Introduction
This is an interesting question. When I first got my projector I noticed that it took around 15-20 seconds to fully power up. I didn’t think much of why it had to do that because I knew all projectors had to do the exact same thing. What I didn’t realize was that there is actually a very deliberate purpose to having a slower boot up and cool down time. It’s not just an unintended result of how the lamp receives light from the internal hardware. It’s actually been programmed to be a feature of all projectors.
You don’t see this happening with TVs or monitors, and some projectors have a longer warm-up time than others. You’ll even find that it’s not dependent on the quality of the product nor the size. It seems that all projectors have this going on.
This article will help you understand some of the reasons why. You’ll find that there are more scientific reasons than anything else.
So why do projectors need to warm up?
All projectors need to warm up so they can have a longer bulb life. Standard bulbs often fail as soon as they receive an immediate spark of electricity (these ones never make it to the shelf of Walmart or Costco). This warm-up feature allows them to have as long a bulb life as possible. Also, giving projectors a brief warm-up period helps them establish an accurate color projection. They aren’t able to immediately display the image from your media player until they reach a certain temperature (not room temperature).
There’s even a cooldown period once you turn them off for the same reason. If projectors turned on in the same, expeditious manner that regular light bulbs did, they would have an infinitely shorter bulb life and would need to be replaced more frequently. This control feature is actually companies doing their due diligence to give people a product that lasts for years to come and will have thousands of hours of bulb life. This feature is not a shortfall in technology, but rather a considerate implementation to make projectors last longer.
Replacing a projector bulb isn’t as simple as it sounds. You have to send it back to the manufacturer because they have to do it for you. It’s also a couple of hundred dollars depending on the model and company. That’s why projectors come with these power-up features so they can last as long as possible before they burn out.
All projectors make a humming sound, but that doesn’t mean they’re defective
When you press the power button on a projector, you’re hearing the fan as soon as it turns on. That noise isn’t the rest of the hardware trying to get the light bulb to turn on or work properly. It’s important to keep that in mind because it’s easy to think that it’s working too hard to project light when it’s really just doing its job.
I haven’t seen any projector that has absolutely zero fan noise. They all make the same humming sound and the volume depends on a couple of factors. Again, there’s nothing wrong with this unless you start to get super annoyed by it.
The fan noise loudness really depends on how hard the projector has to work to maintain the proper temperature without getting overheated. This factor alone is why projectors are loud or quiet. The quality of the projector is a factor that relates directly to this. A budget projector will have to work harder to display images and as a result, will probably sound louder than a more optimized one.
Projectors don’t take that long to warm up
Most projectors take up to 30-40 seconds to reach full brightness and functionality. This isn’t long at all and I would even like to mention most models can power up in as little as 20 seconds or less! My Epson projector takes about 30 seconds to power up. I could definitely start using it a lot sooner than that when it’s still a little dim. But I don’t find this to be a long wait time to start using it. First-time projector buyers shouldn’t worry about this aspect at all. You get accustomed to it and you won’t mind waiting a few moments for it to do its thing. Only really old models take exceptionally long to the point where impatience occurs!
I strongly recommend giving your projector the full length of time needed for it to power up. As mentioned before, this helps you ensure you’ll get the longest battery life possible. Furthermore, you should never unplug your projector to get it to turn off faster! That’s one of the more effective ways to kill your bulb life in the long run! If you plan to transport it, make sure you leave it off for at least 30 seconds before pulling the plug. They’re not as plug and play like TVs are. Projectors need to be handled with a lot more care, even if they’re not as big as a TV.
Related Questions
What do I do if my projector is too loud? There’s a couple of reasons you might be experiencing this. What you’re hearing is the fan overworking itself to keep the temperature of the projector down. I wrote a useful article that specifically covers this question here. It really comes down to where you put the projector and how well it’s able to ventilate heat.
Why does a projector have to generate heat? In order for a projector to produce light, it also has to generate heat. I’m not a mechanical engineer, but my research on this concluded that heat is what also helps the projector display the full range of colors on the color wheel. The color wheel begins to spin constantly at start up, and can continue doing so as long as it stays at a certain temperature. This is also why all projectors will have a little bit of fan noise. They do a great job at regulating their internal temperature so they also don’t get too hot.
My projector takes more than a minute to warm up, is this normal? It depends on how old your projector is. The most common way to determine if you will need to replace your bulb in the next year is when you notice it’s taking more time to warm up than it used to. The best answer is to call the manufacturing company because they’ll know their product better than anyone else.
Conclusion
Projectors have a warm-up and cool down time for a specific reason. Hopefully, his article helped you understand more as to why that is. It’s not something that should interfere with your home theater experience. I definitely think projectors are a better option than extremely large TVs for home theaters too. From my experience, fan noise and projector warm-up time is such a small aspect of my entertainment center. If you don’t have a projector yet and this was a question than came up, I can personally attest to the fact that you get used to this feature. It’s really not a big deal and reviews that complain about warm up time don’t do justice to how enjoyable a projector is.
I also highly recommend taking a look at my article above on how to reduce fan noise on a projector. It’s a related topic that’s worth looking into if you really don’t want to worry about your projector getting too loud or too hot. They can actually heat up a small room quite a bit if you leave one on for a while.
Thanks for reading this article! If you have any questions comments, feel free to reach out at entertainmentden.ns@gmail.com and I’ll do my best to respond! I’m also taking article suggestions or topics so be sure to send those over if you have any. Thanks again for reading and be sure to check back regularly for new articles!
