Hello all. Just started my first pj. The following is what I have so far:

1200x800 Norwood Micro monitor (never heard of it either, but CompUSA had a decent price so why not?)
Standard lens kit.
Basic box with a few dimension changes to fit the wide monitor (under construction but will post pics soon)
120mm fan from CompUSA with a built in speed control based on temp (curious if thermostat actually works)
Might have scored a free Metal Halide and ballast thanks to a brother that is an electrician
Misc. switches, fuses etc.
Piece of glass (not tempered - will this be a problem?)
Lexan (for UV filter) from Home Depot (do I need the lexan and the glass?)

The monitor was a pain to strip (lots of plastic and glue instead of screws), and I have not mounted it yet since the box is still very much under construction.

Test one involved me playing around with the lenses, some legos, cardboard, and an old tv in my basement. I'm sure more than one of you couldn't resist this either. I also included a pic of the room where the finished pj will go, and some very crude first image shots with a 13" tv turned upside down without a cable hookup or antenna. The image was on the white poster in the second pic, and was about 3-4ft wide. Good enough to keep me interested...

I can't wait to get the LCD panel in the completed box and fire up the metal halide when I get it.

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Since my last post, I have built the actual enclosure. None of the internal pieces are in place other than the cooling fan, but it sure beats the cardboard in the last post!

I decided to mount the cooling fan in the upper half of the box (see pics) because hot air rises. I hope this assumption works out for me. I was hoping this would help to pull air away from the ballast too.

Let me know if you have any builds.

Thanks

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A couple of more things...

My brother came through with the bulb and ballast, but I decided to order a new ballast because the capaitor was shot, and I'd rather have everything in new condition (still got a free bulb out of the deal!) I added a pic of the bulb next to a playstation controller (universally accepted measuring tool) in case you are unaware of how big these things are.

REMOVED PICTURE OF BULB FOR FILE SPACE

Anyhow, here is another pic of the enclosure, and all the pieces I have so far minus the LCD (I'm going to make the cat run in a hamster wheel to power it ).

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You silly willy, you cant project the cat onto a screen, you need an LCD. Good thing you've got experts like me around here to lend a helping hand. My job here is done.

Got the LCD mounted last night. I tried using some notched trim pieces that I found at home depot (I'll post some pics once I have a minute). The trim worked well, but I would recommend erroring on the loose side. Mine was very tight, and I had to force the panel into the frame (very scary). I placed the fresnels in the box and lit it with a 60 watt bulb just to see if I could get an image. It was dark, but definitely there. I'm impressed with the quality of the picture. There is a little bit of a screen door effect that could be avoided with a DLP, but the $2000 price difference doesn't seem worth it. So far, I would definitely recommend this project and website.

After seeing the image with just a 60 watt bulb, my wife no longer thinks I'm crazy, and seems to have visions of new couches dancing through her mind once the ballast comes in.

Progress has been a little slow lately. Good news is I won $300 at Casino Windsor this weekend, so I won't feel as guilty buying more parts. I think that I'll be able to get a good image by the end of the week.

Quick Question for all you experts...

Has anyone ever tried creating a box with an enclosed light source like the one pictured below (sorry for the poor drawing)? Would it work? What would be the cons other than potential color distortion from the bulbs? Seems like a good way to avoid expensive bulbs, heavy ballasts, etc. Would the lens be hard to come by?

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Probably wouldnt work .....

box would have to be alot larger ..... added cost of additional lenses .... 6 x 100W bulbs = 600 Watts, and I doubt it would get as bright as 1 400W Metal Halide Lamp.

Since you would be pumping the light from the bulbs through a lens, then your still gonna be facing the dillema of dimmer corners due to the light law.

Thanks for the reply. what if you didn't use another lens, but tried a pin-hole camera approach? Still wouldn't help with the dimmer light, but maybe would avoid the cost of the additional lens.

I'm sure it still wouldn't work, but it might be fun to try.

that would be worse, cause then youd only have a small amount of light coming from that hole.

Imagine your MH lamp being on, now look at the light that is escaping the fan hole ..... what if that was the only light you had to work with ... it wouldnt even be close to being enough. Image if was only a pen hole ....... You would need something to collect the light and concentrate it to a pinpoint. If you could pull that off then your idea would probably work .... even if all light was collected youd still have 600W usage though ....

Well, work has been crazy lately, but I've managed to make a lot of late-night progress. I now have a great picture, and am looking to fine tune it a bit. I'll post some pics this weekend. Right now I am using the white side of wrapping paper taped to my wall to get an idea of the picture size (works great, and is cheap for testing). I'm guessing I have a screen size of 7X10 feet right now. Image is bright, and I do not have a reflector in place yet. Lots of fun watching the cats flip out when it is on too. Need to find a video of a huge dog barking

Cujo.

Finally, some progress made. I've been too busy lately to post, and was waiting for some more furniture, but it all came together tonight. I'm happy with the lighting. Screen is just painted on the wall with flat ceiling paint. I still need to remove the plugs in the middle of my screen, build a stand to lower the pj and enclose the pc, figure out a better way to mount my lenses, and build a frame for the screen. That's it!

Some pics of the room now (sorry for the blurriness)
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And finally a screen shot... I'm pretty happy with the the brightness of the picture with the overhead lighting (can control lighting over couches and over screen separately). Again, blury. (I'm no photographer!)

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Is that lamp pic you posted a 1000 watt bulb? It sure looks like a 400 watt arc size, but your sigature says 1000 watt plog.

???

Nice results btw!

I think that was someone else quoting me that has the 1000W bulb. My bulb is 400w...for now

A quick pic of the inside of the box...

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Really basic here.

Let me know if you have a good way of mounting lenses and the lcd. my lcd is snug, but the fresnels are not easily focused without knocking them out of alignment.

Thats a great room set up, ideal really! The picture looks great too! You say thats a 15" widescreen lcd?? I have never seen one before. Great job.

Yeah, I should clarify 15.4-inch Norwood Micro LCD Multimedia Monitor. CompUSA had it for a good price. Might be worth checking out this one by the way...

17" widescreen at CompUSA for $179.00...
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_in...7399&pfp=BROWSE

Might not be the best brand, but the lcd panel inside looked like the exact same panel that others were pulling out of other name brand prducts. Also, no FFC issueson the 15.4".

Wanted to throw a note out to everyone that I built the homemade hd antenna posted in the mad science (I think) forum. Took no time at all, and now I'm watching today's race in hd. I replaced the coat hangers with standard household wire that I stripped, and just soldered the coax cable to that wire instead of buying the connector recommended. I'm running it in my basement and receive about 7 digitial channels from Cleveland (45 minutes from here). 2 or 3 of which broadcast in hd.

Also a quick note. Make it portable because it's not pretty to look at!

Hi, I just went over to CompUsa and picked up one of these Norwood LCDs. Problem with the Norwood os that it's 1200x800 which is a non-supported reolution. My ATI 9600 AIW does 1280 x 768 (which is the closest resolution to 1200x800. How do you get a clear picture?)

I've downloaded Powerstrip and am attempting to get a 1200x800 desktop CLEARLY.
If I can't figure this out by Monday I'll have to return it. :-(

Please help since you have the same exact setup as what I want.

[UPDATE] It seems to enjoy being fed 1280x720 signal. Is that what your using?

Been a while since I've been on here. Yeah, I used the 1280 x 720 without a problem. I've had the projector now for several months without any major problems. The norwood micro lcd is performing nicely.

I only have 3 things that I would fix.

One, I have a hard time trying to get an hd picture with the homade antenna. It works great on my 42" plasma, but on the pc, it jumps every 10-20 seconds. I think I didn't build the pc as powerful as I should have. So, looking back, my advice is to make sure you have a good pc setup.

Two, I would mount all optics and lcd on threaded rods to allow for fine tuning. I can focus mine, but it is easy to bump the other lens and throw it off. Once I get it set, they seem to move a littel over time, or if someone bumps it, and getting the focus perfect can be a nerve wrecking process.

Lastly, I would set it up so that the projector acts as an end table between the two couches (will probably do this this winter). It is hard to talk to guests with a huge wooden box between you, and it makes it hard to see the screen while sitting at the poker table behind it.

Other than that all is well, and I recommend this project. I'll try to post some updated pics sometime, so let me know if there is anything in particular you want to see.

One more thing. Found this for testing the screen, and found it to be a lot of help...

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download960.html

If this link ever goes down, just search for ntest.exe. It has several test patterns for fine tuning...

I'm using the 1280x768 on xp without problem. Not sure what to tell you. Focus has been fine with the standard lens kit.

looks good...did you find after you built your box that you had to spend alot of time tweaking the lamp/triplet placement or was it pretty easy to move things around until they looked perfect?

I really didn't have any problems with lamp placement or brightness. My reflector is less than ideal so I didn't spend a lot of time tweaking it. I spent more time tweaking the placement of the front fresnel and the frame around it to get a nice even focus and rectangular picture. At first I tried doing a lot of measuring, but found it was easier to just turn it on and move things around until the picture looked good.