PT-AX200 Flicker Poll

My flickering first began at about 220 hours, was very subtle, and seemed to clear up after a day or two. It resurfaced at about 300 hours and was far more dramatic, with fluctuations in brightness that were greater than what you would see if you switched from Living Room - Normal mode to Theater - Natural Mode. Usually the fluctuations would happen with less than a minute in between, though sometimes it would flicker so rapidly that it was like a silent movie effect.

This poll (although a good idea) is not going to work:

I can go ahead and report no problems now (30 hours), but then after I hit 200 hours if I get the ficker I cannot come back and vote. You are going to get skewed results towards 'no problems'.

So I suggest that people only vote after 250 hours in the bulb, a point at which most of the problems have surfaced.

Useless.

after reading txjoe story, i felt lucky that after all the problems, I missed this one.
Now, after four months, and 480h it started to flicker. It's clearly the lamp, but I'm out of warranty. Panasonic's support told me that I should replace the lamp.
I really don't understand why is this happening. I used the pj only on low mode, was careful not to stress the lamp, with on and offs.
I plan to take it down and on again, maybe it will recover.
In any case I don't plan to buy another lamp, I will try to make one, at the cost of putting the pj in a bigger box.
And that's it with Panasonic. I have a friend with a DLP Optoma, that has 2200h with orig lamp. He forgot it on over several nights, and still no problems.
The picture for my ax200 was OK in the first month, then I noticed banding at the green screen. It also has halo. I hate to say it, but I don't recommend Panasonic to anyone, too many problems...

That's the problem. Try running in normal mode for a long time to see if the flicker goes away. Eco-mode after 80 hours of normal mode seems to be what most are going with, if they want to run eco-mode.

It's not a Panasonic problem, it's a problem with LCD bulbs.

first of all sorry, this is a post from another thread but i got no replies and am in urgent need of help

so i just took mine back to service scene (australia's panasonic repairer) for the second time telling them to look at it again. (they couldn't find a problem first time) and guess what, they still cant find a problem after 2 weeks of testing.

is there an easy way to re-produce this problem?
i'm getting pretty pissed off now, has anyone had this problem of the 'repairers' not being able to find anything wrong with it? i spoke to them on the phone just then and they said if i can get a video of it happening thats good enough. but i don't know how easy thats going to be.
further more does anyone have detailed information of the fix and the actual problem of why it flickers? just to clarify the flickering i'm experiencing is a dimming or brightening of contrast every few second at random times or even a state of flickering at times.

Well, my pt-ax200u just started the flicker thing.

I ran it in eco mode for the first 588 hours with absolutely zero complaints. The thing exceeded my expectations across the board.

Then, I noticed a subtle pop in the brightness every few minutes, started poking around online and found this forum and thread.

DAMMIT!! Why can't a company ever bring a product that actually works to market?

Is the flicker strictly a bulb issue created by running in eco mode? Is this covered by warranty? Either way, will a new bulb fix the problem?

Anyone know if this works? Running normal for 80+ hours then switching to eco?

What j-bo said.

Yes.

Lamp flicker is not brand specific. When the surface of the electrodes that create the arc become uneven from burning away, the uneven surface creates flicker. Running the lamp at full power can help smooth that surface back out, allowing you to go back to economy mode. It could take a few hours to a few dozen hours. Run it on high power all day one day and see if it will smooth out.

415 hours and it just started, it's pretty bad. Changing eco/normal, turning off light harmoniser and auto iris do nothing.

This is a replacement (for an ax100) that I managed to get out of Panasonic after my ax100 had to go back 4 times (1x iris, 3x colouration toward the edges of the screen). I'm done with Panasonic projectors... Which is a shame because the ae2000 looks lovely

You'll need to stay in normal mode, it should work itself out in time.

Read a little and understand what flicker is too. It's the lamp and the light harmonizer/iris settings have anything to do with it.

Good Luck.

You kids are so cute. Us AE900 users had this EXACT issue 2 years ago. It's just the bulb. It usually only happens from running in ECO mode. Run in NORMAL for a few hours/days to get rid of it.

In my case, it eventually always had to be run in NORMAL mode. No huge deal. Yeah, maybe Panny should make the low power mode strong enough so sub-par bulbs don't flicker, but then the majority of people with good bulbs would be using more power than needed. They should at least put a big sticker on the manual telling people about the issue and how to fix it. (turn to Normal mode)

So... don't panic, your projector is fine
Oh and bulbs are dirt cheap on Ebay. My Ebay bulb has run for 1500 hours on low mode with nary a flicker.

i've run mine on normal after having that brightening/dimming thing that happened at my first 400 hr mark, sent it in, got a new bulb, and sure enough 400 hrs later same exact problem, normal mode didn't change a thing, should i keep having to send it in or a get a new bulb at every 400 hr mark?

1st blub, 1500 hrs = flicker
2nd blub 350 hrs = flicker

New bulb or new projector????

PS - WTF Panasonic!!!!!

Keep running it Normal mode - you need more hours on the lamp in order to smooth out the flicker.

I think "Not Yet" is stating that every single ax200 is going to flicker. That is not going to be the case but the majority of people who have flicker problems will come to the net looking for answers. So this in the end will not correctly reflect the people who have not had any issues and don't come to these boards for other useful information.

So this may be a little biased in the end. Even though it seems as the majority are flicker free.

I have the Ax100, but my projector started flickering in normal mode after a while, and this was after switching because it was flickering in eco-mode. I read another thread and discovered that the flickering could be eliminated by thoroughly cleaning the dust filter and making sure the rest of the projector was dust free. This has been a sure fire fix for me, no flickering after about 100 hours of use!

Yep! I've been hearing from other people that the flickering issue may be heat related and that the bulb, etc., aren't getting enough air flow. This would make sense if you're projector's flickering has been cured by cleaning out the dust filter...

That's probably why the flicker was abated by many users by switching to normal mode in which the fan speeds up to compensate for higher heat produced by the lamp in its brighter modes. Not sure why nobody made this link before. It seems obvious...

I know this fix of cleaning the Projector is still new, just wish there where more testimonials that it does in fact solve the Flicker problem. I am so close to ordering a 200 to replace my 5 year old (3950hr orig. bulb) Pta500 which is still going strong.
I am searching out all the other brands under $1000. but still wish to be loyal to Panny seeing how my 500 has served me well. From what I see the 200 has the best overall color and picture and seems to be rated the best by the pro reviewers. It's this flicker thing that has me a bit nervous. I have cleaned my 500 filter about every 1000hrs and opened it once to clean a dust blob at about 2000. Is there a better filter material that can be used in front of the factory filter?
Is running say 500hrs in high lamp then lowering it to low best? I have been very please with getting 4000hrs on the 500 (in low 100%) and would like to get close with a new PJ.
The only other issue I have with the 200 is the white case. It's going to stand out like a sore thumb on my black sealing. Has anyone deared to paint the case? Wish the would have offerd a black case also!

My AX200 started flicker about 2 weeks ago. First I wasn't sure if I saw something or not, but then it started more frequent, typically about 5-10 minute cycles.

There's about 1200 hours now. I'll vacuum the filter next, hopefully it helps. If not.... maybe I have to change the bulb...

Also switch it to Dynamic.

I vacuumed the filter (which was quite dusty), and then watched about 1.5-2h tv. Few times I thought that maybe it changed, maybe not. Might have just been change in the lighting of the movie.

For sure, it got better. It might be gone for good (for now), but I'm not giving definite answer until I watch more. So far looks good. Maybe it's now fixed, but even if it wasn't, the few changes I saw today, were so small they were barely noticeable. Before cleaning, the changes were so huge, they were annoying. I could live with this one, if it even was anything at all.

I thought I was the lucky one with no flicker issues. I have about 500 hours, use for not more than 3 hours a day when I use it. For last month I didn't use it much. I read about the problem AFTER I made the purchase. Some even said the problem is not there. Some adviced to keep in normal mode - that's what I did. No eco mode ever since I purchased.
Well for last few days I am seeing this problem. I thought it was my composite connection that was a problem as it was running on HDMI earlier. Could notice it quite well yesterday when it was running Million $$$ baby. Today I connected my laptop on "computer" and the issue is very much there. In fact it is really bad with the comp - may be with the more white background of web pages.
I have turned the auto iris off now. No benefit.
I spent $1300 on this and it is pretty much unusable now! It was almost a year back - I purchased it from US and it is setup in India. Now I have no idea what to do. I read on forums - seems even lamp replacement doesn't really help.
Is this really a lamp issue? Can we fit it some other company's lamp into the pj?

Need help!

I allways use normal mode.This is quite a well known fact that eco mode will cause this problem in most fp's.Still going strong here with 600 hours.

I developed the bulb flicker at approximately 360 hours always in eco mode. Switched to Normal mode for about 6 hours it went away and dropped back down to eco. Have about 380 hours at eco mode with no more sign of flicker (keeping fingers crossed). I also turned off the auto-harmonizer to manual.

I've had my projector for about 10 months. 550 hours on it. I was in normal mode to start, but started getting flicker that progressed to almost constant at about 250 hours. I switched over to eco mode and it was fine until recently. Last night, after about 2 hours of use, I noticed the flicker again, and it got worse as the movie went on.

I guess I'll switch back to Normal for a while and see if that smooths things out again. I guess there's no resolution from Panasonic, so it makes no sense to send it in for service.