Dell Projector 1800MP Lamp light/Power bottom Blinks orange and wont turn on at all!!

I changed the capacitor yesterday, and presto, back from the dead :emotion-2:

I believe this solved the problem for several of us, and we all owe srogers573 a big thank you!

It also goes to show how ignorant Dell is in their tech support, forcing people to toss a relatively new and expensive unit for such a minor fault.

Yeah too bad DELL removes websites, me and srogers573 could fix all of your projectors... oh well

I wonder if Dell will bother to take responsability for this...

Well thanks again, yet another faulty capacitor, and would have never figured it out without this post!

Thanks for the suggestion to change the 3000uf capacitor!   I did so but the projector still does not work.

Before the change, the Lamp light blinked rapidly, with a very brief  ON time at about 1 second intervals.

The capacitor was bulging.   I replaced it with a 16V 3300uf.  I was careful about polarity.

After the change, the Lamp light blinks slowly, about 50% duty cycle with a period about 2 seconds.

So the capacitor changed something, but the projector is still not working.  The manual says,

"If the LAMP light is blinking orange and Power light is solid blue, the system has failed and the projector will automatically shut
down. Unplug the power cord after 3 minutes then turn the display on again. If this problem persists, contact Dell."

This is the symptom now.   I'm pretty sure all cables are back in place--at least there's nothing dangling and all screws are accounted for.

  Any suggestions?

Yea, you used a 16v instead of a 10v, I bet you cooked it good. It you had used a 10v whatever-uf you would have been better off...

Sorry but that is not the way it works.  The voltage rating on a capacitor is it's maximum operating voltage.  So by using a 16 volt instead of the 10 I have allowed enough operating margin that it should not fail again.  The original design spec of 10 volts was insuffient and therefore caused premature failure.

Though I have not had this symptom, the fact that things changed following your repair you should recheck all your work especially the soldering and connections.  What are the symptoms of leaving the bulb out with the cover in place?

Removing the bulb gives the same symptom: slowly flashing orange Lamp light.   Interesting that the projector knows if the lamp cover is in place or not.

My ohmmeter says infinite resistance across the lamp leads.   But that's probably okay, this is not an incandescent bulb.

The manual says a broken lamp gives a solid orange light.

The lamp is a mercury vapor lamp and will read infinity to an ohm meter.  I am unaware of any way to test the bulb short of putting it in another projector.  There is a switch that monitors the cover.  It is connected to the main supply board tworads the center by a smal two pin plug.  I found this plug to be somewhat difficult to reach.  I wish I could help more but this is the limit of my experience with this projector and there is very little out there to help in troubleshooting Dell projectors. www ssrogers dot net.

So what type of skill set do you need to make this fix, and can we get the part at the local tech store?  Any special tools, or quick plug in option?

This is confirmation that the capacitor replacement has fixed the problem.

Last week I reported a slowly flashing orange light after replacing the 3300uf capacitor on the power supply board.  This was because I had failed to reconnect one small ribbon cable on the top board.

Thanks to those who chimed in and especially to the first person to spot the bulging capacitor and others who confirmed the fix.   Remarkable find!

It is great to hear that you were able to get your projector up and running.  It looks as though my post on the failed capacitor has helped many save the cost of a major service bill or replacement.  I am glad that so many have found it useful.  www ssrogers net  If you insert the periods into the spaces this is my website.

I am re-posting my reply to justjam.   Dell's automated posting filter removed it because it used the word "solder s.u.c.k.e.r" which it flagged as " language that [they] believe to be harassing, unlawful, or otherwise objectionable."

An experienced electronics technician should not have a problem.  As an amateur, this was much hairier than I expected because you have to disassemble about four layers of external plastic case, internal metal housing, two circuit boards, and the power supply assembly.    Courage!    Go slowly and deliberately.    Keep track of the screws and where they came from.  Take pictures if you have any doubts.  It took me over two hours the first time.  Once you know what you're doing, I think the whole job could be done in 45 minutes.  

Thanks to the person earlier who gave the tip about unscrewing the VGA nuts.   There are a couple of other things of this nature inside.

Tools:   phillips screwdriver; blade screwdriver (mostly for gently prying things); a couple of small pliars; soldering iron; solder ---remover---.

I found that my low-end soldering iron didn't get hot enough to remove the capacitor.

The 3300uf 16V capacitor should be available anywhere.  You need 13mm diameter.    Last week Jameco was out of 16V so I bought 25V and this was listed at 13mm diameter but was actually 16mm, which does not fit.