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

I've repaired 4 of these now (only 26 more to go). I've found a few things that may help others out. I picked up a desoldering iron from Radio Shack for $10, well worth it, gets most of the old solder out, not all but that is ok, read on. Make sure you have a separate good high wattage soldering iron. When I say high wattage, at least 45 watts. Reason being, when you heat up the contacts on the old cap, you do not want to be in contact with the board too long or you take a chance on burning the board. Once the old cap is out, it is a bit hard to get the new cap in while heating the contact holes....what I have done, take a regular size paperclip, and as you heat up the contact holes/solder, push the paperclip into each of the holes, working it back and forth so it doesn't get soldered in. The old remaining solder that I haven't been able to get out using the desoldering iron, will cool as the paperclip is worked in and out. Using the paperclip gives you perfect size holes to get your new cap installed and ready to solder in place.

I've got the same problem on my projo.  I've got the whole thing taken apart, and the power board removed and definately a bulging capacitor.  The problem i'm having, i cannot get the solder on the cap to melt.  I've got a 40 watt soldering iron and it wont melt the solder.  What am i doing wrong?

There is a great deal of dis-assembly to be accomplished to gain access to the failing component.  Also the removal of the failed capacitor would normally require a desoldering station or more damage could be caused due to the large ground plane that one of the leads is soldered to.  Resetting of the lamp counter will not correct this problem.  I highly recommend contacting an individual with solid skills in repair of electronic equipment.

I have the same unit and the same problem.  I just bought a new lamp from Dell and installed it but that has not fixed the issue yet.  I am going to try a thorough unit cleaning and see if that helps at all (read it in a post about a 4300MP with a similar problem and it seemed to work for that guy),

I replaced the capacitor, however, now I get a faint flashing orange light  on two indicators I am not sure if I might have gotten the capacitor in backwards- I could see no indication on the power board- does it matter?  (long leg vs short leg of cap) or do you think I just need to take it apart and check my soldering? 

Thanks for this forum!!

There is a polarity on the capacitor.  The stripe on the side of the capacitor indicates the negative terminal.  Also the short lead is the negative terminal.  This lines up with the white stripe printed on the one side of the circle outline indicating the placement of the capacitor on the power supply board.  Putting the capacitor in backwards will prevent the power supply from working correctly and could potentially cause other parts to fail.

I have 1000 capacitors that are rated at 3300 uF, 16VDC and are much better quality than the original capacitors.  They are special order from the largest electrolytic capacitor manufacturer in the world.  This does me no good since there is no way for you to contact me directly as Dell prohibits "solicitation". 

 I am an electronics engineer working for one of the largest producers of electronic drivers for LEDs.  I am essentially a power supply design engineer.  The failure of these power supplies in these projectors is a major design flaw.  The ripple current rating of the capacitor being used is not adequate and fails prematurely, as many of us have been victim to.  If these would have failed within the warranty period, Dell would have had a major problem having to fix all of them.  It was convenient that these happened to fail outside of the warranty period leaving them with the reputation of selling poor quality product.  I am part of a technology team that installed nine of these projectors in a high school.  All of them are failing for this issue.  I am in the process of repairing all of them.  We also use approximately sixty GX270 Dell computers in the school.  Of these sixty computers, so far ten have had motherboard failures due to electrolytic capacitor failures.  These motherboards also had to be replaced at our cost because they fell outside of the warranty period.  The technology team has determined that when it comes time to replace the computers and projectors that we will not be replacing them with Dell products.

I bought this projector used from a friend a few months ago with only 500 hours on the bulb.  The other night I got the same symptom (about 850 hours on it now) and stumbled upon this blog.  Following this advice, I carefully disassembled the projector and sure enough the 3300u 10v capacitor on the main power board was blown.  I got it replaced with the 16v version at a local electronics store for $15 and it works great!  Thanks for the posts everyone, saved me hundreds of $$$.  

Not worth buying a bulb coz that will cost you somewhere between  $200-300 and moreover you can get a new projector for $400-500 with one year warranty, even if you replace the bulb it wont work in 99% cases, the lamp drivers or the DC unit on the projector's probably gone bad......its better you buy a new one and dont try to fix this.......

krish

Had this unit for 3 years. 250 hours used and it is dead. Blinking orange lamp light. Tried Dell support. transferred to 2 or 3  techs that I could not hear because of poor phone connections. Had to ask the tech to speak up several times. After being transferred  a couple of times and having to give the same information each time, only to be told that I had to take it to a 3rd party repair shop.... That's it !!!! I asked for a phone number for a shop in my area. Placed on hold for unreasonable amount of time. I just hung up. With all the people that are having the same problem with this unit, you would think Dell could offer some type of fix for this problem that will not cost near half the purchase price. I have a personal and business account with Dell. I recommended Dell for several businesses...NO MORE. Going back to HP.

Look on Fixya_com for 1800MP failures.  There is a guy there who will repair it for you for $40 plus shipping.  Seems a lot of people are using him.  He has repaired 40+ projectors with the failed capacitor problem. 

Dave

If any of you  guys have this problem in India,Pls mail me on I can fix this issue positively.

Samir

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I replaced the capacitor and now the unit turns on with blue lights, but the lamp does not come on at all. The navigation lights will also be solid blue which turn off for 3 seconds some times. Finally, after a minute or so, all the solid blue lights turn off and the LAMP light turns to solid orange.   I had just replaced my lamp and there is no way I came close to it burning out.  Is it possible that my lamp blew as well or I put the unit back together improperly?

I've got the same problem as ilovett.  Just finished replacing the capacitor and getting it all back together, and now when I power it up the navigation lights flash for a while, then turn off and the lamp light shows solid orange.

Anyone know what could be going on?

Thank you, SROGERS573!!!  I found the capacitor you mentioned, tested it and confirmed was defective, although it did not appear to be.  Changed it out, actually to a 3300mfd 35V, and all works well!  Thanks a lot for the help!

would you by chance have a photo of the bad capitor on the motherboard, still learning, and i wouldnt mind saving some bucks since i bought a new lamp.