Commercial projector's Initial Lumens

[Led]

Does anyone know what the initial lumen rating is for commercial projector bulbs. Im talking about the ones that output like 4500 lumens when its all said and done and cost about $500. They are UHP I believe. I was just curious if these commercial projectors are super effecient or if the bulbs themselves just put out like a million lumens.

[jcbklyny]

The raw lumen output of commercial projector lamps can vary considerably from one unit to another. But in general the low end models (1000-2500 ansi lumen projectors) have lamps that put about from 13-30,000 lumens same as ours but they have a higher color temp (6-7500 k) and are MUCH smaller in size. There are however projectors that have lamps putting out MUCH more then that!

They are able to get brighter pictures then us because of the size of the lamp. The lamp pumps out upwards of 30,000 lumens from an arc gap as little as 5mm wide. With that size arc and outter bulb they can use much better reflectors and optics to capture and control almost all of the light emitted by the lamp and pass it through much smaller LCD's. The end result is a nice bright image.

We deal with monster sized lamps (even the 250's we use are large when compared to commercial lamps) and large arc gaps. So in the end we lose and waste a lot of light no matter how you slice it.




- JCB
www.diybuildergroup.com

[Led]

Thanks for the reply. You can't beat the price and longevity of these DIY projector lamps. I've already ordered one from atlantalightbulbs. Thanks alot!