Hey Frank, got a hd39Darbee, special to me because great picture, and the 1.6 zoom which fits my room. About a month ago, the unit's image started flickering and sometimes die. Red light and lamp light stayed on. Ceiling shelf mount. If the power and HDMI were unplugged, wait 2 secs, replugged, it would initiate again, sometimes to go hours sometimes to die after a few or many minutes. Took it down plugged in on the floor, lamp, image and fan going and the blue light could again go red with just a bit of shaking. then die. So there apparently is an intermittent in the power supply. Removed the cover couldn't see any loose wires, but the main board covering the PS is on with apparently non-Phillips screws. Couldn't go further. Such a great unit. I hate to let it die just because of a
Hi Reed, Was the lamp ever changed or was it pretty low hour when it acted up? Also, was it making any weird noises that kind of sounded like a fan that wasn't happy?
@@FixitFrank Well you are an inspiration to disheartened elderAmericans! My memory is not the best, but I think the lamp has not been changed in ALL these years. Never a fan noise. What should I try? Thanks, Reed
Wow, what an amazing channel. So happy my projector issues brought me here. I have an Optoma HD27 that I suspect may have a faulty power supply, but I personally don't have much experience inspecting projectors (I'm excited to teach myself though). For this HD27, the standby light won't even turn on when it's plugged in. After opening it up, there are signs of smoke and it's pretty dusty to be honest (I first noticed an issue when I came home and all the electronics plugged into a surge protector were out but the HD27 was the only thing that didn't turn on again). My next move I think is to clean it as much as possible and then try to start it up, but I have my doubts that'll work. If it doesn't start, I was going to order a whole power supply and attempt to replace it. However, after watching this video, I'm wondering if I could test each part on the power supply and determine what's faulty. Anyway, thanks for the great vid--also, if your experience finds something mistaken in my reasoning here and general plan of attack, do let me know! 😎
There is a good chance it's just a fuse. I think it's at least checking the main things. Fuses, bridge rectifier, mosfets, caps and such. Start with the fuse and work your way to the low voltage out. Worse case, you can always buy a working power supply. Good luck with your troubleshooting!
Hi Frank, Great video and super helpful. I have the HD27 as well and am running into a very similar issue. I recently replaced the bulb but to no avail the problem returned. The color of the projection image is not right. Colors are slightly off for instance red appears orange and then after some time the image begins to flicker and then finally project shuts down automatically. I am usually able to turn the projector back on without issue at first but then after a few minutes I start to run into the issue again. If you are familiar with these symptoms and know the fix I’d really appreciate it. I’m pretty bummed that I paid for the bulb only for it to be something else. I’d love to repair the unit instead of buying a brand new projector. Any and all help is much appreciated. Thanks again Frank, take care.
Hi Bryan, From your description, I am leaning towards a color wheel problem. The off colors, flickering and shutdown is pretty symptomatic of that problem. However, I would make sure your new lamp is not causing the issue. Make sure the front of the lamp has a reddish coating on the infrared filter glass. If you purchased the lamp from Optoma or a reputable website like Purelandsupply or Myprojectorlamps, you should be okay. Otherwise, if it was from amazon or some of the cheap lamp sites, that might be adding to the issue. The cheap lamps use a bad IR filter coating that is greenish(I have a post on the community page about it with pics) and it will flood the color wheel sensor causing the same symptoms. If your projector acted that way with the old lamp, then its likely the color wheel as well, but I would still make sure the lamp is good quality and return it and get a proper quality lamp if its not.
@@FixitFrank Thanks Frank, I had ordered an Amazon lamp but fortunately was able to return it. I have the original lamp back in position. What would you suggest my next step, do you think I should replace the color wheel? Thanks again Frank very much appreciate the help :)
@@BryKeiser Would you be able to share a video of the issue? It definitely could be a color wheel but I don't want to just say so without seeing/hearing what's going on. I have an email listed on the about page if you don't want to share a link here. Otherwise if you feel pretty confident in the color wheel, they are not super expensive and there is a fairly good chance that is your issue.
Very educational, I have a Optima HD 39 that won't power up at all, it was working 12 hours before i unplugged up from the mains, upon plugging it back in it fails to show any signs of life, very low hours the unit, any Ideas?
Thank you! If you are getting no LEDs and the lamp door is secure, I'd try reseating the lamp door. There is a safety switch that disables the power if its not seated right. If the door is secure and the problem persists, it might just be an annoying power supply issue. repairable but needs to go to a proper tech.
Hi Frank, your videos are so helpful and thank you so much for the good information. I have Optoma HD27HDR. I used it for only 400 hours and it stopped working. I do not hear any lamp pop sound. So i am guessing lamp is good. When i turn on, projector will turn on and it projects normally for a 90 mins or so then it turn off projection with sloid light led and blinking power LED. I tried to repair following your videos but couldn't find anything. I have checked voltage across capacitor at power supply side it showed me 383V so i am guessing there are no intermittent power supply issue there. Can you please guide me how to trouble shoot this or is there any way i can send this to you for repair.
I wonder if its the same problem? 90min is sure a while to run before cutting out. Honestly this is a tough one to troubleshoot remotely. But first check that output inductor in the ballast section. See if you notice any flash-over or melted plastic on the inductor. The voltage you measured is good. My problem ended up being after that on the lamp output inductor. I'd be happy to look at it for you if you get stuck.
Thanks for doing these Frank. One question--at 26:34 or so you show that the ballast line is not connected when the power board is running outboard. You mention that you "don't want the high voltage kicking off when I have it like this" although it would "be fine" but "not that fine". Could you explain that a bit? What is the concern and why isn't it a significant problem. Thanks for taking some time to answer and keep up the good work. My Viewsonic is in pieces and I need help figuring it out and your videos are clear and helpful as can be.
On this model the ballast is built into the mains power supply. With the ballast control wire disconnected it won't try and fire the ballast while my hand is nearby. I'd have to be pretty negligent even if the wire was connected to be shocked. Not connecting the control wire is just another level of safety. The mains supply still has a PFC circuit of 380v so its dangerous enough as it is. Keeping the 3-10KV of ignition voltage disabled makes me feel a little better.
@@FixitFrank Thanks; that clears it up for me. My Viewsonic PX600 has the main board and the ballast board connected by four pins and a molex, and so to remove the main board it was necessary to disconnect from the ballast. I was concerned that you were saying that operating the main PSU without connection to the ballast might damage something. I understand now that you were concerned about safety and high voltage.. Mine had been dropped and it disconnected one poorly soldered leg on a MOSFET, and snapped off a tiny bit of metal used as the door lock switch. Terrible design by the way, since once this thing (which is like 2mm square) was knocked off, there wasn't any way I could find to reattach it. So I wired around it with wire wrap. A horrible kluge but at least it's working now.
Hi Frank, thanks for the videos, really nice and well explained. I've a Optoma EH319UST that has "Intermittent" power supply but the supply board has the high voltage PFC and the 12V that shares the auxiliary power supply for the controllers, so the auxiliary power get drained when the high voltage start to work, and this repeats periodically so in the 12V I measure only 6V and in the high voltage I measure 350 instead of 380-385V. Do you have any idea? Thanks you for sharing your knowledge, best regards
That is weird! I'd start by eliminating load on the supply and see if the voltage dip stops. For instance, disconnect the ballast from the PFC and see if the dip still occurs. If no, then find the 'power_on' wire from the mainbaord back to the power supply and manually enable the power supply without the mainboard. If the power dip continues without any load(Aside from the power supply itself), you have a bad power supply and there may be a bad mosfet, or switching control IC, maybe a set of bad caps. The fact that all the voltages dip make me think the issue might be in the PFC circuit. If the dip vanishes after unhooking the ballast, then you know the ballast has the issue. finding the source of the extra load is where you will find your solution.
@@FixitFrank thanks for you answer, I removed the power supply board and without any load only the 5V Standby is ok. The 12V and the 380V are not stable. When the the PFC start to switch it kills the auxiliary voltage that powers both the 12V and PFC controllers. So I deactivated the PFC controller and the 12V works properly also with load connected. So the load is the PFC controller or something around it but I'm unable to figure out. The mosfet and the diode are ok. Replaced also the controller chip but same behavior. Changed the feedback resistor to lower the high voltage to 330V and the controller seems to work at that voltage. I'm running out of ideas.
Interesting. That could be a bad inductor or a bad cap. Could you share a picture of the top/bottom of the board? My gut says you have a bad capacitor or inductor. If all of the mosfets check out and you have replaced the control IC, the only things left are the inductor and the decoupling caps. There might be a TVS diode in the mix as well, but I can't find a good picture of the power supply so say for sure. I guess its possible a mosfet could be breaking down under a load but I can't see that not showing all the time. In my experience, Mosfets tend to work or not work. Not partly work, at least not for long. I have seen the inductors go bad. The insulation lacquer will burn off inside the coils and short out windings. It might be cheaper/faster to get a replacement power supply but without seeing which one it is, I don't want to say for sure.
@@FixitFrank I don't see any obvious damage to inductors or capacitors and I'm unable to find a replacement for the power supply. In the pictures from the bottom, there are still wires for my testing/debugging and components not soldered in place. I would like to share the pictures but I'm not able to attach them to this answer. How I can send the pictures?
my email is on the about page. I had to disable links here. Spammers/scammers were taking advantage of people unfortunately. No worried about the extra wires and what not. I just want to see what power supply it is and might have some ideas once I see the parts.
I used a Mosfet that was way larger than it needed to be. The original was a 400v, but it is only switching 12V. Most 100V P-channel Mosfets will work for this purpose. However since I do understand people don't like to guess or have known parts laying around, something like an IRF9540N, or www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Vishay-Siliconix/SIHF9520S-GE3/ SIHF9520S-GE3 would problaby solder right in. P30NF10 (TO263-3 case) should be the original part# I think I have another unit coming in with a similar problem. I will update the description when I learn more.
Hello Frank....I really liked your video....I found your channel due to a problem with my optoma HD25LV projector.....the device is with the amber light in standby, however when I preaiono the power a light turns green and blinks as if heating the lamp.....the fans don't move, the color well also stays still....nothing happens....no other light comes on.....I changed the lamp thinking that would be the problem...... Watching your video I'm coming to the conclusion that in my case it could also be the source...... any tips??? Thanks for the help!!!!
That is a hard one. It sounds like a bad main board to me. I would check power supply voltages. If the power supply is good, then it's a main board issue.
Hey Frank, I have the same projector, I have 5v going to the main board but the standby LED is not turning on. When I manually trigger the 12v mosfet on the power supply then it send the 12v to the board and the project turns on and I get a picture, and I can the buttons, however non of the LEDs turns on. I couldn't find any circuit diagrams online. So if you know, what are voltages coming out of the power supply to the board? And which component is responsible for the standby signal is it a microcontroller? I couldn't trace it
Thats a good question. Usually its the TI chip (DDP4402 or similar) that tends to control that. Its interesting that you get almost full function when you jump the 12V. The 5V is correct in standby and the lack of LEDs is very curious. Ill start with the dumb parts. The cable and connection between the keyboard and mainboard would be suspect. I try and start with the basics. Sometimes I forget and get burned by going down the wrong rabbit hole. If the connection between the mainboard and keyboard are OK, then next would be the circuit around the PMD1000 IC. The BenQ W1070 service manual has a schematic of that IC and the usage seems to be the same across all brands. I would verify that next. One of the secondary voltage regulators or one of the diodes around the PMD1000 chip could be the issue too. Lastly would be the main control IC. I forget the part# in the HD27 but its the larger of the DLP control chips. That I think is what talks to the keyboard. I do recall the connectors on both ends of the keyboard wire can be less reliable than they seem. I used to think the tape was optional, it is not.
@@FixitFrank couldn't figure it out, ended up soldering the 5v to the pin that trigger the 12v through a current limiting resistor, now the projector turns on when plugged in the wall socket 🤷🏻♂️ but it's working fine.. I don't think it's the problem is with connections because if I hold the ON button then plug the power socket then the LEDs will turn on and do patterns that I don't know what they supposed to mean. Maybe the MCU is failing to take measurements to the power lines and it could for many reasons (faulty ADC, faulty power regulator, shorted voltage divider) I don't have a working board to reference to or the diagrams so I don't have much options. In the future I may replace the MCU and program it to bypass the complex voltages/serial communication verifications, and try to emulate the functionality of the original as much as I can.
Hey Frank i have an optoma hd 144x internals are similar to this on power has red standby light when powered on it displays blue light that starts blinking no fan or colour wheel noise. Switch and lamp are ok.. Voltages from power supply 4 pins have 12.2v and the standby 5v what could be issue?
It might be the mainboard. If its blinking and you have the proper standby voltages, I would start following the 5 and 12v across the mainboard. I would be suspect of secondary voltage regulators and the PMD1000 IC(if it has it, I think it does).
Hey quick update was able to get a used mainboard from a HD 27(seller insisted it was working) fixed it still behaved the same way with a flashing blue light on powering on. Got another power supply tested with the HD 27 board still same behavior. Any additional ideas will appreciate TIA
Nice and very informative video Frank, thanks as always. I have a question if you don't mind, i have a problem with Optoma ep782. With genuine (factory original) lamp projector usualy works 3 minutes approx and then lamp turns off, during this 3 minutes picture was very bright and colorful. But with cheap replacement lamp projector able to work for a long period of time (only using max power of the cooler) but quality of picture is worser if we compare with original lamp. What may be a reason, from your opinion, of non workability of original lamp? Thanks you in advance.
You are very welcome! That is curious. I am suspicious of the glass on the lamp housing. The IR block coating is important for protecting the color wheel sensor. The lens should have a red/blue coating. It should be very obvious if you hold it at a slight angle. If the coating is green or not visible, the color wheel sensor becomes flooded with IR light. This confuses the sensor and shuts the lamp off. Do you know the wattage of the new bulb? It should be 300-350 watt. Original is 330 but any bulb 300-350 watt works. If the bulb is higher, the ballast will not be able to drive it well. I would have to know more about the old lamp to say more. Many unbranded bulbs use low quality gas mixtures inside the arc tube/burner. General attention to quality is usually low. The burner must be aligned correctly. If you have both low quality gas mixes and poor alignment, that will lead to a bad picture. Even a name brand Osram can suffer like that if there are lot of hours. I am not a chemical expert at all, but I think that as the electrodes burn off, they contaminate the gas mix. This probably causes the electrodes to burn up and get covered in scale even faster until they can no longer sustain an arc. One trick I found is if you bang a lamp on a table, it can improve the output. This only is worth trying on a lamp you do not care about losing. The trick is to hit the lamp solidly onto a hard surface with enough force to dislodge scale/dirt from the inside of the burner, but not hard enough to damage anything else. You could probably tap the side of the bulb with something like a screwdriver handle and do the same thing. I would check the IR cut lens on the new lamp. You can also use the glass from your old lamp. You know that lens worked OK.
@@FixitFrank Thank you for all your advises Frank. Besides original lamp, I have placed working original lamp from Optoma HD81 (300w), situation is the same: 2-3 minutes of working and then lamp is turned off by projector (with lamp error indication on the top of the projector housing). Also i have tried change housing on the original lamp, result with no difference (2-3 of working minutes). I have also tried to take out IR protective glass completely, these action also did not lead to normal work.
Hello, Frank. I'm having some issues with an Optoma TX775 from a theatre I work at and I was wondering if you could lend me a hand. I'm from Argentina, so there's no official technical service. However, I found out the problem I'm having is due to a faulty power supply (the projector was used 12 hours a day for a whole month) and measuring the connector I don't get 12V I should have. No lights turn on but if I use power supply from a PC for example, the Power LED turns on and starts blinking 7 times. Despite this, the power connector has a pin called "STBY_CTRL_Z" which I can't figure out how much voltage it should mark and/or it should be active high or active low. I also don't know if it's related to the error I'm getting.
That's a bit of a problem you have! Unfortunately the computer power supply won't work here. There is a power factor correction circuit that generates 380vdc for the ballast. A PC supply won't offer that. Ideally you want to find what is wrong on the power supply from the projector. That stby control z is likely an input back to the power supply to enable the 380 to the ballast. Usually they have two or three voltages to the main board. 3, 5 and 12 and then a signal back that enables the pfc voltage. You're best bet is finding a used/working power supply. This model is a little too old to find new parts but I suspect a used supply will not be very expensive at all. I have a contact in china you can reach out to if you want. They take Paypal and use DHL so it's safe to order from them. Let me know if you're interested.
@@FixitFrank thank you so much for your message. The power connector from the power supply to the mainboard has 7 cables: 3 are written 12V, 3 are written GND and the last one is written STBY_CTRL_Z. I measured with the multimeter and the two main/biggest capacitors (the ones that follow the Diode bridge) have the 360VDC. I've already told my boss about your advice and your contact, however he has to discuss this issue with his chiefs and then make a choice. Bureacracy is bureaucrazy sometimes.
@@jonathanleone6063 That is really interesting. If you have 360v DC, that should indicate the PFC circuit is running. Since your wall voltage is 220~, that would mean the it would only read 300vdc if the PFC was not working. It is the boost converter to drive the ballast. It is also usually used to create the LVDC 12v in this case. I need to look at the unit I have at work, but I would check the low voltage side for an SCR or FET that is used to control the 12v. There may also be a pico fuse or bloated capacitors. This should be a pretty reasonable switching supply to repair. The models with multi-voltage can be trickier. If you have any pictures of the power supply board, I can point out some areas to check and what I think they should be. Imgur.com is a free host that you can share here.
Hello Frank, maybe you can help me i have Benq W700 projector and problem is that when i connect main power only the standy by LED turns on but doesn't responde to anything (power on remote controler, physical power button on projector). Only the standby green led is on. When i've checked power board i can see only 3,3v and 1,5v. Where there should be 12V output there is only 0,5V. I'm not able to find any schematics for that power supply :( I've checked all Capacitors and everything looks ok, also diodes looks ok. i don't see anything burned. Do you have any hint what to check ?
elektrotanya.com/showresult?what=benq+W700&kategoria=All&kat2=All The level 2 (troubleshooting flowchart) and the zip files have schematics for the mainboard and a few other parts. P301 on page 13 of the mainboard pdf show that there should be 12v but its possible that 12v may not show until it gets a power on signal. I would check that .zip file in the link I posed and look for the W700_mainbd.pdf file. It might be a few things. Without ruling out the other systems, there are too many possible causes to suggest any one of them. I'd start with the schematic and start verifying what you can. My guess is the power supply may have a bad 12V SCR(if it uses one).
Great video. I think I may be experiencing something similar, hd27 comes on, stays for a few minutes, then turns off and I get a steady lamp indicator and flashing power. I'm not comfortable with the board circuitry, but is it even worth it on a5 year old projector? Is this something you can troubleshoot?
Hi! That's a nice projector! These are definitely worth fixing. Still a good device for sure. Did you replace the lamp assembly recently? I hear of this with lamps from Amazon and a few of the lower end websites. It's usually due to the filter glass used being cheap. It can also be a cheap bulb. If you haven't changed the lamp, I'd do that first. Lamps tend to be the most common issue. Let me know about the lamp age and we can go from there. Otherwise it's probably a color wheel wearing out or the arcing on the output inductor like on this one.
Ok! The lamp is original.. only 2600 bright hours. I'll go with your recommendation from purelandsupply and give it a try. I will say that typically it happens once, then a reboot makes it work, but the other day it was consistent on/off so I thought it was 'time'. Today it seems to be going longer. Hopefully can buy some time before the lamp arrives. Thanks again will update!
@@jmiller3779 be sure to use YT50 in the coupon field to save a few bucks. Let me know how it goes. 2600 is not ridiculously high but it is in replacement territory. I always suggest a lamp first because it is the most common issue and also you can return it if its not.
J Miller, Please let us know the results. I have an HD180 which does the same thing. It has fewer hours that yours, only a few hundred, it starts and runs normally, fans come on, temps stay down (checked with instant read thermometer) then without warning the lamp turns off.
@@FixitFrank alright, so to update- got the lamp super fast, and pulled out the old one, seemed like a tint on the glass. New lamp put in and immediately noticed much brighter picture. Have been going strong for a week, no restart issues. However. I'm now experiencing two other minor things. 1 is light leakage through the vent grille and more than before. It actually casts onto the screen. The other thing is we're noticing vertical lines in the picture which almost appears like streaming lag or distortion, but appears consistently seemingly on the same color, faces or lighter colors. Could that be something to do with the color wheel?
Hi Chelsea! I'd be happy to help. What model do you have? There are a few initial questions I want to ask before you opt to send it in. It might be something easy to resolve.
Hi, my Acer H6510BD+ has exactly the same power supply, namely the "aio 203g c/t 25". When I turn the projector on, it starts quite normal and displays the picture. But after around 2 minutes the picture flickers a bit and shortly after that the projector shuts down. After shut down the LED for the error code "broken lamp" illuminates. I replaced the lamp (only the bulb, not the metal case) unfortunately it did not help. The same problem continues. I was told by a repair service that it is probably the ballast board, part of the power supply. Can that really be? Would the beamer start at all if the power supply or the ballast board were broken? I took out the power supply but everything seems to be OK. I cannot see any carbonized parts or something similar. I would be grateful if you could help. Thanks in advance and greetings from Germany.
That sounds more like a color wheel problem to me. The picture flickering before shutdown is a common symptom of that. Do the colors flicker or does the lamp get bright/dim flicker? If the color flickers, try cleaning the color wheel sensor first. I don't think you have a ballast problem yet. Vielen dank!
@@FixitFrank Thanks for the quick reply! I think it is the lamp getting slightly brighter before it completely turns off. But I will try it once more and let you know after putting everything together again. Currently the power supply is not connected.
@@FixitFrank Hi again, I assembled the projector and tried it once more. It is the colors that flicker. First the colors get slowly a bit reddish, and then they flicker quickly for a second or so, then the lamp goes off. The color wheel still turns like 10 seconds more and then it stops as well. The power and lamp leds illuminate, meaning a lamp problem. How do I find the sensor of the color wheel, how does it look like? What I can see is just a small part of the color wheel when I take out the lamp module. Thanks in advance!
It was really the sensor of the color wheel! It took me a minute to find and clean it and now it works! Many thanks. Can I somehow order you a beer? :) Greetings.
Great Job! Thank you so much for reporting back! These comments help so many other people and I am sure yours will help someone in the future. That color wheel sensor can be a real "nudge". Awesome work! All I ask if you want to send me something is to maybe send that money to a charity that means a lot to me. www.treetopskittycafe.com/ these folks need the money more than I do(for now). Even the price of a beer will buy cat food so if you want, that would be awesome but please don't feel that you have to. I share this info for the good of everyone.
@@chelseawigton4115 I would check the color wheel. I believe the fans will not start if the color wheel does not start. It's been a little while since I worked on this model so take that with a small grain of salt. Another possibility is the lamp door switch is not closing all the way. I'd check the lamp door switch first.
Sorry I didn't introduce myself, I'm from Brazil and I apologize for my English...lol as I mentioned....the heating light is blinking and I haven't found anything on the internet or in the equipment manual that could give me a solution....a north...I'm using the same original light bulb since I bought it.. ..2017....any help will be appreciated....thanks in advance
Hi Marcelo, that would usually indicate a fan failure. If the heat led is flashing immediately on start-up, that indicates a bad fan. I am not sure which one, but there are only a few to check. No need to apologize for your English. It is far better than my Portuguese.
Hey Frank, got a hd39Darbee, special to me because great picture, and the 1.6 zoom which fits my room. About a month ago, the unit's image started flickering and sometimes die. Red light and lamp light stayed on. Ceiling shelf mount. If the power and HDMI were unplugged, wait 2 secs, replugged, it would initiate again, sometimes to go hours sometimes to die after a few or many minutes. Took it down plugged in on the floor, lamp, image and fan going and the blue light could again go red with just a bit of shaking. then die. So there apparently is an intermittent in the power supply. Removed the cover couldn't see any loose wires, but the main board covering the PS is on with apparently non-Phillips screws. Couldn't go further. Such a great unit. I hate to let it die just because of a
Hi Reed, Was the lamp ever changed or was it pretty low hour when it acted up? Also, was it making any weird noises that kind of sounded like a fan that wasn't happy?
@@FixitFrank Well you are an inspiration to disheartened elderAmericans! My memory is not the best, but I think the lamp has not been changed in ALL these years. Never a fan noise. What should I try? Thanks, Reed
Wow, what an amazing channel. So happy my projector issues brought me here. I have an Optoma HD27 that I suspect may have a faulty power supply, but I personally don't have much experience inspecting projectors (I'm excited to teach myself though). For this HD27, the standby light won't even turn on when it's plugged in. After opening it up, there are signs of smoke and it's pretty dusty to be honest (I first noticed an issue when I came home and all the electronics plugged into a surge protector were out but the HD27 was the only thing that didn't turn on again). My next move I think is to clean it as much as possible and then try to start it up, but I have my doubts that'll work. If it doesn't start, I was going to order a whole power supply and attempt to replace it. However, after watching this video, I'm wondering if I could test each part on the power supply and determine what's faulty. Anyway, thanks for the great vid--also, if your experience finds something mistaken in my reasoning here and general plan of attack, do let me know! 😎
There is a good chance it's just a fuse. I think it's at least checking the main things. Fuses, bridge rectifier, mosfets, caps and such.
Start with the fuse and work your way to the low voltage out. Worse case, you can always buy a working power supply.
Good luck with your troubleshooting!
Brah, how you not ever going to comeback and say what fixed the problem?
Again Frank did it. As expected. Good work all along.
Thanks man
As always a much enjoyable video my friend!
Hi Frank, Great video and super helpful. I have the HD27 as well and am running into a very similar issue. I recently replaced the bulb but to no avail the problem returned. The color of the projection image is not right. Colors are slightly off for instance red appears orange and then after some time the image begins to flicker and then finally project shuts down automatically. I am usually able to turn the projector back on without issue at first but then after a few minutes I start to run into the issue again. If you are familiar with these symptoms and know the fix I’d really appreciate it. I’m pretty bummed that I paid for the bulb only for it to be something else. I’d love to repair the unit instead of buying a brand new projector. Any and all help is much appreciated. Thanks again Frank, take care.
Hi Bryan, From your description, I am leaning towards a color wheel problem. The off colors, flickering and shutdown is pretty symptomatic of that problem. However, I would make sure your new lamp is not causing the issue. Make sure the front of the lamp has a reddish coating on the infrared filter glass. If you purchased the lamp from Optoma or a reputable website like Purelandsupply or Myprojectorlamps, you should be okay. Otherwise, if it was from amazon or some of the cheap lamp sites, that might be adding to the issue. The cheap lamps use a bad IR filter coating that is greenish(I have a post on the community page about it with pics) and it will flood the color wheel sensor causing the same symptoms. If your projector acted that way with the old lamp, then its likely the color wheel as well, but I would still make sure the lamp is good quality and return it and get a proper quality lamp if its not.
@@FixitFrank Thanks Frank, I had ordered an Amazon lamp but fortunately was able to return it. I have the original lamp back in position. What would you suggest my next step, do you think I should replace the color wheel? Thanks again Frank very much appreciate the help :)
@@BryKeiser Would you be able to share a video of the issue? It definitely could be a color wheel but I don't want to just say so without seeing/hearing what's going on. I have an email listed on the about page if you don't want to share a link here. Otherwise if you feel pretty confident in the color wheel, they are not super expensive and there is a fairly good chance that is your issue.
@@FixitFrank Thanks! Video sent
Very educational, I have a Optima HD 39 that won't power up at all, it was working 12 hours before i unplugged up from the mains, upon plugging it back in it fails to show any signs of life, very low hours the unit, any Ideas?
Thank you! If you are getting no LEDs and the lamp door is secure, I'd try reseating the lamp door. There is a safety switch that disables the power if its not seated right. If the door is secure and the problem persists, it might just be an annoying power supply issue. repairable but needs to go to a proper tech.
Hi Frank, your videos are so helpful and thank you so much for the good information. I have Optoma HD27HDR. I used it for only 400 hours and it stopped working. I do not hear any lamp pop sound. So i am guessing lamp is good. When i turn on, projector will turn on and it projects normally for a 90 mins or so then it turn off projection with sloid light led and blinking power LED. I tried to repair following your videos but couldn't find anything. I have checked voltage across capacitor at power supply side it showed me 383V so i am guessing there are no intermittent power supply issue there. Can you please guide me how to trouble shoot this or is there any way i can send this to you for repair.
I wonder if its the same problem? 90min is sure a while to run before cutting out. Honestly this is a tough one to troubleshoot remotely. But first check that output inductor in the ballast section. See if you notice any flash-over or melted plastic on the inductor. The voltage you measured is good. My problem ended up being after that on the lamp output inductor. I'd be happy to look at it for you if you get stuck.
@@FixitFrank Hi, Thank you for reply.. I mean to say 90 secs sorry there. I will check that output inductor in the ballast section..
Thanks for doing these Frank. One question--at 26:34 or so you show that the ballast line is not connected when the power board is running outboard. You mention that you "don't want the high voltage kicking off when I have it like this" although it would "be fine" but "not that fine". Could you explain that a bit? What is the concern and why isn't it a significant problem. Thanks for taking some time to answer and keep up the good work. My Viewsonic is in pieces and I need help figuring it out and your videos are clear and helpful as can be.
On this model the ballast is built into the mains power supply. With the ballast control wire disconnected it won't try and fire the ballast while my hand is nearby. I'd have to be pretty negligent even if the wire was connected to be shocked. Not connecting the control wire is just another level of safety. The mains supply still has a PFC circuit of 380v so its dangerous enough as it is. Keeping the 3-10KV of ignition voltage disabled makes me feel a little better.
What's your ViewSonic doing or not doing?
@@FixitFrank Thanks; that clears it up for me. My Viewsonic PX600 has the main board and the ballast board connected by four pins and a molex, and so to remove the main board it was necessary to disconnect from the ballast. I was concerned that you were saying that operating the main PSU without connection to the ballast might damage something. I understand now that you were concerned about safety and high voltage.. Mine had been dropped and it disconnected one poorly soldered leg on a MOSFET, and snapped off a tiny bit of metal used as the door lock switch. Terrible design by the way, since once this thing (which is like 2mm square) was knocked off, there wasn't any way I could find to reattach it. So I wired around it with wire wrap. A horrible kluge but at least it's working now.
Hi Frank, thanks for the videos, really nice and well explained.
I've a Optoma EH319UST that has "Intermittent" power supply but the supply board has the high voltage PFC and the 12V that shares the auxiliary power supply for the controllers, so the auxiliary power get drained when the high voltage start to work, and this repeats periodically so in the 12V I measure only 6V and in the high voltage I measure 350 instead of 380-385V.
Do you have any idea? Thanks you for sharing your knowledge, best regards
That is weird! I'd start by eliminating load on the supply and see if the voltage dip stops. For instance, disconnect the ballast from the PFC and see if the dip still occurs. If no, then find the 'power_on' wire from the mainbaord back to the power supply and manually enable the power supply without the mainboard. If the power dip continues without any load(Aside from the power supply itself), you have a bad power supply and there may be a bad mosfet, or switching control IC, maybe a set of bad caps. The fact that all the voltages dip make me think the issue might be in the PFC circuit. If the dip vanishes after unhooking the ballast, then you know the ballast has the issue. finding the source of the extra load is where you will find your solution.
@@FixitFrank thanks for you answer, I removed the power supply board and without any load only the 5V Standby is ok. The 12V and the 380V are not stable. When the the PFC start to switch it kills the auxiliary voltage that powers both the 12V and PFC controllers.
So I deactivated the PFC controller and the 12V works properly also with load connected. So the load is the PFC controller or something around it but I'm unable to figure out. The mosfet and the diode are ok. Replaced also the controller chip but same behavior. Changed the feedback resistor to lower the high voltage to 330V and the controller seems to work at that voltage. I'm running out of ideas.
Interesting. That could be a bad inductor or a bad cap. Could you share a picture of the top/bottom of the board? My gut says you have a bad capacitor or inductor. If all of the mosfets check out and you have replaced the control IC, the only things left are the inductor and the decoupling caps. There might be a TVS diode in the mix as well, but I can't find a good picture of the power supply so say for sure. I guess its possible a mosfet could be breaking down under a load but I can't see that not showing all the time. In my experience, Mosfets tend to work or not work. Not partly work, at least not for long.
I have seen the inductors go bad. The insulation lacquer will burn off inside the coils and short out windings. It might be cheaper/faster to get a replacement power supply but without seeing which one it is, I don't want to say for sure.
@@FixitFrank I don't see any obvious damage to inductors or capacitors and I'm unable to find a replacement for the power supply. In the pictures from the bottom, there are still wires for my testing/debugging and components not soldered in place. I would like to share the pictures but I'm not able to attach them to this answer. How I can send the pictures?
my email is on the about page. I had to disable links here. Spammers/scammers were taking advantage of people unfortunately. No worried about the extra wires and what not. I just want to see what power supply it is and might have some ideas once I see the parts.
Thanks Frank, can u please give the part number. For the replacement. Mosfet. Or equivalent ?
I used a Mosfet that was way larger than it needed to be. The original was a 400v, but it is only switching 12V. Most 100V P-channel Mosfets will work for this purpose. However since I do understand people don't like to guess or have known parts laying around, something like an IRF9540N, or www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Vishay-Siliconix/SIHF9520S-GE3/ SIHF9520S-GE3 would problaby solder right in. P30NF10 (TO263-3 case) should be the original part#
I think I have another unit coming in with a similar problem. I will update the description when I learn more.
Hello Frank....I really liked your video....I found your channel due to a problem with my optoma HD25LV projector.....the device is with the amber light in standby, however when I preaiono the power a light turns green and blinks as if heating the lamp.....the fans don't move, the color well also stays still....nothing happens....no other light comes on.....I changed the lamp thinking that would be the problem......
Watching your video I'm coming to the conclusion that in my case it could also be the source...... any tips??? Thanks for the help!!!!
That is a hard one. It sounds like a bad main board to me. I would check power supply voltages. If the power supply is good, then it's a main board issue.
Hey Frank, I have the same projector, I have 5v going to the main board but the standby LED is not turning on.
When I manually trigger the 12v mosfet on the power supply then it send the 12v to the board and the project turns on and I get a picture, and I can the buttons, however non of the LEDs turns on.
I couldn't find any circuit diagrams online.
So if you know, what are voltages coming out of the power supply to the board? And which component is responsible for the standby signal is it a microcontroller? I couldn't trace it
Thats a good question. Usually its the TI chip (DDP4402 or similar) that tends to control that. Its interesting that you get almost full function when you jump the 12V. The 5V is correct in standby and the lack of LEDs is very curious.
Ill start with the dumb parts. The cable and connection between the keyboard and mainboard would be suspect. I try and start with the basics. Sometimes I forget and get burned by going down the wrong rabbit hole. If the connection between the mainboard and keyboard are OK, then next would be the circuit around the PMD1000 IC. The BenQ W1070 service manual has a schematic of that IC and the usage seems to be the same across all brands. I would verify that next. One of the secondary voltage regulators or one of the diodes around the PMD1000 chip could be the issue too. Lastly would be the main control IC. I forget the part# in the HD27 but its the larger of the DLP control chips. That I think is what talks to the keyboard. I do recall the connectors on both ends of the keyboard wire can be less reliable than they seem. I used to think the tape was optional, it is not.
@@FixitFrank couldn't figure it out, ended up soldering the 5v to the pin that trigger the 12v through a current limiting resistor, now the projector turns on when plugged in the wall socket 🤷🏻♂️ but it's working fine..
I don't think it's the problem is with connections because if I hold the ON button then plug the power socket then the LEDs will turn on and do patterns that I don't know what they supposed to mean.
Maybe the MCU is failing to take measurements to the power lines and it could for many reasons (faulty ADC, faulty power regulator, shorted voltage divider) I don't have a working board to reference to or the diagrams so I don't have much options.
In the future I may replace the MCU and program it to bypass the complex voltages/serial communication verifications, and try to emulate the functionality of the original as much as I can.
Hey Frank i have an optoma hd 144x internals are similar to this on power has red standby light when powered on it displays blue light that starts blinking no fan or colour wheel noise. Switch and lamp are ok.. Voltages from power supply 4 pins have 12.2v and the standby 5v what could be issue?
It might be the mainboard. If its blinking and you have the proper standby voltages, I would start following the 5 and 12v across the mainboard. I would be suspect of secondary voltage regulators and the PMD1000 IC(if it has it, I think it does).
@FixitFrank Thanks so much for the input your channel is amazing. keep up the good work and willingness to help out.
Hey quick update was able to get a used mainboard from a HD 27(seller insisted it was working) fixed it still behaved the same way with a flashing blue light on powering on. Got another power supply tested with the HD 27 board still same behavior. Any additional ideas will appreciate TIA
Nice and very informative video Frank, thanks as always. I have a question if you don't mind, i have a problem with Optoma ep782. With genuine (factory original) lamp projector usualy works 3 minutes approx and then lamp turns off, during this 3 minutes picture was very bright and colorful. But with cheap replacement lamp projector able to work for a long period of time (only using max power of the cooler) but quality of picture is worser if we compare with original lamp. What may be a reason, from your opinion, of non workability of original lamp? Thanks you in advance.
You are very welcome! That is curious. I am suspicious of the glass on the lamp housing. The IR block coating is important for protecting the color wheel sensor. The lens should have a red/blue coating. It should be very obvious if you hold it at a slight angle. If the coating is green or not visible, the color wheel sensor becomes flooded with IR light. This confuses the sensor and shuts the lamp off.
Do you know the wattage of the new bulb? It should be 300-350 watt. Original is 330 but any bulb 300-350 watt works. If the bulb is higher, the ballast will not be able to drive it well.
I would have to know more about the old lamp to say more. Many unbranded bulbs use low quality gas mixtures inside the arc tube/burner. General attention to quality is usually low. The burner must be aligned correctly. If you have both low quality gas mixes and poor alignment, that will lead to a bad picture.
Even a name brand Osram can suffer like that if there are lot of hours. I am not a chemical expert at all, but I think that as the electrodes burn off, they contaminate the gas mix. This probably causes the electrodes to burn up and get covered in scale even faster until they can no longer sustain an arc.
One trick I found is if you bang a lamp on a table, it can improve the output. This only is worth trying on a lamp you do not care about losing. The trick is to hit the lamp solidly onto a hard surface with enough force to dislodge scale/dirt from the inside of the burner, but not hard enough to damage anything else. You could probably tap the side of the bulb with something like a screwdriver handle and do the same thing.
I would check the IR cut lens on the new lamp. You can also use the glass from your old lamp. You know that lens worked OK.
@@FixitFrank Thank you for all your advises Frank. Besides original lamp, I have placed working original lamp from Optoma HD81 (300w), situation is the same: 2-3 minutes of working and then lamp is turned off by projector (with lamp error indication on the top of the projector housing). Also i have tried change housing on the original lamp, result with no difference (2-3 of working minutes). I have also tried to take out IR protective glass completely, these action also did not lead to normal work.
Hello, Frank. I'm having some issues with an Optoma TX775 from a theatre I work at and I was wondering if you could lend me a hand. I'm from Argentina, so there's no official technical service. However, I found out the problem I'm having is due to a faulty power supply (the projector was used 12 hours a day for a whole month) and measuring the connector I don't get 12V I should have. No lights turn on but if I use power supply from a PC for example, the Power LED turns on and starts blinking 7 times. Despite this, the power connector has a pin called "STBY_CTRL_Z" which I can't figure out how much voltage it should mark and/or it should be active high or active low. I also don't know if it's related to the error I'm getting.
That's a bit of a problem you have! Unfortunately the computer power supply won't work here. There is a power factor correction circuit that generates 380vdc for the ballast. A PC supply won't offer that. Ideally you want to find what is wrong on the power supply from the projector. That stby control z is likely an input back to the power supply to enable the 380 to the ballast. Usually they have two or three voltages to the main board. 3, 5 and 12 and then a signal back that enables the pfc voltage. You're best bet is finding a used/working power supply. This model is a little too old to find new parts but I suspect a used supply will not be very expensive at all. I have a contact in china you can reach out to if you want. They take Paypal and use DHL so it's safe to order from them. Let me know if you're interested.
@@FixitFrank thank you so much for your message. The power connector from the power supply to the mainboard has 7 cables: 3 are written 12V, 3 are written GND and the last one is written STBY_CTRL_Z. I measured with the multimeter and the two main/biggest capacitors (the ones that follow the Diode bridge) have the 360VDC. I've already told my boss about your advice and your contact, however he has to discuss this issue with his chiefs and then make a choice. Bureacracy is bureaucrazy sometimes.
@@jonathanleone6063 That is really interesting. If you have 360v DC, that should indicate the PFC circuit is running. Since your wall voltage is 220~, that would mean the it would only read 300vdc if the PFC was not working. It is the boost converter to drive the ballast. It is also usually used to create the LVDC 12v in this case. I need to look at the unit I have at work, but I would check the low voltage side for an SCR or FET that is used to control the 12v. There may also be a pico fuse or bloated capacitors. This should be a pretty reasonable switching supply to repair. The models with multi-voltage can be trickier.
If you have any pictures of the power supply board, I can point out some areas to check and what I think they should be. Imgur.com is a free host that you can share here.
Hello Frank, maybe you can help me i have Benq W700 projector and problem is that when i connect main power only the standy by LED turns on but doesn't responde to anything (power on remote controler, physical power button on projector). Only the standby green led is on. When i've checked power board i can see only 3,3v and 1,5v. Where there should be 12V output there is only 0,5V. I'm not able to find any schematics for that power supply :( I've checked all Capacitors and everything looks ok, also diodes looks ok. i don't see anything burned. Do you have any hint what to check ?
elektrotanya.com/showresult?what=benq+W700&kategoria=All&kat2=All The level 2 (troubleshooting flowchart) and the zip files have schematics for the mainboard and a few other parts. P301 on page 13 of the mainboard pdf show that there should be 12v but its possible that 12v may not show until it gets a power on signal. I would check that .zip file in the link I posed and look for the W700_mainbd.pdf file. It might be a few things. Without ruling out the other systems, there are too many possible causes to suggest any one of them. I'd start with the schematic and start verifying what you can. My guess is the power supply may have a bad 12V SCR(if it uses one).
@@FixitFrank Thank you i'll check :)
@@FixitFrank Ok i fixed it :) Problem was causing one Zener Diode on 12V line. After replacing this diode projector is fully working :) Thank you
Great work!! It makes me smile so much when people can save their gear. Thanks for letting me know and I hope you enjoy the projector for many years.
Great video. I think I may be experiencing something similar, hd27 comes on, stays for a few minutes, then turns off and I get a steady lamp indicator and flashing power. I'm not comfortable with the board circuitry, but is it even worth it on a5 year old projector? Is this something you can troubleshoot?
Hi! That's a nice projector! These are definitely worth fixing. Still a good device for sure. Did you replace the lamp assembly recently? I hear of this with lamps from Amazon and a few of the lower end websites. It's usually due to the filter glass used being cheap. It can also be a cheap bulb.
If you haven't changed the lamp, I'd do that first. Lamps tend to be the most common issue. Let me know about the lamp age and we can go from there. Otherwise it's probably a color wheel wearing out or the arcing on the output inductor like on this one.
Ok! The lamp is original.. only 2600 bright hours. I'll go with your recommendation from purelandsupply and give it a try. I will say that typically it happens once, then a reboot makes it work, but the other day it was consistent on/off so I thought it was 'time'. Today it seems to be going longer. Hopefully can buy some time before the lamp arrives. Thanks again will update!
@@jmiller3779 be sure to use YT50 in the coupon field to save a few bucks. Let me know how it goes. 2600 is not ridiculously high but it is in replacement territory. I always suggest a lamp first because it is the most common issue and also you can return it if its not.
J Miller, Please let us know the results. I have an HD180 which does the same thing. It has fewer hours that yours, only a few hundred, it starts and runs normally, fans come on, temps stay down (checked with instant read thermometer) then without warning the lamp turns off.
@@FixitFrank alright, so to update- got the lamp super fast, and pulled out the old one, seemed like a tint on the glass. New lamp put in and immediately noticed much brighter picture. Have been going strong for a week, no restart issues. However. I'm now experiencing two other minor things. 1 is light leakage through the vent grille and more than before. It actually casts onto the screen. The other thing is we're noticing vertical lines in the picture which almost appears like streaming lag or distortion, but appears consistently seemingly on the same color, faces or lighter colors. Could that be something to do with the color wheel?
Hi frank.. I have a dlp optoma I bought through an online auction. No fans, have red lights.. anyhow can I be a paying customer to have you fix mine??
Hi Chelsea! I'd be happy to help. What model do you have? There are a few initial questions I want to ask before you opt to send it in. It might be something easy to resolve.
Thanks!
Wow thank you! I really appreciate it!! You made my week!
Hi,
my Acer H6510BD+ has exactly the same power supply, namely the "aio 203g c/t 25". When I turn the projector on, it starts quite normal and displays the picture. But after around 2 minutes the picture flickers a bit and shortly after that the projector shuts down. After shut down the LED for the error code "broken lamp" illuminates. I replaced the lamp (only the bulb, not the metal case) unfortunately it did not help. The same problem continues. I was told by a repair service that it is probably the ballast board, part of the power supply. Can that really be? Would the beamer start at all if the power supply or the ballast board were broken? I took out the power supply but everything seems to be OK. I cannot see any carbonized parts or something similar. I would be grateful if you could help.
Thanks in advance and greetings from Germany.
That sounds more like a color wheel problem to me. The picture flickering before shutdown is a common symptom of that. Do the colors flicker or does the lamp get bright/dim flicker? If the color flickers, try cleaning the color wheel sensor first. I don't think you have a ballast problem yet. Vielen dank!
@@FixitFrank Thanks for the quick reply! I think it is the lamp getting slightly brighter before it completely turns off. But I will try it once more and let you know after putting everything together again. Currently the power supply is not connected.
@@FixitFrank Hi again, I assembled the projector and tried it once more. It is the colors that flicker. First the colors get slowly a bit reddish, and then they flicker quickly for a second or so, then the lamp goes off. The color wheel still turns like 10 seconds more and then it stops as well. The power and lamp leds illuminate, meaning a lamp problem.
How do I find the sensor of the color wheel, how does it look like? What I can see is just a small part of the color wheel when I take out the lamp module. Thanks in advance!
It was really the sensor of the color wheel! It took me a minute to find and clean it and now it works! Many thanks. Can I somehow order you a beer? :) Greetings.
Great Job! Thank you so much for reporting back! These comments help so many other people and I am sure yours will help someone in the future. That color wheel sensor can be a real "nudge". Awesome work!
All I ask if you want to send me something is to maybe send that money to a charity that means a lot to me. www.treetopskittycafe.com/ these folks need the money more than I do(for now). Even the price of a beer will buy cat food so if you want, that would be awesome but please don't feel that you have to. I share this info for the good of everyone.
If my lamp needs replaced will my fans not fire up?
not usually no. If you are getting no fans, I suspect other issues. What are the indicator LED's doing?
@@FixitFrank the power lite is solid red, as is the lamp light
@@chelseawigton4115 I would check the color wheel. I believe the fans will not start if the color wheel does not start. It's been a little while since I worked on this model so take that with a small grain of salt. Another possibility is the lamp door switch is not closing all the way. I'd check the lamp door switch first.
@@FixitFrank my boyfriend told me he actually replaced the bulb so we will try color wheel
Sorry I didn't introduce myself, I'm from Brazil and I apologize for my English...lol
as I mentioned....the heating light is blinking and I haven't found anything on the internet or in the equipment manual that could give me a solution....a north...I'm using the same original light bulb since I bought it.. ..2017....any help will be appreciated....thanks in advance
Hi Marcelo, that would usually indicate a fan failure. If the heat led is flashing immediately on start-up, that indicates a bad fan. I am not sure which one, but there are only a few to check. No need to apologize for your English. It is far better than my Portuguese.
very very smart my good man
Nice video!
As always, 👍👍👍
I really appreciate that. Truthfully, some of the things you all say to me keep me motivated to post more.
good video.
Thank you, I appreciate that.
20:54 "Looks like...it broke"
Thanks!