Too many irons in the fire: Changing the color wheel on my DLP projector

One evening, just as we were about to turn off the projector, it made a horrible glass breaking sound and the picture went black and white. My first reaction was, that the lamp exploded, but realized a second later that the picture was still there. Only the colors were gone. Obviously it was the color wheel that had disintegrated. The reason for it failing is unclear, as the projector is mounted on a solid concrete wall isolating it from most vibrations.

I contacted the manufacturer to obtain a replacement part, as it is not sold as a standard replacement part. Their Finnish representative replied that they only sold the part together with servicing. They also said that it would cost 60e to do an estimate of the cost of repair. Ugh. I didn't want a service, I wanted the part. I would have happily paid 100 euros or more for the part. No wonder the Finnish economy is in crisis. I would have wanted to buy, but no-one wanted to sell.

So, since the official source didn't want to sell the part to me, I had to look at alternatives. Turns out there are very helpful eBay stores, which sell all sorts of parts for projectors. I found the correct part for about 30 euros and decided to pay some more for expedited shipping through DHL. So for about 70e all together, I got the part shipped to me.

I had checked online how the repair was done before ordering the part. The whole process is very trivial. The whole assembly is removed and the motor removed from the assembly. The new motor with the new color wheel is then put in and the assembly reattached.