I forgot I even had this blog. I will try to keep it updated more frequently. As this is mostly about my hobby...here is the latest & greatest: I recently bid on, and won, a couple of DLP projectors. Just wanted a new, fun, project different than the normal arcade stuff I work on. Got these for less than $50 for the pair. They were advertised as "non working" so I expected the worst. When they arrived, I plugged one in and it came right up. Sweet! I plugged in the 2nd one and the power and lamp lights came on. Nothing else. I swapped the lamp with the good unit and it tested ok. That tells me that something else electrically was wrong. So, naturally, I tore into the unit looking to see if the power supply was good and if anything else looked bad. I had parts all over the place. Could not find anything wrong. I attempted to put it all back together. Luckily, everything was back in its proper place. Still had the same issue when plugged in. My next step was to do research on the web (probably should have done that first!) I found a forum where someone suggested resetting the lamp timer. I figured that would be fine if I had just replaced a lamp...after all, it's only a timer to let folks know when to replace the lamp. I found the service manual for the unit online and downloaded it. It mentioned that if the lamp light was on and a known good lamp was in the unit, then there was a lamp circuit failure and the unit should be sent in for service. It also mentioned that you should reset the lamp timer. I figured, what have I got to lose. I reset the lamp timer and I'll be darned if the thing didn't fire up. Perfect picture...nice and bright! So now I have two working projectors with great pictures. I tested it with my cable box to see how nice the pic would look on a wall. It filled up an 8 foot by 10 foot section of the wall with a fantastic pic. Once again...sweet!!! I love it when things work out! I will most likely keep one and sell the other on ebay. Hopefully, I can get some good $$$ for it. A new lamp alone runs $150. On to the next project.
