1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a projector.
2. Related Art
Recently in the field of projectors, in addition to projectors for commercial use during conferences, presentations, or the like, projectors for household use are also becoming popular.
To accommodate these changing applications, small, thin and highly portable projectors are developed.
Liquid crystal light valves used in projectors of this type are much smaller than conventional ones.
Since a bright image is required for display, the light source luminance is increased.
Against this background, since high-luminance light is concentrated in a small liquid crystal light valve, there are problems in that heat-generation density is increased and reliability is reduced.
A mechanism for cooling these optical components is therefore important.
While a cooling fan (air cooling system) is conventionally used as a cooling mechanism in a projector, in view of problems such as noise, vibration, and cooling capability, a liquid cooling system is recently considered.
As for example disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2004-126255, there is proposed a liquid cooling system including heat-radiating plates having an internal cooling medium flowpath, and the heat-radiating plates are separated from the casing of the projector. Thereby, heat can be radiated from both faces of the heat-radiating plates.
However, in the above described patent document, although the radiator is arranged at a position separated from the casing above or below the projector main unit, the heat-radiation performance is still insufficient.
In particular, when the projector is miniaturized, the heat-radiation performance is insufficient; whereas increasing the size of the heat-radiating plate in order to enhance the cooling performance will prevent the miniaturization of device and obstruct its portability.