The ballast was pretty easy to bypass after some poking around with a multimeter.
***For those of you that are having trouble bypassing the ballast on any projector***
1 - Find the group of wires that come from the ballast to the main board.
2 - Power the projector on with NO lamp.
3 - Measure the voltages on all the wires connecting to the main board.
4 - Find the wire that is close to +3V
5 - Insert lamp (If you have one) and power on. Measure the voltage of this wire again. The voltage should be around 0V
6 - Connect the spot on the board where that wire connected to a ground on the main board.
This will bypass the lamps for 90% of projectors. It has worked for me on about 8 different models. All else fails just ground each wire and power on and see if the projector stays on. Remember that the wires coming from the board need to be grounded NOT the wires coming from the ballast.
This seems to be a frequent question/problem. Maybe this can be made into a sticky since commercial modding is getting popular.
***For those of you that are having trouble bypassing the ballast on any projector***
1 - Find the group of wires that come from the ballast to the main board.
2 - Power the projector on with NO lamp.
3 - Measure the voltages on all the wires connecting to the main board.
4 - Find the wire that is close to +3V
5 - Insert lamp (If you have one) and power on. Measure the voltage of this wire again. The voltage should be around 0V
6 - Connect the spot on the board where that wire connected to a ground on the main board.
This will bypass the lamps for 90% of projectors. It has worked for me on about 8 different models. All else fails just ground each wire and power on and see if the projector stays on. Remember that the wires coming from the board need to be grounded NOT the wires coming from the ballast.
This seems to be a frequent question/problem. Maybe this can be made into a sticky since commercial modding is getting popular.
Yes I believe they do. I will take more pictures with the boards removed so you can see the lay out of the panasonic. I measured voltage on the connector on the right, to be exact the left most white wire. It had 3.5 volts with lamp out power on, and 120 volts with the lamp in and on. When I tried to unplug the connector to attach jumper the lamp shut off. I tried to unplug the blue wired connector and lamp got brighter then shut off.
The blue wires are the main power for the fans and the main board. The ballast is what connects to the lamp the ballast should have a power in connector then 3 4 or 5 wires going from the ballast to the main board. There should never be 120V in those wires.
Try unplugging the connector from the ballast then shove a small pin or staple into the connector end and with each wire touch that to a known ground spot like a screw head. Power the projector on if it stays on then thats your wire.....if not move to the next wire.
The ballast will not power on with that wire removed but the projector should stay on with no errors when you find the correct wire.
Try unplugging the connector from the ballast then shove a small pin or staple into the connector end and with each wire touch that to a known ground spot like a screw head. Power the projector on if it stays on then thats your wire.....if not move to the next wire.
The ballast will not power on with that wire removed but the projector should stay on with no errors when you find the correct wire.
It worked!!!! Look at post 4 above to see small connector from ballast to main board. The white wire was the correct wire. The unit stayed on with no errors. As soon as I pulled the jumper off the unit showed the error. Now I just need to re lamp it, and so far I only have 50.00 in it. What lamp have you used on your projectors?
So if i understand this correctly if i bypass the ballast on my pj by grounding the correct pin or wire i can sub the bulb in the original housing and use it like the original, so do i have to have an alternative external power source to power the lamp seperately from the pj or it should power up from the same psu in the pj?
I am no expert! I bypassed the the main board not the ballast. In fact I removed the ballast alltogether. I removed the original failed bulb and installed a car lamp. Sadly not bright enough.but i will purchase a bulb and ballast from I think ymh for around 80.00 . That is what I recommend u do.
Yeah thats what i did too. I took out the ballast and poked around a bit. Found the correct set of wires. Then grounded each one. Pin 2 looked like it was right. PJ powers up, shows green LED like its running, goes past striking phase cause immediately after the color wheel spins and then its fine for a few seconds, but no picture. Its almost as though its fine and then all of a sudden its " oh wait, the lamp is bad" and then shuts off and gives me the replace lamp code...... Should i throw the ballast back in and keep the grounded wires off the ballast and see if there is some sort of sensor on the ballast that needs to run?
The ballast should be completly removed. Leave the connector plugged into the main board and unplug from the ballst. These are the ones that you work with. You can connect wires on the ballast all day long. The ballast might try to start but the projector gets no signal.
If you follow the guide step by step it will work.
If you follow the guide step by step it will work.