I have to vent. Not that it'll solve anything.
I recently purchased one of these:
It's an Electrohome Marquee 8000 high resolution data grade video projector.
Actually, I bought TWO such projectors, but the other one hasn't arrived yet. I may need it for parts...
This is a very fine quality video projector that sells new for about 30,000 dollars for the exact model I picked up. I bought it via a government surplus auction for a few hundred bucks and had it shipped to me.
This is not your newfangled LCD or DLP projector, this is a CRT-based unit, which still is the technology of choice when it comes to displaying a top quality picture.
This is capable of displaying a higher resolution picture than is even possible with high definition TV at its maximum resolution. It'll display up to 2500 by 2000 pixels.
And it'll do it with remarkable picture quality. It can deliver a truly film-like image, given a suitably high quality source.
This monster weighs a solid 200 pounds.
I got it yesterday from the freight company, and before long I had it hooked up in the garage for checkout.
Everything works and it's in better shape than I'd expected. Looks almost new, actually, except for an exterior scuff or two. Internals are pristine. No failures noted or indicated, and the picture is quite gorgeous, given that I didn't have a proper screen set up in the garage.
So I decide to go ahead and get ready to mount this heavy bitch to the ceiling, replacing my smaller, lighter, but older and more primitive Sony projector.
Some measuring and figuring tells me what I have to do to mount this sucker. I do what I have to and get everything ready.
A friend of mine comes over to help with the installation, and a third person helps too, and that 200 pound bitch has us sweating and grunting, but we got it up and installed safely and without dropping anything.
Great. We feel like we've done a full body workout, but it's in place. So I hook it up and turn it on and...
DAMMIT!!! I've got a failure indicator that wasn't there yesterday!
I tried several things to reset it, but it has a persistent failure in the horizontal sync circuit, according to the failure indicator panel.
If I can't clear the fault tomorrow, we've got to take this 200 pound bitch BACK DOWN.
I can't even pull any boards out of it when it's installed in its current location.
Some days you just end up wanting to scream. This is one of those days.
Tomorrow may be better. I sure hope so. And I damn sure don't want to end up spending more money to fix this sucker.
Rant complete.
CJ