I replaced the shattered color wheel on my 61″ Samsung HLN617W DLP television using the excellent instructions at http://www.jangro.com/items/samsung-dlp-replace-color-wheel/.

A shattered Samsung HLN617W DLP color wheel

A color wheel is six separate pieces of glass attached to a hub through which the light from the lamp is cast. The wheel spins insanely fast, and over time the bearings wore and it developed a wobble. Once the wobble became pronounced enough, the wheel tore itself apart. I should have known something was up, because the TV had been making a sound like a vacuum cleaner for a few months.

A shattered Samsung HLN617W DLP color wheel (closeup)

While the lamps on DLP sets are easily accessed, replacing the color wheel requires tearing the guts out of the thing. Still, if you’re comfortable with electronics, you shouldn’t have too much trouble with it.

I like DLP, even though the components are subject to wear and replacement, because you don’t get much more analog than using a high-pressure mercury-vapor metal halide arc lamp to generate a pretty intense beam of light, sending that beam of light through a mechanical spinning color wheel and then scattering it with a reflective micromirror chip against a surface.