Projector Bulbs

Projector bulbs are something that people tend to overlook when thinking about purchasing a projector. Every projector has a bulb that will burn out sort of like a bulb in your lamps, but this one is a lot more expensive. The typical bulb can cost anywhere from $200 on the low end to $500 or more (the bulb for my Dell 4100mp was about $350 retail, but I got it for $250 on eBay). Although that does not sound that bad, it is if you burn it out often. How often will you burn out your projector bulb? This is determined by a few factors.

Projectors are typically for large groups or for home theaters and such applications as business meetings. This means typically they are intended to be used about 2 hours a day on average for the regular home or office consumer level projectors. The average life span for a bulb is in the neighborhood of 2000 hours. This means about three years of 2 hours a day average. This doesn’t sound that bad if you are talking about probably replacing the projector itself in three years anyway when it is time for a better model. What about those that se it a lot more than that though? This is the real kicker. I use my projector an average of 4 hours a day and so it only will last about a year and a half before it is very noticeable that I will need a new bulb. It gets dimmer and dimmer as the days go by until you will think that your projector has lost all of its light.


Bulbs are one of the biggest expenses for a projector after you have made the initial purchase and setup with the screen and therefore should definitely be something to consider when deciding to buy a projector versus another type of TV.