A projector is an 'indoor' display equipment. Thus, educational institutions in India never considered the outdoor environment when choosing them. That is now changing. The reason - India's terrible air pollution situation.

Almost every Indian city is confronting this burden of air pollution. Higher educational institutions, including those implementing smart classroom technologies, are also located in and around cities. It is a health hazard for students. It also increases the breakdown risk of display equipment, particularly projectors. Storms, industrial activities, transportation, or even particles in education environments cause dust. Dust reduces the lifetime of projectors and inflates maintenance costs. Dust is the main source of damage to all projectors. Thus enter, dustproof classroom projectors to ensure reliability in a severe dust environment.

When air pollution was not a factor, choosing classroom projectors was easy. Educational Institutions would choose the lowest cost bidder amongst at least 3 vendors. It was a short-term, expedient approach.

Dusty playgrounds and the habit of opening classroom windows increased the concentration of harmful dust in indoor environments and the resulting impact on projectors. Dust increased maintenance costs and the total cost of ownership (TCO), which is an important factor in making a projector purchase decision.

Dust accumulation on internal parts of the projector caused image blemish, thermal issue, signal detection failure, brightness and color decay. Dust accumulation on color wheel sensor caused flickering, abnormal color and shutdown. This disturbed classroom lessons and teaching quality suffered.

To address the above dust problems, educational institutions currently take the approach of regular maintenance. While preventive maintenance of projectors would be useful, it is reactive maintenance which is the norm. Reactive maintenance is expensive because of both direct and indirect costs (classroom interruptions). The severe dust environment under which classroom projectors operate, no form of maintenance is a long-term solution.

A truly durable solution to this ‘dust’ challenge of projectors, is to install projectors that reject dust ab initio. Only dustproof classroom projectors can achieve this. Dustproof projectors can deliver tremendous learning impact in interactive classrooms, lecture halls and school meeting rooms.  Let us look into it.

Sealed optical engine

A dustproof projector's design keeps the dust away from all optics. In a DLP projector, the sealed design protects the chip, color wheels and light components. This eliminates color wheel sensor failures, visible spots on images and color decay.

Dust filters

ilters can prevent 90% of PM10 level particles such as pollen. Double filter layers can also block chalk residue and particles up to PM2.5. Filters achieve the required dust protection without restricting air flow. Filters that have built in timers remind users on replacement and reset.

Advanced color wheel sensor

Color wheel sensors with anti-dust accumulation feature resist dust buildup by repelling dust. Some dustproof projectors also use a hall sensor. Hall sensors utilizes magnetic signals for timing and resist dust accumulation. Even in severe dust environments, hall sensors are powerful to distinguish colors, thereby delivering precise alignment and uninterrupted projection.

Dust Guard technology BenQ projectors pass a series of tests in a simulated environment with large amounts of fine dust, soot, and milled cotton lint. This delivers pristine performance with high airflow not only in classrooms but even in hazardous dusty environments.

BenQ DustGuard technology 

All BenQ DustGuard projectors support the above design. Moreover, BenQ DustGuard projectors pass a series of tests in a simulated environment with large amounts of fine dust, soot, and milled cotton lint, providing certified protection equal to the international dustproof protection rating of at least IP5X or better. The DustGuard technology eliminates color decay via a sealed optical path design and delivers pristine performance with high airflow, extending projectors’ lifetime while reducing maintenance frequency by 1/3 compared to other projectors.

With the professional dustproof solution for the education sector, BenQ ensures reliable projector performance in smart classrooms, offering low TCO to maintain teaching quality while saving on maintenance costs.