Good morning. Been reading through the forums for a while now and have to say that some of you are almost too smart for your own good . Anyway, this is my Plog. Nothing particularly unique about mine except for the threaded rod design (THANK YOU PUNISHER!). Parts list below.

LL T15 Strike Pulse w/ Ballast
LL Standard Lense Kit
LL switch and Pro Reflector
HP VS15 15" LCD (LCD is a bit complex to strip but there are no FCC issues)
2x120mm fans, will try 1 by itself and test 2 at 7V to see if the noise tradeoff is worth the cooling loss

I should mention I'm not a master carpenter and lack most the tools to do this job properly so be gentle if things look a bit..."homemade" .

so off we go. First we need something to mount the fresnels and LCD to. I borrowed Punisher's idea once again with the wood frames and threaded rod design. However, L shaped wood is apparently very expensive in Idaho so I looked for an alternative. Found it in some 1x.25" strips at home depot to the tune of $1 for 4', not bad. I thought about ripping some of the strips to make my own L shaped sides but I found an easier alternative. I found some small brackets used for holding mirrors to the wall. The smallest they had were designed to hold an 1/8" thick mirror which left the fresnels and LCD a bit loose once attached. Nothing a pair of pliars couldn't fix . Added a slight bend to the end of the clip which gave a nice snug fit. On the LCD clips I wrapped the clips with electrical tape to act as a cushion and not scratch the LCD. So after a night of cutting and assembly we have these

Lexan and first fresnel. Lexan is mounted to one side of the frame and the colliminator is on the other side. the ~.25' gap between will hopefully keep the colliminator nice and cool.


Here's the fresnel mounted to the other side of the frame holding the Lexan. Notice the holes along the bottom to allow airflow.


Here's the field fresnel all mounted up, nothing special here.


And the LCD mounted. You can see the strip I glued to the Panel to support the control board.

Now for some assembly. Let's get those frames together shall we?

Ah, much better. Gonna have to do something about those long rods though . A hacksaw does the job nicely.
The rod I used is 1/4" by the way. I wanted to see if I had managed to kill to LCD yet so I rigged everything up using electrical tape and come to find out she still lives .

No projected pictures because there was no enclosure to keep the light in so you couldn't see anything on the wall anyway. Speaking of which we need to get a basic enclosure done. Not too many steps involved here, Borrowed a circular saw and got to work. I cut some MDF to the appropriate sizes and started gluing. I used L brackets on the bigger pieces to reinforce it a bit. After 24 hours of dry time here's what we have.

not particularly pretty but functional. and how do the frames fit inside? Glad you asked.

I was amazed that it's darn near a perfect fit. Enough friction on the frame I could just leave it loose in there with no worry of it ever moving but loose enough for adjustments once I get the bulb/ballast mounted. Once I get that all sorted I'll bolt/screw/tape it down permenantly. I need to get my hole saw back from my Dad tonight so hopefully I'll be able to report back with more.

Alrighty then, made the trip to Dad's house and got the hole saws back so let's get to work. We need to figure out exactly where the bulb is going to go. After some careful measurements we come up with the center point for the mogel base. The base I got from LL has ~1.5 cm from the mounting holes to the center. So measuring out 1.5cm from the center point I drilled 2 holes and ran some more pieces of rod to mount the base.

You can see the 120mm fan hole in the back of the enclosure in that pic. Once everything is finalized I'll chop off the excess rod and epoxy them in place.

Now that the bulb is mounted it's time to light it up and see where our arc hits the front of the enclosure so we can mark it and cut the hole.

and here's the arc

arc center is only 1/16" off of the center of the board not bad at all. Now we mark it, cut the hole, and stick the triplet in there.

She's all setup and ready to rumble now. Wiring is still just enough to make it work and nowhere NEAR complete, that's why no pictures of wiring yet .

Finally some action shots .

not alot of tweaking done yet, just some basic focus. All pictures taken in "night mode" with no flash. No processing has been done aside from resizing.

Personal favorite wallpaper from OSX (box is windows though ). No lights on.


This one has 2 30W lights on directly behind and above the camera. Yes that is MY ugly mug you have to stare at.


Finally the DIYpro picture. This is the only picture that shows dim corners but rest assured the camera is greatly exagerating the effect. No lights on.


So far I would have to say I'm VERY happy with the results. I have yet to install the reflector or get the top of the projector closed so those should make quite a bit of difference as well. I'll try to find the 5th Element sometime tomorrow and get some Leeloo action for ya.

Wow,nice results so far,from a nice,simple,well executed build!
Good work,kaltag!
Well done.
BTW; Is that a piece of string being projected too?
Cheers P

Nice Did you attempt the antiglare removal? Are those shots directly on a painted wall?
Im trying to get mine to be watchable with some lights on so that it can be used during parties.

Keep up the good work!

hey i like your gottee.

oh and your projector is looking pretty cool

The AG removal worked out great for most of us but get everything together and see if you are happy with the light output after you put in yout reflector. After killing a few panels I know what butter fingers and lack of sleep can do. Great work so far though man the reflector should work out great or you when instaled.

whats all those little holes for in one of your fresnel frames?

Thats the cool air slot no? Im guessing they fit in perfectly in the box, without the 1/2" gap on the bottom.

Great job BTW,
looks way better than my 1st!

Thanks for the kind words. The "string" being projected is a temp probe to monitor the LCD until I'm satisfied it's gonna be ok. The holes along the bottom frame are for ventilation and they're only on the lexan/colliminator frame. I'll be dremling it out a bit though since it's really restrictin the airflow. I have not tried the AG removal yet, I'll see what kind of picture I get after installing the reflector and decide if I want to risk it. The shots are taken against a "white" textured wall.

Those are some GREAT results! Especially for a first build.Once you get that reflector in there,you'll be smokin'...

EDIT:Are you planning on painting the inside of your box black?

I thought about painting the inside but I see no gain right now aside from making the interior surfaces hotter. I will be painting the flashing used to protect the ballast and duct the fan to ensure there are no reflections from the metal.

Today's progress: Got part of the heatshield/duct in place and got the reflector mounted. Heatshield is simple cheap flashing from Home Depot. Used the counter and edge of the enclosure to bend the flashing. I mounted the reflector using plumbers' tape screwed to the flashing. I then used pliars to make a sharp bend on the ends of the tape to hold the reflector in.

Here's the reflector mounted to the flashing.


And now the flashing mounted in the enclosure. No screw holding it in yet, the bend across the bottom keeps it upright for now.


Fired her back up and although it isn't enormous, there IS a noticable increase in brightness. Below is picture of the before and after, picture on the left is before installing the reflector and the right side is after. Camera settings were identical and ambient light settings identical.


Still need to get the wiring cleaned up and all the flashing installed. More on that later.

i can see a little bit of a differece

hey im loving your fresnel frames. thats a pretty good job.