Recommend attaching a small piece of sheet metal directly above the lamp arc; doesn't have to be too wide. That way the lid doesn't get "toasted" nor too hot.

A little bit of work still do to do -

1st squaring up the lcd frame

Installed the reflector

This leaves the front fresnel and attaching a steel plate to the top of the box.

Then, I fire it up for real!

I'm right now trying to remember what the consensus is for optimal rotational lamp orientation about its long axis. If you come up with any conclusions please post your findings. Coming along nicely!

Also, make sure you're not starving your fans with not enough open flow path. Optimally, they should feel as though they're blowing as much "breeze" when installed as they did when you tested them out of the box.

If I'm seeing things correctly you're still running over 100F and I think you should be able to do better.

The lcd area never went over 80deg after I put in the fresnel and the lexan. The 105 in the picture is my alarm setting.

Thanks for the kinds words.

Today, I'll mount the front fresnel, put it in the big box on the ceiling and see if all of my measurements were right.

Put the "finishing" touches on today.

First, the steel heat shield -

Then, the keystoning mechanism (a rod and binder clips )

And, finally, up into the big box -

Here's an overview of the room. The screen will have to be swapped out for a 16x9 screen.

Unbelievably, that is a projected image with the flash on!

I'm thrilled with this thing!

The project image is 74" across. That's 22" smaller than my previous screen. I'd anticipated this one to be 84" across. Not sure what happened. Either way, I'm happy with it. The resolution is sooooo much crisper than my old one when I had to shrink the image from 13' to 8' and lost half of the pixels!

Other than in the den - all of the downstairs lights are on in these pictures.

Also, the projector is angled down and the keystoning is working quite well. There's a bow in one of my fresnels, but it's less noticeable in person than in the pics.

Another pic -

Another -

Another, still -

We're in the mines of Moria, here. So, it's a very dark scene. Not bad detail for dark and lights on. Looks way better in person, too.

Now, for one with the lights out -

I have a light leakage issue. Not unexpected, though. I need to cover the air intake.

Ok,

I'm pleased as hell!

There are some problems, but they shouldn't be a problem beyond the next couple of nights. The top 1/4 of the desktop is way out of focus. But, I'm going to use powerstrip to create a 16x9 desktop that does not use that portion of the projected image.

I need to address the light leakage problem but that will be easy.

I'm still not happy with my fans! I may have to invest in new ones. I'm not sure.

Still to do - adjust ffdshow for this projector. I'm using my old settings. So, the picture is not optimized.

Build a 16x9 screen out of birch ply and paint it with a high yield white paint.

And, I think I'm done after that.

I'm really relieved. I thought I had weeks of optical tweaking ahead of me. I didn't count on it working right off the bat!

Dude....Its NEVER over.

I think it looks great and I still think that ceiling mount is very neat and clean. Nice picture too! Can we see some closups of the top quarter? My first thought is a fresnel alignment issue, but more details might be needed.

SJ

Thanks!

I'll take some more, tonight, but I'm not concerned about it.

I'm building a 16x9 screen and the portion that is out of focus will never be seen as the desktop bg is black. So, it will look like 16x9 projection, and the applicable area is quite crisp. I may finalize that with Powerstrip, but my experimentations last night were not successful with that. For some reason, when I reduce the resolution to 1024x576, it squeezes the sides of the desktop in significantly as well.

The big thing to do today is create an airscoop that blocks most of the leaking light.

Nice job rpearsey. your whole setup looks nice. I really like how everything kinda blends in next to white celing. I am going to paint mine white when I get around to it.

Nice job on the ceiling mount. I may end up stealing a few of your ideas.

Great design and image and the best part is there is no big pj in the way WAF has gone up a notch unfortunately I can't tear apart my apt to get the same effect as you

Great to see some screen shots on here!! You sound thrilled, as you should be. Nothing more satisfying that a DIY project done well. Congrats.

Thanks

Worked on the air intake - blocking out that excess light - and will post pics later tonight.

Now, I just have to figure out why I suddenly have visible fresnel lines. I think the rear fresnel slipped closer to the lcd, but I'll have to check. I know it's not the front, bc I played with it a bit this morning.

Oh yeah - I can watch this thing in the day now!

Found it. Actually, it's as plain as the nose on my face but it didn't hit me. See both:

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?s...ndpost&p=121343

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?s...ndpost&p=125709

You should take some closer up shots so that we can see the image quality better.

Definitely, will get some close-ups. My camera has only presets, though so, the quality is not optimal.

Well, the temperature cut-off switch works, apparently. Darned thing just shut down a few minutes ago. I'll have a looksee later on this evening.

It's those darned fans. I don't know why they're running the way they are.

Why would 120v fans run like so poorly? They used to be wind machines.

Ok, it wasn't the fans. I pulled it down and they're moving plenty of air. I am going to modify them so that each has its own power supply. This way they move a ton of air.

I also don't think the light limit kicked in.

I can't get the ballast to work or the light bulb to come on when directly wired, now - meaning I took the light limit out of the equation just to test it.

The ballast makes no noise when plugged in and the light doesn't fire.

I've only run this thing 4 or 5 times. A tad discouraging.

Any thoughts?

Are you using the Eballast?

YEP

I've heard of issues if the bulb isn't screwed in all the way, since you've obviously had it running in the past that seems kind of unlikely but check the bottom of the bulb for any signs of arcing anyway. If you see some then its a good bet the ballast is dead, if you don't... well... keep looking for answer elsewhere I guess.

What is arcing?

The bottom of the bulb is unscored in anyway.

Arcing occurs when the bottom of the bulb is not in direct contact with the bottom of the mogul. The electricity wants to get to the bulb, but can't because of the gap between the mogul and the bulb (bulb not screwed in all the way). But the electricity wants to get to the bulb and so it jumps across the gap or arcs across the gap. This can cause black or charing spots on your mogul and bulb where they normally come in contact with each other, which will interfere with the current running from your mogul to your bulb. If you see any black in the mogul or at the base of the lamp, clean it off, secure the bulb back in the mogul and try it again.

Man, I feel for you, I wish I had experience with that ballast and bulb set up, I just don't. Hang in there, you will find the answer. We are pulling for you.
Bluto

Hi,
I had the same problem. Turned out the little tab in the bottom of the bulb base was bent down in too far.

CAREFULLY bend this up a tad (not much).

Measure your base down to this tab, then mark this point on your bulb temporarily with tape or something. When you screw in the bulb, you will HAVE to go to the ref point or beyond to make good contact.

Also, remember the hot restrike time. If you strike an arc with the bulb, you will have to wait about 10 minutes for it to cool before it will re-strike.

Hope this helps.

Thanks guys.

I'm going to mess with it some more tonight. Been busy the last day or so.

I rewired the eballast connections to the lamp and found this on the wires coming from the eballast.

Didn't help. It still doesn't run, but I thought it was interesting.

Ok, so what's this Stealthsurfer says about a reset button the eballast?

If your ballast is not at least "clicking" every 30 seconds or so, I'd say its dead. Sorry to hear of your woes - been through an e-ballast myself. The new one is working much better (kock on wood!).

Well, it looks like it is dead. Brain's said they'll be contacting me re a new ballast.

I'll take this opportunity to fix a few things and tighten up the box a bit.

Gotta say, Brain runs a good site a quality operation. Thanks!

Ouch.

New ballast lit up with no problem!

The customer service here is the best.

Thanks Brain!

I'll post some pics tomorrow.

But, I rewired the box. Cleaned the fresnels. Adjusted the reflector, and mounted the ballast on the outside this time.

I doubt that had anything to do with my problem as it hadn't been run long enough to damage the ballast when it went out, but why take chances.

The results are great! I was able to comfortably watch LOTR in the late afternoon with the blinds open. It is much much brighter than it was before. I don't know if this is because of the the reflector adjustment or the new ballast. I'm thinking the old ballast didn't fully ignite the bulb, but I know squat about these things.

Watched 2 episodes of Lost, half of Fellowship of the Ring and most of Matrix Revolutions this evening and it looks great.

I do have a problem with fresnel lines, but those are easily fixed. I was feeling too lazy tonight to get up on the ladder again and fix them.

Now, I can watch King Kong.

Wow, real life can keep you from your hobbies!

I've had everything back up and running for a couple of weeks , now, and it's truly performing exceptionally well.

Not much to say other than that. I've been tweaking and playing with FFDSHOW and have found some settings that seem right to me.

I wish my camera had the ability to adjust f-stops so that the pics would do justice to what I'm seeing. However, they work as a close approximation.

First up, my projector in action.

My desktop. You can see the outlines of my screen in it. I'm going to build a 4:3 screen to fit the desktop. This way we can play games on it.

And, now some movies - first The Fellowship of the Ring. For my money, the best looking dvd out there.

Frodo

Moria

Rivendel

Some King Kong

More Kong