Projector Lamp is a core component contained by projectors of all sorts, no matter a high-end one or a budget one, they are all counting on a lamp to function normally. It is lamp that helps projector to create a bright and vivid image on the screen or wall.
Important as it is, it’s inevitable that the lamp wears out over time, just think of the lights in your home, they need to be replaced periodically as well.
The lamp of modern projectors has a process of degradation, during which the lamp would keep working, but is not able to deliver fully saturated images any more. Therefore, to ensure that you are treated with the best viewing experience, you should replace the dimming lamp with a new one once you’ve noticed it, and not necessarily wait until the lamp is dead.
Question is how to tell that your projector lamp is no longer in good condition? Here are several ways for you to check whether a projector lamp is bad.
Utilize the indicator light
Most high-end projectors are featured with an indicator light allows you to access to a visual signal showing the status of a projector lamp. Generally, when it turns to red, you better keep an eye on your lamp. However, this does not mean that your lamp stop working, and you need to replace it at once. It is just a warning sign that the lamp is degrading, and you should prepare to replace it with a new lamp, probably in a few months.
If you own a mid-range projector or a budget projector, you may not find the indicator light on them. Don’t worry, move to the next step.
Observe the projected image
The quality of projector lamp is closely related to the quality of image. So, it would be an efficient way to identify the status of your lamp through observing the projected image.
Lamp in good condition would create bright enough image with rich color saturation. When the lamp gets bad, the fidelity to image would be impacted to varying degree. Therefore, when you find issues like color shifting, means the lamp is losing the ability of accurate color rendition, in another word, your lamp is dimming gradually.
Put the brightness to the highest level
There is another smart tip to test the condition of a projector lamp, and feasible to everyone. You can notch up the brightness and set it to the highest level. Also, make sure black out the audience area to avoid any possible light intrusion. Because we don’t want the testing to be affected.
If you notice that the image grows blurry and color-fading along with the highest brightness level, then you can almost be sure that your lamp is degrading. Because a lamp in optimum condition still doing great job in image output even if with the highest brightness setting.
In a word, always replaced your projector with a new lamp before the old one burns out. Because at the end of a projector lamp’s life span, it is no longer a well-functioning lamp anymore.
