Widescreen Projector, update: DEC 12 - 2006

[The_Gnu]

Okay, now its time for me to show of one of my curent projects. This is my first DIY project ever. I started the planing of my projector 1,5 years ago, and in the beggining I knew nothing about "building" or "modding". This has been my so called training project and now I'm stuck I have allready 2 new projects on the planing stage at this time. A small server and a larger HTPC case.

I Have always wanted a projector but I could never afford one. Then I came across a webpage about do it yourself projectors and decided to get started.
A lot of homemade projectors you see has a verry crapy and ugly look with duct tape and wood housings. This was not what I Wanted so I decided to make a projector out of aluminium and make it look as good as possible.

This is how I want it to look. The Alu plates will be brushed.



Here is the internal structure. This type of projector is similar to those overhead projectors schools and offices often use. But instead of a translucent overhead paper you use a dissassembled TFT panel. Without the backlight TFT panels are verry thin and translucent. The distances between the different lenses etc are determined by the focal lengt of each lens. Finding the right type of lenses and lamp was the hardest part for me. I live in Sweden and I tried to find all the single parts here but I gave up since I didn't find any. And I wasn't shure if the different parts I was looking for would performe well together. Instead I bought all of the components from exclusiv-online.com. A very good Site that I recomend since they are very helpfull and they shipp worldwide.

Condensor lens = The standard magnifying glass lens type
fresnel lens 1-2= a flat type of convex lens thats used in overhead projectors etc
front surface mirror= a mirror with the mirror coating on the front side of the glass.
triplet lens= adjustable focal lengt



Time to get started. This was the smallest pice of 1,5mm alu tha i was allowed to order from the local metallshop. Its 2x1m


Used my dremel to cut out the bottom and backplate.





cut some alu anglebars for the backplate.


tadaa!!


To get that that brushed alu look I used standard sandpaper. Sanding it on free hand will create a lot of scratches and the brushing wont be straight. So I created this little simple thing. The Sandpaper will stay in a straight line thanks to that support pice of wood that runs long the side of the alu plate. Between the Sandpaper and the sanding "block", there is some soft blue padding to get a soft sandingsurface to awoid some parts of the aluplate to get sanded too much. The Alu plate was taped to the work bench using double sided tape and the results turned out great.


almost but not yet.


aaahh thats the look i want. But dont touch it yet those greasy fingers will make it uggly. I Used a spray can clear coat designed for alu rims, 2-4 layers, to make it greasy resistant and to give it that extra shine



The backplate was masked and a 120mm fan hole cut.


The edges where sanded using 80 , 120 , 240 grit sandpaper and is really smooth.



clear coated backplate testfitting

[The_Gnu]

Widescreen Projector


Please feel free to post any of your comments, sugestions, guestions, ideas etc here.

/GNU

[OldY]

All I can say is WOW. This is going to look great
As I don't know anything about building a projector, all I will say is
GOOD LUCK

[Axly]

Very very interesting project... Also a great idea on how to get good looking brushed aluminium! Thank you for that.

[Washfordmonkey]

that looks amazing... where did u get the information for it.. ebay?? seem to be a lot of listings for it!

i will be watching this closly as i quite like the idea.. thought about it before but never really had the balls to go ahead and make it. Are you going to be using a ps1 screen.. or a fully fledged laptop screen?
I can suggest that you could use a toshiba libretto screen.. as the whole laptop is about the same size as a vhs tape. Could be ideal unless you have another screen to use

[The_Gnu]

Im glad you both liked it.. ..hope you like the rest too because I have a lot more pictures. Will post some more this evening.
/GNU

[Gordy]

Nice work some great advice on how to keep the brushing straight too!

[The_Gnu]

Originally Posted by Washfordmonkey

that looks amazing... where did u get the information for it.. ebay?? seem to be a lot of listings for it!

i will be watching this closly as i quite like the idea.. thought about it before but never really had the balls to go ahead and make it. Are you going to be using a ps1 screen.. or a fully fledged laptop screen?
I can suggest that you could use a toshiba libretto screen.. as the whole laptop is about the same size as a vhs tape. Could be ideal unless you have another screen to use

I came across this idea when I saw one of those "DIY BIG SCREEN 100" PROJECTOR TV" adds on the net. They claim you get great results by buying there special fresnel lens and buildingplans for around 20-30$. The idea is to place there lens infront of your TV or Computer screen and project the picture to the wall using no other lightsource. It works but gives very poor results..nothing you probably like to watch a movie on. Then i found diyaudio.com and thats where Ii got most of the info.

Actually the major part of the work is done. I am using a 7" TFT Resolution: 800x480 RGB. This one. The Psone screen has to low resolution for me. But I thought of it first but desided to go for the 7" as i wanted best possible reusults with the smallest possible size.

[The_Pope]

I'll be keeping an eye on this one

[jokkos]

very nice model!

and very nice start!

[gbeeby]

wow very nice indeed might have a go at this myself !!

do you have any idea how mutch this is going to cost ?

could you do this with a psone lcd ???

[Regulator]

These projects are defenitly worth every penny... I built a 17" LCD projector with DVI 1280x1024 resolution @ screen size of 9ft by 5ft. But the projector was just over 4ft long. This projector looks awsome and takes far more enginering to complete. Props to you sir!

I got my info from www.lumenlab.com great forum community, plus I belive alot of the forum is free now...

[Stuey]

I see how you plan on encasing the projector, but I wonder what the base/supports will like. Looks like a pretty good start to me!

[Glider]

From what I've heard, the lamps are very expensive and generate a lot of heat. Is your design up for the heat generation? And will you be able to cool it silently? Because having a hoovercraft above your head when watching a movie isn't exactly appealing

But nice project! I'm also planning on making my own projector, when I find the time and money :s

[exavier412]

i'm very interested in this project. i've been thinking about making one, and your concept looks very nice and i could learn alot from this project hopefully.

any idea on how much it is going to cost? would you be able to give a price breakdown?

[Kambarami]

First off, great looking design, sure beats the wood coffins other people have made . I was one of those people swept up by the DIY projector craze and I must say it's quite addicting. There's a wealth of knowledge out there and it's a really good feeling to be able to tells your friends, "Hey, I made that." That being said, if you are a videophile like I am you may get frustrated. It was really hard for me to get the type of video quality I was seeing on the better commercial units (panasonic ae700, 500 etc.) that were only about $300 to $400 dollars more than my DIY pj. I'm a bit of a contrast snob and dark grey and muddy shadow detail just were'nt cutting it for me; and in the end I converted to commeiical. None the less, I loved doing it; it was a great DIY project, and getting that "Wow!" from friends and family was always a plus. I'll be watching this one closely. Good luck!

[Aznd00d1337]

Awesome project! i love the brushed aluminum finish!
by the way, what resolution is the projector going to run at?

[Regulator]

Originally Posted by Glider

From what I've heard, the lamps are very expensive and generate a lot of heat. Is your design up for the heat generation? And will you be able to cool it silently? Because having a hoovercraft above your head when watching a movie isn't exactly appealing

I believe these 7in Lcd designs only need a 250watt bulb, which is fairly easy to cool compared to 400watt lamps !

The beauty of diyprojectors is that the bulb life can be rated for over 10,000 hours...
...and say you get half of those hours before the color starts changing,
you would still be on top since a replacment bulb will cost at max $80

[The_Gnu]

Originally Posted by gbeeby

do you have any idea how mutch this is going to cost ?

could you do this with a psone lcd ???

Originally Posted by exavier412

any idea on how much it is going to cost? would you be able to give a price breakdown?

Here is the estimated cost:

Optics Set ------------------81.78 USD
Light Set MH 250------------150.0 USD
7" Wide screen TFT---------243.00 USD
12V Power supply 1000 mA---13.50 USD
3 x Fans---------------------45.0 USD
Button, connectors-----------15.0 USD
Aluminium plate/profiles-------45.0 USD
Plexiglas------------------------FREEE
-------------
Total: 600 $ (593,28)

My total price is including most of the parts I have bought. But, you can get all important parts needed for 475$ if you allready have fans,connectors, psu, wood etc laying around as most of us do. But I like to spend that extra $ to get it *BLING*

Yes it can be built with a PSone display, but those displays have a poor resolution and probably response time and contrast to. But there is people getting great results from PSone displays too.. its a question about how you like it ..quality vs size

Originally Posted by Stuey83

I see how you plan on encasing the projector, but I wonder what the base/supports will like. Looks like a pretty good start to me!

Actually..getting the case steady was the hardest part to figure out. I didn't want any bolt or screws to be vissible on the front or the 2 sides because that would ruin the design. I tried many different ways but decided to be more safe than sorry and make some screws vissible. There is some alu L-profiles for support but even the big "side-front-side" aluplate acts as a support.

Originally Posted by Glider

From what I've heard, the lamps are very expensive and generate a lot of heat. Is your design up for the heat generation? And will you be able to cool it silently? Because having a hoovercraft above your head when watching a movie isn't exactly appealing

Normal commercial projector lamps cost around 300-600$ and last 2000-4000 hours
The lamp im using is a OSRAM HQI-TS 250W costs 55$ and last 12 000 hours
This type of lamp is brighter than a 250w halogen and doesn't get as hot as a halogen. But it gets hot anyway and i will be using 1x 120mm 2x 80mm silent fans. Hope that will do even if they are not on full speed to keep sound level down. Will also use heatsink.

Originally Posted by Kambarami

.....There's a wealth of knowledge out there and it's a really good feeling to be able to tells your friends, "Hey, I made that.".....

I totaly agree... getting those WOW's from friends is a great feeling. And building this thing has learnt me a lot about metall, paint, plexi etc.

Originally Posted by Aznd00d1337

Awesome project! i love the brushed aluminum finish!
by the way, what resolution is the projector going to run at?

The native resolution will be 800x480 but works great on 1024x768 and can even do 1280x1024 interpolated (but it gets a bit blurry). The responsetime is claimed to be 30ms but there is no ghosting what so ever. Fast movies work just as good as on my Benq Fp567s 15" TFT with 16ms.

More pics will come soon.

[zachjowi]

did you know you could buy an LCD projector for less than $500.00 USD