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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: NEC Fan Error Code "220"??
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
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Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 08-09-2016 03:23 PM
AC ON is "Fan 6". It runs ANYTIME that there is power to the projector...including in standby. So it will burn up the time but if you look at the RPMs you'll likely see that you are fine. NEC conservatively puts the error out at 20,000 hours. The MTBF on that fan is 80,000 hours. So you are likely fine for another 20,000-40,000 hours.
Fan 6, by the way is the lower of the two fans that reside behind the front filters. It is blowing on the card cage (something has to keep those cards, enigma, IMBs cool in standby).
As for error codes, they are in the manuals.
To reset the fan, go to the "LAMP" section of the DCC and you'll see the buttons in the lower right for clearing such things.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
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Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 07-19-2017 09:52 PM
I've only been a service tech for a month and a half, but have already encountered this twice! Scares the hell out of the owners of the projectors, because it also gives you a red tail light. Ironically, one of them is at my former workplace as a projectionist...
Error codes are in the service manual, and NEC also have a site that allows you to search for them, as so:
![-](http://www.film-tech.com/uploads/uploads0503/NEC_AC_fan_error_220.jpg)
But I'm afraid you have to be an employee of an authorized service partner to register on and have access to it.
I've also been told by co-workers who have been taking these machines apart for many years that the actual life expectancy of the fans in NEC projectors is way longer than NEC officially advises and recommends replacement at. You could decide to take the risk and simply reset the fan hours without as much as taking a panel off. But if you do that, the logs will show that you did it, and if you later need to make a warranty claim for a seriously expensive part that goes bad, I guess you could be asked to prove that the fan(s) were actually bought and installed in order for that claim to be honored.
I'm guessing that one part of the equation is how regularly the air filters have been replaced. If they've been swapped out with every bulb, the airflow through the projector should have stayed pretty good and excessive strain on the fans avoided. But if the filters have been allowed to become plugged up, gross and disgusting, the fans will have been straining against a partial vacuum, with all the stress on bearings and motors that implies.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
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Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 07-22-2017 02:06 PM
Maybe the expensive NEC warranties are because, as you say, these projectors have such a good reputation for reliability that a relatively small proportion of the overall risk pool buys them, and those that do, buy warranties for older projectors and are thus more likely to make a claim? Without wanting to stray too much into politics, it's the same underlying problem as with Obamacare: healthy people aren't buying the policies (despite the tax penalty), so the overall risk pool is smaller and higher.
I once heard the argument (could have been on the Clark Howard show, but can't remember), that for extended warranties on autos, the price/reliability relationship is the opposite to the one you'd instinctively expect: as a general rule, cars that are more reliable cost more for extended warranties. So very few people buy one for a Honda Civic, and those that do are doing so for a specific reason that puts them at higher risk of a claim: they know that they haven't maintained it very well, they use it in a way that puts a lot of strain on it (e.g. lots of short journeys starting from cold), etc. etc. But at the other end of the scale, BMWs and Subarus have such high breakdown rates as a proportion of the total number of units in service that a much higher proportion of owners want to cover themselves with an extended warranty, and so a lower proportion of the total warranties sold ever have a claim made against them.
Agreed on the importance of regular replacement for media block batteries, and it's not just GDC. I had a weird issue last week: Barco DP2K-15C / DSS220 / cat745. Theatre called: server wouldn't connect to IMB. To cut a very long and convoluted story short, it turned out that both the projector's signal backplane and the cat745 IMB had gone bad. The guy at Barco I spoke to thought that the problem could have started with an IMB battery beginning to die and causing weird things to happen between the IMB and the backplane. It kinda makes sense: the server could communicate through the cat5e link wire (so pinging 130.1.1.1 locally from the DSS220 did get a response) but not through the backplane of the projector. After the backplane was replaced, the projector showed an IMB physical tamper error after the service door tamper had been cleared, and so the cat745 had to be replaced as well to get that screen up and running.
There was no low battery warning in Show Manager or the server logs, though. That having been said, that IMB had been in service for five years, and I didn't look to me like the battery had ever been replaced.
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
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Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 07-22-2017 05:22 PM
You are mistaken Stephen! The CAT745 DOES have a changeable battery. There is a cover over the battery and a temporary battery holder right next to it. You put in the coin battery while changing the main one. Once the main one is finished, remove the coin battery and move on to the next one.
Perhaps you are thinking of the CAT862.
I don't think the NEC extended warranty is excessive for what it is as compared to other manufacturers. In general, if you are single or twin, then a projector warranty makes quite a bit of sense (long term). Odds are, before that projector gets to be 10-years old, you are going to lose something on the light engine/prism (stuck pixel, even) and the cost of replacing that/down time while being repaired) will be offset by the yearly warranty price. If you have an NC900, it isn't a matter of if, but when something in that unit craps out.
Once you hit 3 screens, the cost benefits of extended warranties start to diminish and for 4 and up, you are better off owning your own parts source or even a spare projector to be put on line in an emergency (perhaps the NC1000). The annual cost of a lot of extended warranties far exceed the cost in parts.
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