Recently I purchased a second-hand projector from someone. It was "dropped" and the plastic casing was broken, I repaired the plastic casing and disassembled everything to make sure there are no visible damage.
The original owner said, when he dropped it...the ribbon cable for the connection between the motherboard and the input/output on the top of the projector was ripped. It used a 24 pin flat ribbon type cable and I replaced it, it is now functioning.
The projector still does turn on the lamp. I'll provide you the boot up sequence:
-Plugged it in.
-Pressed the power button
-(*)Power button turned on solid blue. All light indicators turns on as it is normal operation.
-Delay 3 seconds
-Fan turns on, I feel the air blowing through the lamp location and a suction close to the lenses' left side (if you are looking directly head-on the projector).
-The fan stayed on around 5-10 seconds, then the entire system turns off except the power button, it still remained lit.
-It repeated from (*) for 3 times
-During the 3rd restart, it stayed on and you can't turn it off by pressing the power button. The power button stayed lit blue, but the "LAMP" was flashing amber.
-Unplugged it to turn it off.
In the Dell's Manual, the power button solid blue while the "Lamp" is flashing amber means the system had failed and will shut down. It never shut down on it's own.
Here's the diagnose I performed:
-Bought a new lamp to test (same result, no change)
-Tested the PSU with multimeter, the output from the PSU to ballast is 400V
-Tested the voltage in the ballast, variable voltage. (24V, 63V, 116V, 13V, 8V, etc)
When I took the cover off to see if the color wheel works, I pressed the power button. The color wheel turns slightly to a specific location and jerks back and forth at around 2~5 degrees angle both ways. I turned off the projector and spun the color wheel, it seems to move freely. It spins around 3-5 seconds before stopping.
What do you think the problem is? I don't want to invest too much in it.
Thank you.
