Official Panasonic AE2000 thread - Page 130

Thank you all! Sorry to be slow in acknowledging your help--thought I was subscribed to get emails but wasn't. I went into the self-check screen as you suggested and a picture of the resulting data is attached. Looks like total hours is 3358, and reset is 2. Does that mean it's on its third lamp?

The seller insists it's just a calibration issue. Anyone care to weigh in on that opinion?

Thanks again,
Andy

By the way, the eBay listing made it clear that the 870 hour figure referred to the lamp. No figure was given for the total hours on the projector. The seller did, however, claim the projector was in "excellent working condition."

Andy

Andy, Im pretty sure this thread has mentioned your problem before. Heat is the enemy of all electronics. Bulb time seems to vary from one owner to another,but polorizers are effected by heat. I reset my lamp at 1997 hrs and have another 1100 on the original bulb! Why everybody is thinking? The picture looks good! I only have some small misconvergence on the left side that was there when it was new. My fan has been running on high from day one and never even noticed the increased sound for more than 3 mins. Rob

just got a used ae2000 off ebay... its my first projector... so to me its great!

but has 2015 total hours usage and still on its first bulb... is that heavy use?

the red lamp lights on... but starts up and runs ok without turning off

i don't have the cash to buy a new lamp just yet... but still want to use it

if the bulb blows does all the broken glass and mercury remain within the lamp housing?

what is the average life in total of these projectors?

and setting the fan to max power through the service menu help longevity?

thanks

I have ran mine like up to 3800 hours on one bulb. Never heard of a bulb blowing up. They just get dimmer and dimmer. I did have to reset the bulb hours to get it to be happy.

Congratulations on your purchase. Enjoy! Mine's still going strong after four years and only two replacement bulbs.

The risk of a bulb blowing supposedly goes up as it ages, but I've never seen stats about how many catastrophically fail versus just going out. I replaced my first bulb after the recommend time period, but kept my second one through two resets -- more than 4000 hours. I agree with other poster, it is much more likely to get too dim over time than to fully fail. At 2000 hours, it's definitely worth the tiny risk to keep it going and save money IMHO.


You can go into the service menu and reset the hours. That will keep the red light off and avoid a startup delay that happens at some number of hours (2500?). See the manual for how to do it, I don't have the manual with me.

ok thanks for the information

wow 4000+ on one bulb... how is the picture quality compared to new lamp?

i guess there pretty well made...

and seems little risk of the lamp bulb bursting!

is a brand new oem panasonic lamp much brighter than one with 2000+ hours on it?

thanks

I'm not recommending letting it run for 4000 hours, just that it was my experience. YMMV and all that. The reason I replaced it was that I was having a Super Bowl party so I didn't want it to go out in the middle of the game. Yes, a new bulb is visibly brighter. The brightness goes down quickly at first, then gets dimmer more slowly. So for the 4000 hr bulb, after the first 500 hours or so, it got dimmer so slowly that I didn't notice a big change -- till I replaced it! I guess a purist may have noticed variations across the screen in brightness or color, but I didn't. Anyway, the point is you can let the bulb go for a while, but it's a risk, and your tolerance for it getting dimmer is personal taste. Good luck.

Does anyone else run a Comcast PNG110 HD cable box with their 2000? I'm having a hard time getting it to acknowledge the projector's ability to display 1080p.

I believe Comcast Cable is 1080i only and not 1080p on their HD channels. When i had Comcast I verified this using my Yamaha RX-V3800, which could display input and output signals.

GL

First lamp = 2540 hours and still functional (in box as backup)
Second lamp = ran to failure @ 3060 hours (had to reset hours at 2287, lamp just went dark at failure)
Third lamp = ~2700 hours and will run to failure (reset hours at 2598)

When the third lamp fails in the next few months, I'll put the first lamp in and then have to make a decision. I'll eventually buy a new Panny, but may want to wait for the AE8000 in hopes of RF 3D glasses support. That may mean I buy another lamp for my AE2000, but it still throws a great picture after over 8000 hours.

Thats what I thought too until two days ago.
We just got a new DVR because our other one was acting up. I hooked it all up and our Sharp TV detected 1080p. I then brought it upstairs and hooked it up to the AE2000 and yes 1080p again! And it looked awesome! However my HD tuner (non DVR unit) still only does 1080i. I think I will take it in and see if there is a newer model.

After further research, it looks like the box it upconverting to 1080p because the broadcast is still 1080i or less. Interesting...
Edited by FoSheezy - 7/12/12 at 4:39pm

I've had my AE2000 for about 4.5 years, still on my first bulb with about 2700~ hours on it. Had to tell the projector to reset the hours at about 2500, otherwise it would shut down because it said the bulb had to be replaced.

I'm looking to buy a replacement bulb since the picture seems dim, so I'm looking for some recommendations on where to get an official bulb replacement at a decent price. I've found some places but want to make sure the sellers and lamps are legit.

Thanks.

The last lamp I bought from buy.com; just checked and they're still selling them, currently $317.34 + FREE SHIPPING. The package looked like the genuine part from Panasonic, and it's lasted quite a while so far. I recommend searching for the lamp model # ET-LAE1000 to find the best price at a place you can trust. Buy.com has been fine for other stuff too, though I never had to resolve a problem with them or make a return.

I've had my AE2000 for almost 5 years and I have about 900 hours on my second bulb. Recently the picture started slowly pulsating back and forth between brighter and dimmer. I went back in this thread and found others with what sounds like the same problem. The posts suggested changing the projector from Eco mode to Normal mode. Apparently the bulb eats away at electrodes or something in one mode causing the arc to jump in and out of the grooves it makes. The posts suggested simply changing from Eco to Normal mode to make the problem go away, as Normal mode would be at a different place in the bulb. So my question is how long did it take before switching to Normal mode made the problem go away? Was it immediate or did it take a while to fix it? After I switched to Normal, it is certainly less frequent but the bright/dim pulsing is still happening.

Thanks,
Guy

I haven't replaced my bulb yet, 2400 hrs. so far, but I am thinking of doing it soon. I was going to order from myprojectorlamps.com. The bulb is selling for $253 right now. I have not ordered from this site before. If anyone else has ordered from this site, let us know your results.

Dave

I have a AE2000 unit that has fried its Optical Block (according to Panasonic repair folks). At $2500 to replace this component in the projector I have opted not to do the repair. (Unless someone can tell me how to repair myself with a used Optical block???)

The upside is I have a brand new official ET LAE1000 Panasonic Bulb from Japan with the new filter with 0 hrs. on it (I bought thinking this was the issue). If anyone is interested PM me and make an offer (Seeing as most people here know what a 'real' bulb goes for, not the cheapo junk, make a reasonable offer, please:)).

I have the previous bulb with ~1800 hrs on it (still was working) and the projector so if anyone want to buy the projector for other parts or the old bulb, contact me via PM and make me an offer. I will also be putting this up in the classifieds.

I ended up buying a "compatible" lamp from Projector Lamp Center, via Amazon, for about $150. Installed it on Monday, picture looks great. At 2600+ hours on my first lamp, I had it on "Normal" picture setting just to have it be a decent brightness. I'm back to Cinema 1 and it's bright and beautiful. Especially great for the darker movies and TV shows where shadow detail and dark scenes can look great or horrible.

You are lucky. My "compatible" lamp was dimmer than my 3k hour bulb. Huge waste of money.

At first I couldn't really tell a difference. Then after an hour or two, the bulb seemed to get up to full power and became much brighter.