Argh, in the middle of a movie and my Samsung DLP’s bulb goes out. I’ll see if it’ll fire up again once it’s cooled down, but can’t I just drive somewhere and buy one locally?
This place has what I need for $140, which seems like a good deal if I want to wait for mail order. But I’d much rather just go get one somewhere. I don’t see them on Best Buy’s site. Is this the sort of thing a fella can pick up at a Fry’s Electronics.
Man, two dead Xbox 360s in as many weeks and now a dead TV. It’s enough to drive a guy to PC gaming!
I’m a DLP guy. This happened to me a while ago. I don’t think they are stocked in any retail stores, they are way too much of a specialty item. Just use one of the links in this thread and do the super-fast shipping.
This thread has reminded me that my current bulb is probably near the end of its life by now and now I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop whenever I watch TV. Not a pleasant feeling. It’s probably a smart move to order a replacement bulb and stick it in the cupboard before your current one burns out, so it’s ready to go when it inevitably happens.
After I bought my Sony SXRD set, the first thing I did was buy two replacement lamps via mail-order. I’d heard too many horror stories of lamps failing and then having to wait nearly a week for a replacement. No TV for a week? Not on my watch, pal.
I always have a replacement bulb on hand. Gateway wanted $400 for a new one, I found them with out the specialized housing units on ebay for $70 and I just swap the new bulbs out with the old. Works great, and that’s a helluva lot of cash. Always nice to put in a new bulb too, it’s a like a new set, you don’t realize how much the old one has degraded by then.
Once you get the lamp situation figured out you can then look forward to deciphering how to replace your colorwheel when it eventually goes bad.
I managed to find the lamps with the housing units for about $110 a piece. Pretty good deal and I won’t have to mess with any wiring, just slide out the broken unit and replace it with a new one.
My lamp and light wheel both died recently. The light wheel still worked, but it was buzzing pretty loudly & I was expecting it to shatter soon. I’ll have to check with my wife about where she ordered the replacements, I just gave her part numbers & let her work her Shopping Queen magic.
If you can build a computer, you can replace these parts. Follow one of the online guides, and take a lot of digital pictures for reference. The bulb is very easy, but the light wheel took more effort. There were some odd connectors and wire routes that made me very glad I had taken pictures before removing the light engine. The only problem I had was learning I must pull a particular jumper when changing from the old pattern color wheel to the new one. I don’t think that is a problem in newer sets.
I don’t keep replacement bulbs around because I don’t want them running out of warranty while sitting in the cupboard. The first one lasted four years, so I am not worried for a while now. We just used other TVs for a few days until I had time to fix the main TV.
I’m glad I bought an LCD and got a very cheap 5 year replacement plan on it. Paying hundreds of dollars for a new bulb sounds like it would seriously suck.
Yeah but how much would a motherfucking eight foot wide LCD screen cost, BITCH???
I went a little crazy and ordered two replacement bulbs for our $600 (discontinued model from B&H, marked down from $1500 or some shit) LCD projector. $250 a pop. Then we moved, and I lost them. So I ordered another one. Then I found the first two. Now we should be set for the next five years at least, by which time laser uber mini micro projectors will no doubt rule.
Well, it’s not something that needs to be done often. Consider that a DLP set is (or at least was, when I bought mine) over $1000 cheaper than a decent LCD of equivalent size. If we assume bulb replacement every 4 years (which is fairly pessimistic, though it depends on how much you use the TV) at $140 a pop, then my DLP only starts being more expensive than your LCD after 30 years of bulb replacements. And that’s not counting the cost of your replacement plan.
So look at it this way: you just paid for all your maintenance up front. ;)
How much life do people expect out of a large TV? My dad just bought a nice Samsung LCD, replacing the CRT Sony he’s had about five years (it was the pinnacle of CRT technology, but the thing literally weighed 600 pounds). He was griping about the short period of use he got from the CRT (it still worked), but the upgrade from 4:3 was worth it to him. I’d rather some magic technology last ten years or more, but replacing $250 worth of parts every 4.5 years doesn’t seem outrageous to me.
You can usually buy replacement lamps from your local authorized Samsung TV repair store in your area. I ordered my first replacement lamp directly from Samsung’s “store” online, which turns out to be some TV repair and warehouse place up on the east coast, and it showed up broken. When I called Samsung to get it replaced, they just directed me to my local authorized Samsung store (the same people that have came out and repaired my set 4 times), and they just exchanged the bulb free of charge. From then on, I’ve just walked into their store to buy replacements, and it actually works about about the same as paying shipping for a true Samsung one online.
