends on the individual lamp. The "flickering" is due to uneven wear of the arc "plate faces", and the high lamp mode wears these down differently. Try it and then switch back to the low (eco) lamp mode and see if the flickering is still there. If it is, switch back to the high lamp mode for another 4 to 8 hours, or so.

karlsch -- I sent you a PM, my email got returned.

I had the same problem, and did all you are doing, and after adding about 100 hours in normal mode as recommended, the problem still presisted. Panasonic organised repair, which did not fix the issue. Sent it back and they still wanted to have another crack at fixing it, but when they told me parts were unavailable for 16 weeks I cracked the s**ts. They still played hardball, and wanted me to wait, but had I waited this PJ wouldve been in the service centre longer than I had owned it, so threatened legal action and they gave me a new one. So far works fine, tho' I notice a little bit of flicker (in Normal and Eco) on my 360, which incidentally is the only thing that Im running component. Everything else is HDMI - no flicker on those sources.
My advice, get a replacement - having been privvy to emails between Panasonic Australia and the service centre, it appeared the whole optical path needed replacing.

Tell me again, why would I want to buy this PJ? Sorry, but the problems far outweigh the benefits, IMO!

Well I see other people have experienced the same issue. Reading this thread I'm having the exact same issue...almost.

What's different for me is that I've run the PT-AX100U in Normal bulb mode since the day I took it out of the box. Never used ECONOMY mode.

My projector started to do this flicker/brightness changes just this week. The projector is 8 months old and had 950 hours on the bulb when it started.

I took and reversed the advice given earlier in this thread which was to switch from ECON to NORM and I reversed it thinking/hoping it might matter. It's been 20+ hours and it's still changing brightness back and forth while in ECON mode now. This advice hasn't worked for me yet.

I submitted an email to Panasonic tonight...and I'll use the projector solid this weekend staying in ECON mode...but I'm not to hopeful this is going to just "correct" itself.

Anyone here that has had this issue on this projector get it resolved? If so did it take a service call or what did you do to fix this?

Regards,
Marc M

I have had my projector for about 6 months(?) and it has run about 350 hours in Normal mode (100% of the time)... I just started having this "flicker" issue 2 days ago.

I use the projector once or twice a week, typically for 2-3 hours at most in a home theater... I have turned off all of the "dynamic iris" type settings as well as internal tweaks (noise reduction, mpeg correction etc), still have the same problem.

Love the projector otherwise, i think its time to call Panasonic.

Panasonic was "aware" of it but only after looking it up in a database of problems... they said it was an iris/shutter problem and i had to send it in. That's all the info the guy had.

Mine was doing it for 2-3 days straight then i changed to Economy mode for a few hours and back, and it has not done it since... I'm sure it will return at some point.

I've heard it has to do with the grease used in the shutter or something...

Just talked to Panasonic myself after letting my flicker go on for a couple months...it was better after playing around switching between ECON and NORM modes...but it never truly stopped flickering.

This is a known problem in units manufactured before 4-5 months ago from today he said...it's addressed on any manufactured recently...however this problem requires factory service on the boards to have the defect fully eliminated. The guy I spoke with on the phone didn't know specifically what part was going to be replaced, but he did acknowledge they know exactly what this problem is and have a standard procedure in place to repair.

I am to get a call from "Service" tomorrow to arrange sending it in. Glad to see another person here got a good turnaround time. The rep said it will probably spend less time in the repair center then it will in shipping....so that's ecouraging.

Tonight, I just started to experience this problem. I've only had the projector for 3 months, so needless to say I'm not happy. Whether or not running it in normal mode for a while does the trick is irrelevant to me. It's not functioning properly. I should be able to run it in eco mode without experiencing this flicker.

I will be contacting Panasonic first thing in the morning, and they had better agree to fix this issue. I'm going to thank you in advance PBGixxer, as I will be using the information from your post in my discussion with the customer service rep. Poor quality control. I'd expect better for $1700.

Mine now flickers in normal and eco mode.

I have had the MB replaced and the iris fixed twice.

I bought a spare lamp from japan. It worked perfectly For a a few weeks.

But I put the bad one back in and will wait till it dies. I only notice it two or three times a night, usually when looking at my windows desktop.

My AX100 just past its 1 year birthday, No more support for me.

I will be buying a Projector with a real warranty next time.

Best of luck to you and your repair!
I finally sent mine in last week to HEARTLAND services which is whom Panasonic sent me to.

The received the projector and I got a call 2 days ago. They said they repaired the projector defect, but needed to replace the bulb to fix the flicker!

I said I sent it in for repair of the flicker, so what "defect" is it that you fixed. The lady said they replaced a sticking iris and updated firmware, but that the bulb I had was the reason for flicker. Sounds like doubletalk to me! They charged me 252.00 for a new bulb to eliminate the flicker since my bulb was "out of warranty" with 1200 hours on it. I explained that the issue started with 900 hours (less than half the bulb life). She replied with the bulb only has 500 hours for warranty.

So basically I said you mean to tell me my 2000 hour bulb is only good for 900 hours or so before it's going to need replacement. That's BS!

I am now calling into Panasonic. Left a message with a guy whom I will post his name and number. I don't have that info in front of me at the moment. He is supposed to be the rep for Panasonic repair and oversees Heartland services.

Long story short...I had to spend 252.00 dollars to fix a defective projector that's under warranty supposedly as they snaked out blaming the bulb which sounds like an out and out lie almost. Not very happy with Panasonic right now!

I just got off the phone with Panasonic and they did acknowledge that this is an ongoing issue. So I have to send in my 3 month old projector for service. I'm going to be so angry if they pull "it's the lamp" like they did with you PBGixxer, because while I haven't hit 500 hours yet I did just pass the 90 day mark about a week ago. I guess we'll see.

James Bishop, perhaps? That's who I spoke with.

The name and number I got for the individual that works directly for Panasonic and oversees repairs (specficially with Heartland Services) is as follows.

Rafael Pacheco
pachecor@us.panasonic.com
(201)392-4109

I've called 2x in the past 2 days, got voicemail both times, left 1 message, never received a call back yet. Not looking very responsive I must say. I'll give him until next week before I try moving up the ladder.

I finally got my projector back yesterday after issues sending and receiving it (from both UPS and the USPS). On the plus side, it was a quick turnaround from Heartland. On the negative side, the only thing they replaced was the lamp. Needless to say, I'm not very confident this will prove to be the longterm solution to this problem. I was hoping they wouldn't put a band-aid on this, and even included a letter with my projector saying as much in an attempt to possibly dissuade them from doing so, but apparently my plea fell on deaf ears.

The good news is A) they didn't charge me for the replacement lamp (I was under 500 hours of use, but had just passed the 90 day mark by about a week) and B) I've only had the projector going on 4 months, so there's plenty of time for it to fail again and still be covered under the warranty. I just wish they would've rectified this problem once and for all rather than (I'm assuming) going with the cheapest fix and hoping the next time it happens I'll have to foot the bill for the more extensive repair. [To be fair, I don't know if I should be blaming Panasonic or Heartland, as the I would figure the latter stands to benefit more from repeated repairs.]

Hey Eyeball...glad to hear you got it taken care of for free.
I have a question. Did you notice that on black scenes now that you have lighter corners on your picture?

In other words...my "new" bulb reminds me of an LCD Notebook screen where you can see the corner edges of the top right and bottom left are a lighter shade of black....and the majority of the screen is still pitch black on a dark scene. I know I didn't have this with the factory bulb. I imagine it's related to 1 of 2 things.

1-Different type of engineering in the bulb itself and this is a side effect of that type of bulb.

2-The human that put it in didn't get it perfectly aligned and some light is getting out at the corner where the bulb meets the lens.

NEwho...it's really so minor I don't even care enough to take the bulb out and put it back in. My picture looks great again.

Here is the kicker too.

Because Heartland told me they would send my "defective" bulb back, and they in fact didn't Rafael from Panasonic is sending me a brand new bulb free of charge.

That's what I call service!

I'm satisfied with Panasonic's attempt to make everything alright with my defective unit.

I haven't noticed that, and would keep an eye out to see if that were the case, if it weren't for the fact that my projector is even worse now.

I turned it on today, and it promptly shut itself off. So I figured maybe I accidentally turned it off. I turn it back on and after about 30 seconds the unit starts clicking really loudly and flickering like crazy (much worse than before). So I shut it off and get Panasonic on the phone.

They tell me I have to send it in again and I ask for a supervisor, because being that this is a 4 month old projector and the second thing that has gone wrong with it, I want a new unit. It's obviously defective, and I'm not going to have them "fix" it again and wait for the next thing to go wrong.

The supervisor tells me a field service representative (or some such person) will have to get in touch with me within 72 hours, and we'll go from there. I have no idea what the odds are that they'll actually replace the projector, but this is ridiculous. I told them what was wrong the first time, I wrote it down extensively when I sent it in to Heartland, and the only thing they fix is the lamp. That's what irritates me most about this. If they didn't go for the cheapest fix, maybe I wouldn't be having this problem now.

I told them what I'd really like is a refund so I can buy a different projector from a different company. Their quality control seems to be non-existent, if they're putting out units they know to be defective.

So frustrated right now, I can't even describe it. I was looking forward to watching my holiday movies on my big screen for the first time, but looks like that'll have to wait.

Well, my experience with Panasonic has not improved over the last week. I waited the 72 hours for the field service rep to call, which he did not. Then had to call Panasonic numerous times, and it became abundantly clear that none of their customer service reps have any idea what they are talking about. One told me I should have received a call from the field service rep by Friday, another said that my 72 hours had not yet passed (but could not tell me how long had passed, when I disputed her claim), and two more CSRs advised me that I was to take this up with Heartland.

I figured that was b.s., but decided I would contact Heartland anyway so that I had evidence to dispute their assertion and, sure enough, the helpful woman at Heartland confirmed that this does not fall under their jurisdiction. With her having become agitated by Panasonic dumping this on their doorstep, she gave me the phone number for the field service rep, information that Panasonic would not divulge.

I called and left a message with the FSR (is it standard operating procedure that none of these people answer their phones?) and to my surprise he actually returned the call. And, funny enough, he knew more details of my case than I had included in my message (perhaps because he had my file sitting on his desk and was supposed to call me within 72 hours of last Wednesday). He asked how many times I had sent it in for repair and what was replaced. He found it hard to believe that Heartland only replaced the lamp, and confirmed to me that the issue I was now experiencing was a problem with the iris. He then said that he had to email Heartland for a copy of the invoice, to see exactly what they replaced (as he claimed they sometimes did not print all of what was done on the packing slip [which, again, seemed like b.s. to me]).

When I had not heard from him by this afternoon I called Heartland myself to confirm the work that was done, which was only a lamp replacement. I then left another voicemail for the FSR and am awaiting to hear back from him.

I have also been in contact (via email, as he too does not answer his phone) with Mr. Pacheco, whose contact info PBG posted earlier. Though he has yet to get back to me after requesting my proof of purchase yesterday.

With all of this, how am I not to assume that I'm getting the runaround? I can tell you this, Panasonic will not be getting rid of me that easily. And I will not be settling for another repair because I haven't met their arbitrary number of repairs before being deemed worthy of a replacement. If I wanted a refurbished projector, I would have bought one and saved a few bucks. I paid for a new one, and that's what I expect to receive.

Wow.....

I'm bumming to hear Eyeball's nightmare continues....and another person with multiple issues too.

I'm a firm believer in Panasonic quality, even after my first ever (major issue) with a Panasonic product.

Kudo's to Panasonic and Rafael in service for making things right for me. They took a clear quality issue and resolved it in my case, and then picked up the slack from a 3rd party service provider.

So far I'm about 100 hours into the new bulb and no flicker issues.

I could be writing again in 600 hours with the "flicker" tune, but I hope not.

Eyeball....I hope you get a response from Rafael. He seemed overworked; and with the holidays response could be even slower, so give him a decent chance to return your call.

I sure hope he does.

He seems genuinely concerned to fix any problems not blanketed by a generic warranty policy.

I'm happy to report that I am, in fact, going to receive a replacement projector. And all it took was threatening to take them to small claims court, after the field service rep told me yesterday that they would fix but not replace it. His reasoning, at that time was that it was a second, separate issue. That, I believe, kind of makes my point for me. This is the second different problem I've had with it already. What's to make me think there won't be a third?

If this one ends up malfunctioning, perhaps I will then go with the Epson or another brand. I'm kind of limited in my options, though, at my throw distance. Hopefully this Panasonic performs to standards. I'm not asking for much here. Just for it to work.

I too have the flicker problem I covered up the light sensor to see if it was a software problem with harmonizer but it was not. I send mail to Panasonic but since this happened to so many people I'm sure they are going to tell me to screw off since it is out of warranty. I am feeling sorry that I Jumped in on the ground floor when this projector first came out. I dont think I'm going to keep it much longer.

And my ordeal continues. It has now been nearly a month since my replacement projector was promised to me. Having already returned my defective projector to Panasonic, I figured I should touch base with the Field Service Representative for an update on the status of the replacement. On the 18th of December I was told that it had been approved by HQ and was in financing, and that the FSR expected it to ship that week. I was told he was making further inquiries (a phrase I have since come to interpret as their way of pacifying complainants and blowing them off). When I was not updated on those further inquiries and had yet to receive my projector, I contacted him again after the holiday. First, I received an automated response saying he was out of the office until Jan. 2nd. Then, to my surprise, I actually received a response from him. Though, he basically fed me the same line about making further inquiries.

At that time, I decided to contact another Panasonic rep to see if maybe he could provide me with some actual details. He told me that the person he needed to check on that wouldn't be in until the following day, and that he would have some info for me at that time. So the following day comes and I do not receive an email from this person until the end of the work day (I'm assuming on purpose, so as to avoid the wrath of my response). And what he tells me does draw my wrath, as he informs me that my case is in accounting but that they're not in until the new year, and that my projector should ship by the end of this week. That is in direct contradiction to the FSR's assurance that he expected it to ship two weeks prior.

So, I rattle off a none-too-pleasant reply to both the rep who told me this and the now conspicuously non-responsive FSR. If I'm lucky, by the time I receive my replacement it will have been 5 weeks since it was promised to me. At this point, I have now been without a functioning projector for 60 of the 165 days since I made the purchase. The only good news is I kept the lamp from the defective projector and received a one-year extension on my warranty. Doesn't do me a whole lot of good until I actually receive the thing, though.

I was never told receiving a replacement would take so long. If they had known that to be the case they should have provided me with a loaner, as they do on lengthier repairs. From the very outset I have felt like I've been getting the runaround, and continue to do so. I shouldn't be punished because I demand the quality product I paid for. I am looking to send correspondence to the appropriate executives, though finding who that might be is proving to be as difficult as finding out when I should expect my projector.

And if these reps cannot provide me some more solid details, my next correspondence to them will be inquiring on who I should plan to see in small claims court.

Finally received my replacement projector on Wednesday. To my surprise, I actually received an upgrade to the PT-AX200U. The field service rep emailed me on Monday, telling me that the projector was being shipped next day air directly from the factory. He also informed me that this process normally takes 2 weeks, but that supposedly they were out of stock and the factory didn't re-open from the holiday until this week.

I'm not sure I buy that, or if they finally decided to quit screwing with me because I threatened to take them to small claims court. If what he told me is true, why couldn't he provide those answers earlier? Either way, I now have my upgraded projector, my replacement lamp, and will be receiving a certificate for a one year extension on my warranty. That's all well and good, but first and foremost I'd like this projector to function as it should. We shall see.