One of the thing that really burns many of us up is the cost of replacement lamps. Why are they so dammed expensive? Some of us have been around long enough to understand why, others of us have been around long enough to understand it and still wonder if were all being taken for a ride, and some of us simply just don't know and this article is for them. This is only one link out of many that will help you on the way to understanding what goes into creating common replacement lamps found in many current projectors. I have posted a paragraph below but click the link at the end of the article if you desire to read about it more indepth.....
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"As for why specialty Projector Lamps cost so much?
LCD projector lamps (also called LCD projector bulbs, LCD projector modules, data projector bulbs, data projector modules, or video projector bulbs) are highly specialized lamps with a high cost of production and development.
Many things contribute to the high cost of projector lamps, in this particular case, Philips invested hundreds of millions in the development of the UHP lamp and, of course, they want a return.
UHP Projector lamps are made of borosilicate glass and fused quartz. Quartz is hard as a rock at the melting point of iron (1535 degrees C). Steel tools melt before quartz gets workable. And you need torches using oxygen to get hot enough - a regular Bunsen burner or even a "MAPP" gas blowtorch from a hardware store is not hot enough.

And if you have the heat and the tools, there is still another problem - quartz has a narrow plastic range of temperature. The temperature needed to get quartz barely as soft as taffy or frozen chewing gum is only a few dozen degrees short of making quartz liquid enough to pour. Quartz is trickier to work than glass and glassblowers that can work quartz will not be working for minimum wage!
Although we are in a world of mass-production, many steps of the UHP Lamp manufacturing process still are hand-made by a skilled craftsmen and will cost many times the cost of a mass-produced lamp.

Production machinery that can mass-produce quartz lamps is so expensive that only lamps that will sell in huge quantities (hundreds of thousands) can be made economically by such machinery. Otherwise it would cost even more to get the machines made and set up than it would be to hire those highly skilled glassblowers.
If you have a specialty ARC lamp design that would use the same bulb and the same leads as a lamp that is in mass-production, then maybe you could make a deal with an existing lamp manufacturer. (Expect a minimum production run of thousands - perhaps many thousands - of lamps at a price at least a few times that of a mass-production lamp in order to make it worthwhile to the manufacturer.)"


http://www.ercservice.com/lamps/philips/PhilipsUHPLamps.html

Thanks for the response. I think all points of view should be considered. For some time now I have felt the same way you do. Over time I am not so sure anymore. I have done a great deal of research on this in the past and I am sort of torn both ways. This one link I provided was the first one that had enough info that I fell upon yesterday, and it certainly doesn't tell the whole story. Other sites I have visited have explained in much better detail what goes into making these lamps and I was suprised to say the least at some of what I discovered. I have seen educational videos even of the process and the one thing that I think really does prove true is that some of it really has to be made by hand, it's not an assembly line sort of thing, and anytime that's the case with any consumer product it usually means a great deal more expense to buy it. If you consider that projectors were starting at $12,000 and up just a few years ago no one expected that the prices of those would drop dramatically like they have. Another point of view is considering the possibility that the sales of projectors could be much more profitable if lamp prices were lower as well because I have read more times than I can remember where someone would have purchased a unit had the lamps not been so expensive. Certainly if lamps were 25 bucks to replace or some such number certainly projectors sales would increase 10 fold, so the excessive cost of replacement lamps is a strong deterrent for those thinking of making a projector purchase. And if the lamps were actually cheap to make then why not sell them cheap. Projector manufacturers would only stand to sell many more projectors. So from a business stand point it makes very little sense to sell the projector cheaply but not the lamp. Pointing out printers is a good example, however printers are becoming something most of us depend on, so of course they know they can jack the price of ink cartridges sky high and we will have no choice but to pay the price. Not so with projectors. With the exception of business applications perhaps, we don't need to depend on projectors anywhere near the way we do on printers. Big business clealry is able to see the difference and their smart enough to do what ever it takes to make the biggest profit. So in closing I ask this question..."If projector lamps really are cheap to make why wouldn't manufacturers sell them cheaply when they know they could increase their profit margins dramatically by doing so?". It's the one question that has always baffled me but the more I learn about lamps the more I am beginning to think that maybe they really are not all that cheap to make.

hey RunAway...perhaps we should wrap ourselves in tempurpedic mattresses before getting too near to mooses ?

i think the cheaper prices may be due to manufacturers other than philips producing the items in question, thereby sidelining the development costs, but at the same time, i think we all know that manufacturers charge as much as they possibly can, for as long as possible

personally, i broadly agree with Natja, but at the same time, i think that although philips should be applauded for their r&d successes, i doubt that they couldn't have matched uhp output with leds, if they'd spent all that money on them in the first place

similarly, if nasa had REDIRECTED its efforts it could have achieved so much more than it has think of Burt Rutans' approach, these things do leave me with a cynical and conspiratorial perspective, whether it's a $5,000 dollar sawn down allen key for fighter jets, or a white elephant lamp, we're being played for suckers

big makers love a nice 'consumable'

really love 'em

overall, i think that there are genuine efforts to make things look difficult, lest we just do them for ourselves