I am wondering, what is best for the lamp when rewinding? On or off? I turn it off when I rewind, but is it better to have constant juice to the lamp?

NO! Turn it of when not in use. It has a limited lifetime.

I know, but what made me think is my lights in my house. If I let it on, it last much longer than turning it on and off. That's why it's a stupid question (even though I said there are no stupid questions ;-) )

Does the ST1200 preheat the lamp? My old Eumigs do and that should prolong the lifetime.

No, no pre-heating. I think I only changed one or two bulbs on the ST-1200's, but my Sankyo Stereo 800, blows a lamp every 3-10 hours use. Thinking this might have a fault, cause it uses the same bulbs as my ST-1200 where they run for hours and hours.

Have you checked the voltage without the lamp connected. It should be a little bit higher than the voltage stated on the lamp. ( 2-3 volts )

I have been planning to, but not gotten around to it yet. It's a nice machine, so would love for it to be of use, but not if it blows lamps like it do now. I've bought some long life lamps, but want to check the voltage first.

DCT pre heats lamp, I've had what I thought was a dead lamp cleaned the pins with a small diamond file, and hey presto, a working lamp again, like it's been said arching in the holder can cause the pins to coat up.

Coat up in 3 hours? I have done what you say on a few old machines and you are right about those. But these are brand new lamps with few hours. I suspect the projector is ill :-/

clean blower as well, just a precaution

Blower? Fan you mean? I will check the machine hopefully nrxt week. Thanks

Vidar, switching the lamp on and off so many times will shorten its life for sure, are you sure it does not have the pre heat lamp setting on the machine ??, I thought it had maybe
I'm getting confused with the chinon 1200 which does have it, I will check for you I have the service manual . The sankyo machine is another issue, to blow lamps like that its
sounds like a voltage regulator is about to pack up. I think Janice had a problem with this very machine and that was power supply borne problem, but just check you have correct
voltage at pins, and its not too far above the lamps voltage, also check lamp holder, that's a 15v 150w lamp it will burn some juice there, make sure your not arcing those pin, it
burns through those connections, spraying switch cleaner won't cure a faulty lamp holder.

Hello Vidar, sorry but I have been out all day so I have come in late on this one.
Ok.. first of all what I will say is the Elmo is seriously disadvantaged to most later designed machines in that there is no provision made for pre heating the lamp.

Secondly, with the symptoms you are describing you really do need to take two courses of action:

1/ Check the voltage to the lamp isn't any higher than 15.2vac.

2/ change the lamp holder out for a new one.
Way before it becomes apparently obvious, the holders contacts become "sloppy" in their fit to the lamp pins. With it comes slight arcing, and with that comes excess current being drawn by the lamp circuit which not only drastically shortens the lamp life, but also plays havoc with the entire lamp circuit including the transformer due to the surge in current caused by the arcing.

Ps sorry Paul but I hadn't seen your excellent post when I began writing the above to vidar.

No Problem Andrew, a simple lamp holder change would sort out most of these problems. As you will know, the martin acro has a 24v 250w lamp in them much hotter and brighter
by far, and yet I have never changed a lamp holder in any of them, I have 5 of them. The holder has the Teflon type wires, slightly rubber feel to them, they don't play up and they
stand the heat and environment of a club fixture, fit and forget .

Yours are on the way Paul.;)) the Beaulieu lamp holder is as you have described above.

I purchased the last of the brand new old stock originals from Wittners for a fair amount of money for a lamp holder albeit a very good one.

Edwin Van Eck sells the same one for a fraction of the price I found out later.

Hi Vidar, just a quickie, I have a roof repair to do, but good advice from those chaps, apart from checking voltage coming through
the lamp holder, check the little voltage selector on the side of the projector to see if you are on the correct setting. These lamps
should give you more life than what you're getting out of them. A couple of handy hints that you might try, are, if you keep the machine
in an unheated room, especially at winter time, remove the lamp and place on a heater or stove for a couple of minutes, just to warm it up putting current through it, also, after your show, leave it to cool down before moving your projector, the filament is very fragile after
heat and can break easily. I got my late Dad a "lamp start" for his slide proj. which meant before switching on the lamp, you threw a switch on this little box, turned on the lamp for three seconds, then switched it back to normal, I don't know if it was beneficial because
the usage was sporadic, maybe once a week his slides and my Uncles would be shown on occasional Monday nights, both being keen photographers. I can't recall a lamp ever being put in that slide projector, I still have it, used it last year to view some, I have never changed a bulb in it either, so far. After a show, he would leave it running, the fan is auto, just to cool everything down before he moved it, that was in the mid '70s, so can't complain about lamp life there. Anyway, sorry for the ramble, but hope this helps, back to the slates.