On the verge of buying an Infocus 4805 but..

[Firewall]

the replacement costs for the bulbs are outrageous! $330.00 for a bulb? That is half the cost of the projector.

Is there anywhere to get these things for cheaper?

 

[Zepher]

ebay, most likely.
you could also look into get a much more expensive projector, say one for $5000 with $400 bulbs and you won't complain that the bulbs cost half the price of the unit.

 

[SJetski71]

Froogle has a few decent rated merchants selling them for around $300: http://froogle.google.com/froogle?b...+4805+replacement+lamp&lmode=online&scoring=p

You might get lucky on ebay, but personally i'd hold off on getting the spare bulb. This is because people often decide to skip the bulb replacement and upgrade projectors instead (selling the old projector unit on ebay would help recoup some of the upgrade costs, you follow?).

 

[RobsTV]

You leave out a very important part.
Would you like a $100 bulb that lasted 1000 hours?
$200 for 2000 hours?

These bulbs last 3000 to 4000 hours before the timer kicks in "time to replace soon" warning.
That does NOT mean bulb life ends at 3000 or 4000 hours.
Heck, if lucky, you might get 6000 hours on one of these.

The $16,000 Sanyo PLC-XF10 pj in our bar would be lucky to get 500 hours out of it's $500 bulb before performance dropped to poor levels. It could never make it all the way through one football season without changing. One year, after getting fed up with replacing these bulbs, we thought we would give the $1000 Infocus X1 a try. It is still going strong 3 years later on original bulb. The Sanyo PJ has been sitting unused on a shelf for 3 years, in need of the bulb replaced. I liked the X1 so much, a few months later bought one for home use.

So far my home X1 has about 2500 hours and 2 1/2 years on original bulb, and after cleaning, is just as good and bright as the day it arrived.

 

[Firewall]

See, that is the exact opposite that I have been reading everywhere else. Other forum members say they get less than the 3000 hours that the bulbs are rated for.

Does cleaning them a special way prolong life? How do you clean them?

 

[RobsTV]

See, that is the exact opposite that I have been reading everywhere else. Other forum members say they get less than the 3000 hours that the bulbs are rated for.

Does cleaning them a special way prolong life? How do you clean them?

(EDITED. Sorry, I thought 4805 was close enough to X1/4800, but it seems bulbs used are different. X1/4800 uses 150w bulb rated at 4000 hours. 4805 uses bulb rated at 160w to 200w and 3000 Hours.)

The original X1 bulbs had a suggested replacement timer that was set to go off at 3000 hours.
However, further real life testing showed that the X1 bulbs would last in excess of 4000 hours, so firmware was released which corrects the timer to now go off at 4000 hours. Specs now reflect this new 4000 hour number.

From X1FAQ:
"The lamp life is tested using the proposed ANSI method, which means that lamps are run in projectors for 2 hours on and then 15 minutes off, continuously, to try to mimic a typical use model"

There are 2 screen filters around the bulb that need cleaned.
I think it is recommended to clean them every 300 hours.
I clean mine about every 500 hours. Only takes a few minutes to remove and blow with air.
Heat is the enemy, and if the filters clog, bulb life will be greatly reduced.

How long is 3000 hours? About 4 hours every day for two years.
After getting my home X1 2 1/2 years ago, couple friends picked up the X1 as well.
Not any have had to replace bulbs so far with about 2 1/2 years on all of them.

To put costs in perspective, a typical Big screen rear projection TV has 3 CRT's with a lifespan of about 10 years. Replacement cost for the 3 CRTs P&L is about $1000. That works out to be about $100 a year for SDTV poor quality, and it actually starts to get bad after about 5 years. With DLP, you get a like brand new unit when you replace the bulb, so if you replace bulb for $300 every 3 years, you are much further ahead than rear projection CRT TV.

 

[RobsTV]

If you plan on cranking out the hours, you could always just purchase the 3 year unlimited usage extended lamp warranty for $199 (Part Number: ELW3), and hope the bulb fails before the 3 years is up.

 

[IDversusEGO]

had my x1 for over a year now, same bulb. when this one gives up the ghost I will be upgrading the projector. Of course, I only play xbox on it and watch movies and special events. It is not in daily use.