Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Troubleshooting NEC NC2000C Igniter

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Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 11-24-2018, 08:27 PM:

I had an igniter go out on one of our NEC NC2000C projectors yesterday. I wrote up a quick troubleshooting description and thought it might be useful to post.

Please feel free to critique or add on. It would also be helpful to add LPSU troubleshooting tips if you have them.

quote:
Symptom: Lamp fails to strike when attempted to switch on.

1. Check breakers to ensure they are all turned on. Best to switch off and switch back on.

2. Turn off lamp house breaker while projector is on. This should create an alarm with LPSU warning which goes away when the breaker is switched back on.

3. Check terminals on circuit breaker to ensure it is outputting 240v. If less than 240v, you may have a bad leg in your circuit breaker.

4. Remove back panel of projector (opposite of operating side) and check voltage on terminal block. It should read ~240v.

5. Install a new (or known working) bulb to rule out a bulb failure.

6. Check for arc across bulb when turning it on. This will require removing the lamp house cover and disabling the safety switch.

7. Remove operating side cover and locate the small black and white wire attached to the igniter with flag connectors. Insert probes from voltage meter under connector insulation and turn on lamp. You should see the voltage reach ~240v before slowly dissipating down to 0.

7.1. The igniter is under the plastic cover on the left hand side of the operating side of the projector. Unscrew the plastic to access the igniter.

8. If you have gone through all of these steps and the lamp still will not light, it is likely the igniter. To verify you can swap the igniter with one from another projector. The issue should follow the projector.

Removing the igniter is about a 15 minute job as it is very accessibly. Primary tools are an adjustable wrench (Crescent) and a Philips screw driver. I suggest taking a picture from several angles before removing to use as a reference for re-installing.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 11-24-2018, 09:40 PM:

Related to 6, you don't always have to disable any safety or tamper switches to see the momentary flash of an arc. On a Barco B series (for example), you can see it with the plastic outer cover removed but the lamphouse still in place very easily.

But that's a nit pick. Very nice checklist - wish I had it when I was running around chasing my tail troubleshooting what eventually turned out to be a bad bulb. I'd tried swapping out LPSUs and the igniter before figuring that out. Because the bulb had only done 56 hours and five days since installation, I'd ruled it out from the get-go.

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 11-24-2018, 11:08 PM:

This list is specific to the NC2000 which has a metal rear lamp area cover with a safety microswitch. The lamp itself is behind another metal cover so it isn't super dangerous, you could only see an arc flash with the outer cover off... but you would not be blinded/harmed if the lamp does strike or even explode.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 11-25-2018, 12:33 PM:

Understood (I know that NEC 2000s, 3200s and 3240s have switches on the back outer cover). My point is that with slight rewording, mainly to #6, this could serve as a generic checklist for all xenon-lit digital projectors.

Actually, on the NEC, if you took the duct off the top you could probably see the strike flash by looking down the chimney.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-25-2018, 01:48 PM:

I have lost a couple igniters in early NC-2000's over the years, both at the same site. On both of them they had no issues lighting a new lamp. Then once the lamp got to around 300 or so hours the projector would try to light the lamp but instead shut itself completely down and threw the lamp unlit error and sounded an alarm tone. Reset the projector and booted it back up and then it lit the lamp just fine the rest of the day. I finally diagnosed it by swapping ignitors around with a working NC-2000 in the same plex and then replacing the bad ignitor.

Mark

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 11-25-2018, 03:02 PM:

Mark
We had not had any problems with this projector prior to the show it didn't ignite Friday afternoon. Everything worked find all day the day before. The bulb was within about 50 hours of it's rated life, but it didn't strike a brand new bulb either.

That being said, we have had an issue similar to what you describe at our sister theatre. We went to using used bulbs for about 300 hours, but it's pretty reliable they stop working after about 300 hours.

For what it's worth, the used bulbs are Ushio 3K bulbs which are removed after 1500 hours. These bulbs typically look like they are hardly used after 1500 hours. The anode and cathode bare look different from a new bulb and there is no darkening of the glass.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-25-2018, 07:30 PM:

That sounds like a similar problem for sure. The site I had it happen at also usees Ushio lamps... One was a 4kw 1000 hour lamp and the other was a 2kw. The best way to diagnose that is to literally switch in a known good igniter from another projector. It doesn't take very long to switch them around and they do cost ~800 to buy. So good idea to be sure.

Mark

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 11-26-2018, 02:44 PM:

Another way to diagnose is to look at the output from the BALLAST (not the igniter) with a voltmeter to see if the voltage rises above 80VDC (again, don't put your meter leads on the output of the igniter/lamp), just the ballast. Note, unlike linear rectifier of typical film systems, an electronic ballast may ramp its voltage up and back down rather briskly rather than holding it there waiting for the igniter to work. I recently troubleshot a Christie (Sanrex) power supply/ballast this way. Freaked the Christie people out with the thought of measuring the ballast output. It did ramp the voltage up to about 150VDC and back down (and it was like that up and then down about 5 times) so if the igniter was working, it should have seen the voltage climb.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-29-2018, 04:11 PM:

I was once fooled checking an NC-1200 ballast this way. It acted normal but was indeed bad. And we thought it was the igniter that had failed, because it did the whole lamp unlit thing after attempting to light. About a year later the second NC-1200 ballast also did the same thing and had to be replaced... The new ballasts were different than the factory supplied ballasts, still SanRex though. No problems going on three years there now.

Mark

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 11-30-2018, 09:45 AM:

The original 1200c powersupplies and ignitors were made by Rubicon then NEC switched to Sanrex