CPSC, Panasonic Corporation of North America Announce Recall of DLP Projector

Recall Insight

This CPSC action (record #05604) was formally reported on September 30, 2005. It is classified under Moderate severity, with a current status of Active. Panasonic Corporation of North America, of Secaucus, NJ is listed as the recalling firm. Federal records indicate 21 units are affected.

The documented reason for this recall is: If the lamp drive circuit touches the shield case, the unit is not grounded and, if a person were to contact metal terminals at the back of the unit, there is a potential for electric shock. Distribution information was not included in the agency filing, so consumers should assume broad potential exposure until the firm publishes point-of-sale details. The remedy documented by the agency is: Customers should stop using the projectors immediately. Panasonic will contact each customer to arrange for a repair and retrofit at no cost to the customer. — consumers holding this product should act on that instruction rather than relying on general guidance.

To put this record in context, PlainRecalls indexes 83,949 recalls across the FDA, CPSC, NHTSA and USDA FSIS going back to 1995. Within the same product category, the database holds 6 closely related recalls, of which 6 were also issued by CPSC. That clustering is a signal — repeated actions in a narrow category often indicate a systemic quality-control issue, a supplier-wide contamination, or a design defect that has propagated across product lines. This recall is roughly 21 years old; older recalls can remain relevant because many units enter resale, rental, and secondary-market channels where the original warning never reaches the end user. Always cross-check the recall number against the official agency page before relying on any summary.