One question we get fairly often is, “Can I buy a brighter lamp for my projector?” or, “My TV says it’s a 150 watt bulb. Can I buy a 200 watt bulb?”.
The answer is No. Thanks for reading!
Just kidding…
I take that back. Technically yes, you can buy a 200 watt bulb for your TV but it will definitely not be brighter. Front Projector and Rear Projection TV lamps are not the same kind of technology as an Incandescent lamp. When you put a new bulb in your desk lamp and want it brighter you would look for something with higher wattage and you would get brighter light. If the old bulb was a 75 watt and you screw in a 100 watt you definitely had more light so why not the same thing on a projector lamp?
Projector lamps rely on a dedicated power supply whose only job is to make sure the lamp installed runs at the proper power rating it is designed for. The projector lamp ‘takes’ power from the power supply. Where as an incandescent lamp ‘takes’ power from the wall socket. The projector lamps power supply is designed to run and supply the wattage the lamp is designed for.
For example. Your 200 watt Epson Brightlink 435Wi lamp has a power supply that pushes 200 watts of power to the bulb. If you put in a 300 watt bulb, the power supply is only going to feed 200 watts of power. That bulb will only put out 200 watts worth of light even though the rating is 300 watts. In some cases it may even put out less than 200 watts worth of light…
It is similar to stereo speakers. If your stereo has 100 watts per channel and you hook up 200 watt speakers, your stereo is not going to be any louder. You would need a stereo that put out 200 watt per channel to get more volume(not really that much more but this is about projector lamps so I won’t get into logarithmic increases).
This is why you cannot merely purchase a brighter lamp. Projectors are designed to run with the wattage lamp for all sorts of reasons. Mostly cost related but also image quality related. I have seen people who have installed higher output power supplies into projectors to get more brightness and the image looked washed out. The contrast suffered because the projector was designed for a certain amount of light to be pushed through and exceeding that caused the image to look poor.
Your best bet for having the brightest picture possible is to minimize light pollution in your “theater” room. Blackout curtains, putting black tape over the myriad of things with indicator LEDs.
The most important things are to make sure your projector is clean and your lamp is new. That will get you the brightest image every time.
Check out Pureland Supply’s whole series of Epson Lamps here!
