Project Project!

Lightbulb moment on a BenQ Projector

For some reason that escapes me at the moment, if only there was some media coverage, I seem to be at home more often than I was this time last year.

Perhaps then, it should have come as less of a surprise. While watching something educational and improving on YouTube, I heard an abrupt bang.

They often are, bangs.

I was instantly deprived the denouement to the Great Cassette Mystery. My projector, a BenQ W1070, had exploded. Or rather the bulb had.

To be fair to the little marvel of glass and gas, it had provided 4358 hours of entertainment. Some of those hours weren’t even James Bond or Bergerac related.

Time for that second most satisfying solo blokey pursuit, a repair.

Here’s the patient. Not looking too bad. It was bought in March 2015. The original bulb lasted until today, April 2020. Nothing to complain about.

I already had a spare too:

Now these are available either as the basic bulb, just like an old-fashioned domestic light bulb. Or, ready-fitted into a lamp unit. The latter makes replacement very simple, and is highly recommended.

It also costs more.

Guess which I bought? Right.

Start by removing one screw on the side and lifting this panel off.

Well, actually, start by airing out your room. A blown bulb may release very small amounts of potentially harmful gas. Let it disburse, like guests at one of Charlie’s garden parties.

Then…

Remove the clear protecting cover and unscrew the lamp unit retaining screw. This allows you to remove the lamp unit in one piece by pulling on the wire handle.

If you’d been sensible and bought a replacement lamp unit, rather than just the bulb, you would now simply drop in the new unit and be done.

But you didn’t, and neither did I. Hence there is a bit more work to do…

As you can see, the original bulb is no more. It has ceased to be. You know the rest.

Also, it left a lot of its innards scattered around the interior of the projector:

Clear these up, carefully.

Better still, don’t wait 4358 hours for a 2000-hour bulb to fail.

Then disconnect the wires by sliding off the spade connectors.

Subsequently, remove the metal lamp-unit case which is held on by two screws. This case seems designed to provide a means to collect flying glass fragments when the BenQ W1070 owner waits 4358 hours for a 2000-hour bulb to fail.

Finally, you will find two retaining bars holding the top and bottom lip of the lamp itself. These each have two screws.

Remove these and the bars, and the lamp will be free of the glass-strewn lamp-unit:

Clean all this up very carefully.

Now replace the broken bulb with your new one, using gloves if possible. Oils from your fingers may reduce the bulb’s life, according to internet lore. And you don’t want to be doing all this again right in the middle of Bergerac, Season 7.

Plus you get to wear disposable plastic gloves so that you can pretend to be a skilled doctor administering vital care.

Which you really really are.

The bulb attachment is a bit fiddly so it is easiest to replace the two retaining bars first, held loosely in place with their screws.

Then, remove one screw at the top left of one bar, pivoting it up to allow the bulb to seat. Replace that bar and tighten all retaining screws.

The bulb is now a functioning unit again, and ready to be replaced.

This, as Haynes taught us, is the reverse of disassembly. Make sure the spade connectors are on tight though, crimp them a bit if necessary.

Once that’s all done, switch it back on and if it looks okay, remember to reset the lamp counter back to zero hours.

Test with your preferred educational and improving content.

All fine for another 4358 2000 hours.