Why the cheapest lamp is not always the cheapest hour, and the one number to put on your spreadsheet.
Rated life (or average life) is the manufacturer's statistical figure for how long a batch of lamps runs before light output drops below a threshold. Warranty hours is the contractual figure: if the lamp fails before that, you get a credit. They are not the same. A lamp can carry a 3,000 h rated life and a 1,500 h warranty.
For purchasing decisions, the warranty figure is the one that matters, because it is the only one the supplier is on the hook for.
Divide the delivered price by the warranty hours. A USD 900 lamp with 1,500 h costs USD 0.60 per hour; a USD 650 lamp with 800 h costs USD 0.81 per hour. On a screen running 2,500 hours a year, the difference is several hundred dollars per projector per year — more than the price gap between the lamps.
Include freight and duty in the price, because those are per lamp, not per hour.
Most warranties are pro-rated: a lamp failing at 40% of warranty hours earns a 60% credit, not a free replacement. Ask whether the credit is against a new lamp only, whether the hour counter reading is accepted as proof, and whether early failures caused by lamphouse faults (cooling, over-current, reversed polarity) are excluded — they usually are.
Ask for the warranty in writing on the quotation, with the hours, the pro-rata method and the claim procedure. A supplier who will not write it down is quoting a lamp without a warranty.
Running above rated current, poor cooling, frequent hot restrikes, and operating a horizontal-burn lamp without the rotation the manual calls for will shorten any lamp's life. If lamps from several brands are all failing early in the same lamphouse, look at the lamphouse before changing supplier.
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