Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: First Legitimate Breakdown...

This is topic First Legitimate Breakdown... in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-24-2014, 09:59 AM:

Well folks it finally happened. One of the 212 NEC's I've installed actually had a legitimate breakdown. On this NC-2000 the igniter failed in an unusual way, and it did not keep this projector off the screen. The first show would run normally but when the projector got it's lamp on cue at the start of the second show the lamp wouldn't light and it threw a "Lamp Unlit" error. Rebooting the projector always lit the lamp on the second and all remaining shows. I've had this same error happen when a lamp looses its seal, but the lamp was fine. At any rate, rather than reboot after each show I had them leave the lamp on during operating hours for a couple days. Parts should be in today and weren't uber expensive.

So if any of you ever get a "Lamp Unlit" error and the issue can't be traced to the lamp itself then it is likely the igniter that is bad. The igniter in this unit was dated April 2010 and it is one of the older NC-2000's that I installed, but certainly not the oldest one.

Mark

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 04-24-2014, 12:06 PM:

How do you decide if a breakdown is legitimate? Are you saying it has never happened that a setup could not project where the cause was the projector (not the bulb)? Is this like legitimate rape?

Posted by Andrew Thomas (Member # 7000) on 04-24-2014, 01:42 PM:

That is interesting.

How far apart are their showtimes? I've seen the "conventional wisdom" suggest that less than 30-45 minutes between the end of the show and the start of the next one and you should just leave the bulb on anyway.

What is your position on that?

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 04-24-2014, 02:12 PM:

It happens.

I had to replace a "Start Pulse Generator" - fancy name for a igniter in a BARCO a couple of years back since I had a failure error in bulb ignition.

To make the determination, I had to condemn the bulb by swapping out modules, then to condemn the igniter swapping out igniters with another unit to come to the conclusion of the failed unit.

Got a new igniter in the next day, half hour to do the swap and all was good.

A bulb can last longer if turned off and can rest for at least 20 min compared in wasting hours and adding age on a bulb by leaving it on all the time.

Granted, the igniter's age is spared if one leaves the bulb on all the time but where is the money really spent on here?

So, who is winning here - the bulb or the igniter - being the igniter is built for endurance while the bulb doesn't have those attributes.

-Monte

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-24-2014, 05:25 PM:

This is a busy site especially on weekendz anx wben thd kids are outa scbool. Breaks are generally a minimum of 30 minutes. No, they generally do not leave the lamps on at any of the sites I service. Never been an issue since all of the lamps are Ushio and they are rarely ever operated past the 100% warranty time.

There are a couple of Drive Ins that let them run all night but they do run intermission count downs and such.

@Steve K., I don't count broken switches or bad hard drives. A broken switch hasn't caused a lost show to my knowledge. They are easy to bypass. Also haven't had a switch break in over a year. Never on the big NEC's. Still waiting for an OS drive to fail... but for the most part I am already ready with spare drives in place in at least the busy and furthest away locations.

Mark

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 04-25-2014, 09:26 AM:

I wish this was Facebook so I could Like Steve's post. Then I would Unlike it so I could Like it again.

[beer]

Posted by Jarod Reddig (Member # 6363) on 04-25-2014, 03:21 PM:

Ya I wish there was a selectable thumbs up icon or like you said a "like" icon to click for those posts you really enjoy or agree with. [Smile]

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-25-2014, 04:51 PM:

Legit breakdown = Where I actually have to get in the truck and drive to the site and fix the sucker.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 04-25-2014, 11:04 PM:

Leave aside the server since your post was about the projectors. So you've never had any (non trivial, like the switch) hardware failures, at least none that weren't DOA?

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-26-2014, 02:32 PM:

Nope. I did have a bad ICP module in a couple week old NC-900, made it difficult to boot up but once it was up it was fine. That's literally about it. Again, it didn't keep them from running their shows and that one is relatively close by.

The worst disaster I had was a number of years ago when a 6KW lamp blew up in a Series 1 CP-2000. But that's what happens when a theater hires a manager who ignores the lamp change warning.

Mark

Posted by Randy Pryde (Member # 7488) on 04-26-2014, 11:36 PM:

Mark has referenced this incident on Film-Tech so many times that I cannot let it go unanswered any longer.

The 6kw lamp was NOT over warranty. This CP2000SB had LiteLoc engaged for Dolby 3D presentation. The lamp was running at 110% when it exploded. We immediately checked two other locations with identical equipment and lamps and found that they were also running at 110% at 500 hours. At the time Mark blamed Christie for bad software. Christie made good on the lamp and reflector and I ate the remaining $12,000 in repairs.

I think that it is unprofessional to blame a manager you don't like. If you bite too many hands, there won't be any left to feed you.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-27-2014, 12:04 PM:

I would continue to blame Christie for allowing lamps to run at 110% just to claim a brighter picture. 100% is 100%, despite what some athletic people may think. Christie's lightloc doesn't really worth with the Dolby filter wheel in there...it never gets a stable reading. Barco the only one that I've seen that reads consistently with that.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 04-27-2014, 01:16 PM:

quote:
blame Christie for allowing lamps to run at 110%

I always wondered about that. A couple of months ago I was at a theater to solve
a small problem, and I was scrolling through the info screens and came across
the "Lamp Voltage" & "Lamp Amprage" display on their Christie projectorthingy.

Even with my poor math skills, it was immediately apparant to me when looking
at those readings that the 2K bulb was being run at over 100%.

Why would they do that? It doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

Since I was there to fix another prolbem, I went back to fixing that.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-27-2014, 04:15 PM:

Randy,

I still have the files from that CP-2000 here on my server! Light Loc was turned on because we were led to believe that it would work properly. And yes, the lamp was set at a relatively high power level because that's what it took to get the level near spec for Dolby 3-D. The lamp was about 40 hours give or take over it's 100% replacement warranty of 600 hours even though it is rated for 900 hours life span. Christie did eventually come out with new firmware but I remember that it still did not address the lite-loc issue when used with Dolby. In fact to this day I can't think of a single manufacturer's lite- loc in series one or series two that is really 100% dependable. Although at least Barco and NEC will not allow a selected lamp to exceed it's 100% current rating. Hence, I do not use them since that occurrence.

As far as liking the manager or not... That is completely false, and he and I actually had a nice long talk in person this past January when I stopped in the theater. I actually have a hard time thinking of someone that I truly dislike. I actually got along with him and his dad very well while doing work there. Is it really his fault? He's the one in charge. Since at the time we had no remote access to monitor the operating time on the projectors one has to rely on the one person in charge of the operation to do it. And at that point in time no one was running lamps past the 100% warranted hours. I still don't have a single customer that goes past it to this day. Your lamp was still functioning at 600 hours and had it been changed in a timely manner the whole episode would have never happened.

Mark

Posted by Randy Pryde (Member # 7488) on 04-27-2014, 08:51 PM:

I have said my piece and will leave it at that.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 04-27-2014, 10:37 PM:

When I was working with NEC 1200C units and Real D usage, on the display unit on the side of the projector, I did notice 4K bulbs running at 105% when using 3D and would reduce down to 90% for regular usage.

That worried me some for a bulb to be "overclocked" just to push out more light past its maximum. Granted no explosions occured since I did the required pulls (and this was using Philips 4200 bulbs), thus everything went normally.

Now, with working with BARCOS, the big 65BA2 bulbs are never pushed past 100% even in 3D, even though they are pushed close to the maximum when in that mode..in CLO mode. Just when the hours gets close to warranty, I do suffer ignition failures and manual strikes are required.

And when the pull happens and bulb inspection is done, the anode electrode is horribly pitted and "ripple horns" are present on the electrode along with a half darkened envelope.

I think what really kills bulbs is the high 'strike count' that occurs during the bulb's warranty life.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 04-28-2014, 12:03 AM:

quote: Monte L Fullmer
Now, with working with BARCOS, the big 65BA2 bulbs are never pushed past 100% even in 3D, even though they are pushed close to the maximum when in that mode..in CLO mode. Just when the hours gets close to warranty, I do suffer ignition failures and manual strikes are required.

And when the pull happens and bulb inspection is done, the anode electrode is horribly pitted and "ripple horns" are present on the electrode along with a half darkened envelope.

I think what really kills bulbs is the high 'strike count' that occurs during the bulb's warranty life.

I'm having this problem now. So far, none of my 6.5kW bulbs has reached more than 50% hours. The last one I pulled looked pretty bad & was flickering noticeably.

Strikes don't appear to be the problem. I run one double feature per night and the bulb stays on from start to finish. Airflow is about double Barco's spec.

I've been running Ushios at this point. Not ready to try something else, but it would be nice to know what's going on.

Posted by Antti Nayha (Member # 4980) on 04-28-2014, 09:45 AM:

quote: Monte L Fullmer
When I was working with NEC 1200C units and Real D usage, on the display unit on the side of the projector, I did notice 4K bulbs running at 105% when using 3D and would reduce down to 90% for regular usage.

quote: Monte L Fullmer
working with BARCOS, the big 65BA2 bulbs are never pushed past 100% even in 3D

I'm wondering whether those are just different definitions of "100%".

I've noticed that at least Ushio's documents (6.4 MB PDF linked) list much more conservative minimum/maximum operating currents compared to Barco's lamp files. For example, according to Ushio, DXL-30BAF/L's operating power range is 1960-2800 watts, but Barco lets you drive it at 1800-3000 W. So in a sense, 3000 W could be said to be "107% power". I don't know how NEC calculates the percentage.

After encountering some Barco ignition issues, I'm thinking of relying less on CLO in the future and just setting lamp power manually instead in order to keep the wattage within Ushio's limits, and seeing if that helps.

Jack: in case you missed it, here's some earlier discussion about Barco strike failures.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-28-2014, 11:27 AM:

It seems to me there may be a couple of lamps whose specs allow running at slightly high power levels but I'd have to research that to be sure. Selecting the wrong lamp will for sure allow that to occur as will a software glitch. The warranty hours for the DXL-20SN3 lamp has been wrong from day 1 in the NEC firmware. They say it's 3000 hours when it's actually 2400. It's not that big a deal for me because I manually set the lamp warning to 2350 hours for most customers anyway.

Jack: I have two D.I. customers running the Ushio 6KW in NEC's and they have been fine. One customer just started his third season with the same lamp, another is on his second season. You may want to consider stepping down to a 6KW and see if the life span improves any.

Mark

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-29-2014, 05:33 AM:

quote: Jack Ondracek
Strikes don't appear to be the problem. I run one double feature per night and the bulb stays on from start to finish. Airflow is about double Barco's spec.

We have one customer, currently, using the DXL-65BA and they always make warranty. Their exhaust is on the order of 800cfm. My suggestion if you are having an ugly lamp come out is to increase your exhaust up to 800+ cfm. That is a lot of heat to get out of there.

That said, we have people running the DXL-60BA2/L that are also making warranty without issue (in fact, warranty +) though the lamp is darkening, their exhaust is a bit low, in my opinion...we put in an in-line booster (the good ole Fantech) to get it up to where it is...if un restricted (is is pushing into a 6" system since that is what existed before DCinema and they only ran 3KW before...6KW is just for 3D here. The 3KW 2K lamp in this theatre also always makes warranty and comes out looking clean. I think Barco really under specs its exhaust requirements in trying to make their system seem cheaper to install.

quote: Antti Nayha
For example, according to Ushio, DXL-30BAF/L's operating power range is 1960-2800 watts, but Barco lets you drive it at 1800-3000 W. So in a sense, 3000 W could be said to be "107% power". I don't know how NEC calculates the percentage.

It almost seems a mystery on how Barco comes up with their lamp files. I believe there is some trial and error and back and forth with the manufactures. Their system can limit a lamp by voltage, current or wattage such that no parameters can be exceeded. If you look at the DXL-30BA file, you'll see that it has the same 120A max. current but is limited to 2400-watts! Doing the same current/amp math, it should be limited to just over 3000 watts! I know I've seen lamps in Barcos where it can never achieve its maximum current. This is a big change from our film days where current was THE driving factor.

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Selecting the wrong lamp will for sure allow that to occur as will a software glitch. The warranty hours for the DXL-20SN3 lamp has been wrong from day 1 in the NEC firmware.

Mark...though I may be the only one doing this...if you user the Certification Code that comes with each lamp...the NEC will select the proper information. Since the NEC puts up red tail lights when the lamp hits warranty or the warning, I tend to also set things to minimize it from "over complaining."

Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 04-29-2014, 09:58 AM:

quote: Steve Guttag
I think Barco really under specs its exhaust requirements in trying to make their system seem cheaper to install.

Barco early on did state their projectors were self exhausting and indeed with no ducting it would but made me very nervous. Don't know if relative pricing was the motivation though, just engineering conceit. I had one of their big guys defend the low CFM they spec'd saying it was possible to over cool the bulb. Maybe in theory.

Later on one high tech venue the building engineer would read the manual and not listen to me. Lots of very black bulbs resulted.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-29-2014, 10:10 AM:

Sometimes I do use the certified number Steve but I have quite a few customers that like a bit more warning as to when the lamp is going to expire. I even have a couple that like a 100 hour warning.

On projector exhaust... Even the Barco 10S and the NC-900 that exhaust into the room will heat up a smaller booth in no time flat. I always have the customer keep the present exhaust system in place and have them run it when the room gets uncomfortably warm. I just remove all the ducting so it is pulling out air at ceiling height.