NEC 900C Fan Exchange error

[Armand Daiguillon]

Hi all,

I was hoping someone could help with an annoying error.
On one of my NEC900C projectors I have my "red lights" on because the projector is showing an error on the keypad "fan exchange time".
I looked this up and found a reference on the old forum that it could be cleared through the DCC software. However that was for a model 2000 projector. The DCC for the 900C does not seem to have that info in in (logged in as service) Can someone tell me how to clear this on a 900C ? Its not interfering with the operation ... but having the red "trouble" lights on is unnerving.

Thanks !!

[Leo Enticknap]

Per NEC's service instructions, the fans should all be replaced after 20,000 hours of runtime. You should not clear the hours in the projector's memory if this has not been done. I know that a lot of people do, but you're rolling the dice in terms of your screen going down due to fan failure if you get into the habit of leaving the old fans in there and nuking the nag light.

After the fans have been replaced, you will need to open DCC, log in to installation or service mode (user and advanced user mode won't let you get to this page), then go to setup > reset > FAN, as so.

NC900_fanreset.png

Agreed that this warning should be an orange tail light, not red. IMHO, the red tail light should only be used to indicate that a significant function of the projector is actually broken; not that planned maintenance is due.

[Armand Daiguillon]

I had read in another post that although the projector is set to warn at 20,000 that the fans are actually rated for 100,000 - its something I will address properly after Covid.
Thanks for the help !

[Leo Enticknap]

The issue is more that the fans get clogged up with dust and crud than that they fail purely due to mechanical wear. The air filters will keep out a lot of it, but not all. Getting to some of the fans in the 900 requires a lot of fiddly disassembly, and once you’ve done that, it makes more sense to replace them than to clean the originals and put them back.

[Steve Guttag]

It would be nice if NEC had a "fan package" for each projector model that allowed one to get whatever they need with one line item rather than to have multiple shopping lists. NEC also jacked the prices in the not too distant past. With them being 3-wire (have tachs), getting replacement fans from alternate sources is more difficult.

[Leo Enticknap]

+1. We will assemble and ship a complete NC900 fan replacement kit as and when asked to by a customer, but it would certainly make our life easier if NEC did that, and we just had to put an order in for a single part number: especially as their own planned maintenance recommendation is that all the fans be swapped out at once.

Assuming that the end user can't do it his- or herself, the bulk of the cost for the NC900 fan swapout is labor. Depending on how much internal cleaning is needed during the disassembly process, it's a four to six hour job (for me at any rate: I'm sure Mark could do it in 30 minutes flat!), so add travel time to that and it's a whole day call. So of course it's not surprising that some users decide to roll the dice and only do it every 40k or 60k hours. I have had to deal with projectors that have shut down because of fan failures followed by overheating, but the cause of the fan failure was either a buildup of crud on the blades, or corrosion in a high humidity environment (especially in home theaters on the Pacific Coast Highway), rather than failure of the actual motor resulting from it simply having spun beyond its design life, as far as I could see.

[Steve Guttag]

Leo...so if you have an 5 plex of NC900s...do you just book the week to handle fans and cleanings? 30-40-hours of billable labor has to be a hefty bill (on top of the fans, lodging, expenses, presuming out of town).

I can't say we've had the fan crud build up that you have experienced. I'm sure it all depends on where that popper is relative to the projector. One of the objections I have to the NEC projectors is that they really are not designed for service. They are designed for "dig in" as in...whatever you need to work on, be prepared to "dig in." The notable exception for the larger projectors are the prism, which comes out relatively quickly. I'd like to take NEC engineers and tech support and throw them at a Barco and time them working the equivalent repair on the NEC versus the Barco and then ask them..."why can't you design your projectors like that?" One almost never has to "dig in" on a Barco...the signal backplane being a notable exception and, at least around here, a high failure item (ICP connection issues on their inadequate edge connectors).

[Leo Enticknap]

Agreed on both points. Because the baby NECs (the 900, 1000, 1100 and 1201) are such compact units, they cram a lot of components into a small chassis at such high density that the airflow has to be intricately managed, relying on a large number of small fans to keep everything at the right temperature. Any one of them breaking takes the projector down. It could be argued that a day of tech labor plus the fans every five years (a very rough figure, assuming fan swapouts per NEC's recommendation every 20,000 hours, and that the projector is powered up 10 hours a day, seven days a week) is not bad; especially given that, apart from lamp and air filter replacements, that's really the only planned maintenance it needs. But there is an element of sticker shock when the time comes.

Another +1 on the modularity of Barco projectors (and hence ease of disassembly) versus being confronted with a somewhat more messy sight when one opens up an NEC. As you say, the larger ones aren't that bad, but doing any component swapout on the smaller NECs (apart from the router board, which is pretty straightforward) is more challenging; especially a complete fan job.

We don't look after any 'plexes of smaller NECs: almost all of them we service regularly are in high end home theaters. But yes, if a 5-plex full of 900s had them all come due for a fan job at once, that would be a long job. I'd likely get quicker as I went through them, though: as with Atmos commissioning, I only have to do an NC900 fan job about twice a year, which leaves enough time to forget the procedure in between them, and have to re-learn it as I go along the next time. If I were doing five in one fell swoop, I'm sure I'd get quicker as I went through them. That was what happened doing Scheimpflug and convergence on a 10-plex of SP4Ks last year. The first one took me 2-3 hours until I was satisfied, but I was through with the last in under an hour.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Leo...so if you have an 5 plex of NC900s...do you just book the week to handle fans and cleanings? 30-40-hours of billable labor has to be a hefty bill (on top of the fans, lodging, expenses, presuming out of town).

I can't say we've had the fan crud build up that you have experienced. I'm sure it all depends on where that popper is relative to the projector. One of the objections I have to the NEC projectors is that they really are not designed for service. They are designed for "dig in" as in...whatever you need to work on, be prepared to "dig in." The notable exception for the larger projectors are the prism, which comes out relatively quickly. I'd like to take NEC engineers and tech support and throw them at a Barco and time them working the equivalent repair on the NEC versus the Barco and then ask them..."why can't you design your projectors like that?" One almost never has to "dig in" on a Barco...the signal backplane being a notable exception and, at least around here, a high failure item (ICP connection issues on their inadequate edge connectors).

I think the Japanese design philosophy is in general to cram in as much as possible into a little space as possible. You don't just see this with NEC equipment, but with many equipment designed in Japan.
It's maybe a little bit parallel to how many Japanese people live. There is just limited space and stuff is built as space-efficient as possible. Just like their houses: Tiny, efficient and often purpose-built, not necessarily to last for centuries.

Barco, being a mainland European affair, where space is far less an issue and where we like to build fortresses and stuff that's made to last... well, at least, that's how it used to be.

Regarding the Barco backplane issues: They should really consider swapping their backplane connectors in future series. Many network vendors have moved to so called "impact backplane connectors", which align themselves better and are much more reliable for high-bandwidth data paths.

The first one took me 2-3 hours until I was satisfied, but I was through with the last in under an hour.

Let's call it the Sliding Window of Expectations... when you start a job, it HAS to be perfect and once time starts to be a factor, "good enough" becomes the new standard...

[Dave Macaulay]

"good enough" becomes the new standard

I don't agree.
I had to build 24 more or less identical Simplex Millennia console systems at one site (not without help!), from consoles and platters in crates. With SDDS. The first one probably took hours figuring out the platter assembly, roller arms, the reader mounting and alignment, getting the film paths set up for the platter, and doing lamp, lens, and image setups. The last one went much quicker since I had everything figured out. I don't believe the last was any less "perfect" than the first, actually I had to go back and make some adjustments to the first few since I had gotten better.

With Digital, my first Barco light engine swap took way longer than I can do it now (mostly because the bewildering wire bundle and array of connections is familiar now)... and although faster my convergence and Scheimpflug alignment accuracy has only improved with practice.

Many jobs on NEC 900s will never get much faster because of the diabolical construction and terrible service documentation. Without a camera and compartmented parts tray, reassembly after some jobs would be near impossible. Luckily I haven't had to get into an 1100L since the training session at NEC. A 900 looks like a 6 piece toddler jigsaw puzzle beside the 1100L's 1000 piece one.

[Steve Guttag]

Scheimpflug on the SP4K was easy enough (not quite as straight forward as an S2 as they have taken to the Christie CP2210 style 3-location so you have a lot of one control affecting 2 others). Barco should also revise their focus green pattern (as I have...even for training) to put a lot of targets top-center. It is the convergence that is freaking impossible. Not because the controls are bad..they are better than previous versions with very fine adjustment and none of the torque issues...the problem is I haven't found a way to accurately see the alignment from the booth. The VCC-102's lens isn't good enough to show you want is going on...a set of high-dollar binoculars aren't good enough. Heck...as I walk to the screen it varies. So I found myself making a lot of trips to the screen for final judgement. I'd note what it looked like from the booth and "pre-compensate" in the hopes I nailed it from the theatre. RGB lasers play tricks on your eyes (and optics).

[Marcel Birgelen]

The VCC-102 was probably never built with laser systems in mind.

Yes, RGB convergence is a pain, as optics refract stuff differently than your eyes do. For RGB laser conversion you either need a lot of back and forth between screen and the booth or someone close to the screen who can instruct you. Even then, you'll see that convergence actually differs between people.

"good enough" becomes the new standard

I don't agree.
I had to build 24 more or less identical Simplex Millennia console systems at one site (not without help!), from consoles and platters in crates.

But the law of the Sliding Window of Expectations is inevitable, whether you agree with it or not.

But what you describe is that you started essentially a rookie, but your Jedi Projector-assembly skills quickly matured after days of training. :P

[Greg Routenburg]

The NECs may be a PITA to disassemble and reassemble but even including the labour they are far more cost effective to maintain VS their Barco counterparts. This is the price you pay for not needing to "dig in". Take a formatter failure for example. With a Barco you remove the light engine and put in a different one at a cost of many, many, many thousands of dollars and a total service time of 1 hr. With an NEC you spend maybe 2.5 hours of labour and less than $1K in parts that can be changed in the field. Sure it would be nice if the projector was a little roomier inside to facilitate the removal of the light engine but it's certainly not a deal breaker. It'd also be nice if they put and handle on the prism so you didn't need their little lifter tool. This is the same problem with any of the "modular" designs when it comes to parts but Barco and Christie have the most examples of any equipment I've ever serviced. You have a Christie coolant pump fail? You're replacing the pump, rad, tubing and connectors. You have a lamp explode in a smaller Christie or a Barco, you're buying the whole lamp house, not just the reflector. I'm not saying NEC is perfect but they really can't be beat for service cost with their individual service parts. Barco is realy great though for limiting down time if you have the budget to keep spare parts on hand.

As for doing a complete fan service, I've never replaced an NEC fan at warning time. In a clean booth environment with regularly changed filters, I"m comfortable letting them go 40K or 50K hours. At that point in a projector's life, I'm willing to spend a bit of time doing some TLC on it. Odds are, there are other things that need attending at that point anyways.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

The NECs may be a PITA to disassemble and reassemble but even including the labour they are far more cost effective to maintain VS their Barco counterparts. This is the price you pay for not needing to "dig in". Take a formatter failure for example. With a Barco you remove the light engine and put in a different one at a cost of many, many, many thousands of dollars and a total service time of 1 hr. With an NEC you spend maybe 2.5 hours of labour and less than $1K in parts that can be changed in the field. Sure it would be nice if the projector was a little roomier inside to facilitate the removal of the light engine but it's certainly not a deal breaker. It'd also be nice if they put and handle on the prism so you didn't need their little lifter tool. This is the same problem with any of the "modular" designs when it comes to parts but Barco and Christie have the most examples of any equipment I've ever serviced. You have a Christie coolant pump fail? You're replacing the pump, rad, tubing and connectors. You have a lamp explode in a smaller Christie or a Barco, you're buying the whole lamp house, not just the reflector. I'm not saying NEC is perfect but they really can't be beat for service cost with their individual service parts. Barco is realy great though for limiting down time if you have the budget to keep spare parts on hand.

As for doing a complete fan service, I've never replaced an NEC fan at warning time. In a clean booth environment with regularly changed filters, I"m comfortable letting them go 40K or 50K hours. At that point in a projector's life, I'm willing to spend a bit of time doing some TLC on it. Odds are, there are other things that need attending at that point anyways.

Absolutely spot on correct Greg! All the Nc-900's I installed are still in and going strong. I had a couple lens mount issues and one ballast fail out of 30+ projectors.

[Steve Guttag]

Greg, With Barco, you can change just the reflectors...you don't need to pitch the entire lamphouse on a lamp explosion. As for cost effectiveness, with NEC, you have to buy 20% more projector than you do with Barco and Christie because that is how much less light you get. Depending on the model and the part, prices for spares vary. The dreaded signal backplane on a Barco is actually rather low-cost...as are their igniters (Start Pulse Generators)...if Barco makes the part, it is normally "reasonably" priced...if they are just the OEM they are normally outrageously priced. Cinionic has really moved towards an extended warranty model. They've lowered their Extended warranty cost and jacked up the price of light engines. Barco also operates 24/7 with same-day service even on weekends/holidays. They also have many parts depots so yeah, if you need to get back up, Barco has the infrastructure. Note, too, Barco, with the extended warranty, include standard overnight freight for all failed parts.

As for NEC...absolutely, you can get most any part. Depending on the model you may or may not be able to get a formatter. If you have an NC2000C...nope...you are changing the prism out and their pricing is rough in that you pay the full-tilt price for the replacement prism and then...months later, they credit back the difference but you are floating over $20K US in the meantime. Fortunately, Strong, can do NEC prism repairs and has a MUCH more reasonable pricing strategy. I also give NEC props for NEC made parts...they rarely fail. I'm sure most of the NC900 ballast failures were the direct result of lamp failures taking the ballast out. But what ass-hat stacked the ballast like that with the one PCB mount absurdly done. Had they made them slide in/out, it would have cost them next to zero extra but would have made service a breeze. Also, who sharpens all of the sheet metal parts on the NEC projectors (that is something I find in common with most Japanese designed/built stuff...sharp sheetmetal). NEC has, in the last year or so jacked up their parts prices quite a bit. I was shocked at the price of an ICP fan for an NC2000C (it went up to about double of what it used to be).