G15U repair issue(s)

While I love the pic from my calibrated G15 and haven't seen anything yet that looks better, aside from contrast ratio, I am beginning to have serious doubts about JVC service.


My projector, almost 4 years old now has been in for warranty service every year I've had it! Now its out of warranty and exhibits the same problem it did in the past. It simply wont turn on. The last go-round was a fan relay dying which, I was told, would have cost me close to a grand if it was not in warranty. My G15 has a total of about 1500 hours on it.


I did find a temporary workaround this time but the whole thing is beginning to leave me with a bad taste in my mouth.


I have my projector mounted in a closet above my rack mounted equipment with a lift up door with a glass portal for the image to come through. The closet has a fan which dumps heated air in the basement from the top which switches on triggered by a temperature sensor within the uppermost hushbox. The inline switch is placed near where the G15 heated air exits and cools the entire system very well pulling from the bottom of the door when closed. The amps alone do not put out enough heat to trigger the temperature sensor.


The projector simply will not light when at any higher than room temperature! This has not been a big problem when I got it back from service last time since all I knew is it wouldn't light at times but it is a major problem now. Now I must open the hushbox completely for hours before attempting to run it in order to get it to light at all.


I tried to call the Aurora Il service center but as usual got a recording when I tried to get a technician to talk to. I did finally reach the field service representative who told me it was very likely to be the pulse transformer/igniter circuit which is sensitive to heat and they are now installing an improved unit. It was something that wears out according to the field engineer I spoke to, Mr. Matt Barrett. Since I was out of warranty however I was SOL. When I asked how much the labor charges might be he said they were between $100-150 per hour and the $20 part could be installed within 1.5 hours. All this means I will be without my unit for 3 weeks and end up with a MINIMUM including shipping of 2-$300. To my way of thinking this is a design flaw not a item like tires on a car for gods sake!


If I can get a schematic and the part from JVC I might have someone locally replace it to make things simpler but to be told it's a part that wears out and they now have a replacement part thats more reliable sounds like Ford telling me "sorry! the axles weren't the greatest to begin with but since you are out of warranty you have to pay to have the new STEEL axles installed in your car vs the plastic ones that were original equipment".


I also had a little NEC LT150 which was dropped numerous times and shuffled all over the globe with no problems.


Anyone else here have this issue?


Maybe someone at JVC can help? I can't seem to get through to anyone on the phone that sees this as anything more than a wear item. A bulb I can understand. The rest doesn't seem to make sense to me.


Larry