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Recently I purchased a new lamp due to mine dying. I installed it and all worked great. The other day I turned the tv off after watching for a while. About 3 minutes later my wife turned the tv on. She heard a "pop" and no picture would show.

The LEDs indicate a bad bulb. I sent the lamp back and it was deemed working fine. I need some help in figuring out if I should try the color wheel or ballast next.

Here are the symptoms.

1. Upon start up a "pop" was heard. Ever since no picture. (This is my wife talking so who knows what a "pop" is)

2. Upon turning on the tv the fan in the back turns on and a green led shows. The Lamp does NOT light up at all. I hear the tv turn on (the normal running sound) and I hear a click after a while. Kind of like something trying to do something. After a while I hear another click and finally the tv turns off and the 3 leds blink to indicate lamp not working. I removed the lamp and looked in at the color wheel and it DOES turn a bit but does not spin. It kind of turns once around and stops, then again, then again, etc. It never fully spins.

3. I took the inside apart to look at the color wheel and it is intact and seems to flow normally if I spin it with my hand. The ballast also looks ok, no capacitors look weird or anything.


My question is, how can I determine if its the ballast or the color wheel at this point? Based on my symptoms which makes sense? Should the color wheel be going at full speed first? Or is mine acting normal with just a few turns?

Is there anything I can look for physically?

Thank you for ANY help!!

The cycling of the Tv to ignite is almost always an indicator that the colorwheel has reached the end of its lifespan. This is one of the consumable parts inside a DLP that needs replacement at least once during your TVs life span. This is almost always indicated by a humming, maybe even screeching sound. since the spinning is interrupted im assuming thats when it shuts down and power to the ballast is cut, causing the lamp not to ignite am i correct? if so I would try the colorwheel first...
Hope this helps!