Hi all,

Figured I'd start my plog as I'm about 95% done my build.

Details;

• Haas Design
• Magnavox 15MF605T HD LCD TV
• Lumenlabs standard lenses
• 400w Coil/Cap balast from Harris & Roome (Canada)
• Big 400W bulb from Home Depot
• 2 big fans from Princess Auto
• Reflector from Canadian Tire... spherical strainer... experimental

Unique things;

• Sliding ceiling mount... heavyduty drawer sliders from Princess Auto and 3/8" threaded rod
• Remote balast with quick disconnect setup (makes main cabinet SO much lighter)
• Adjustable speed for the fans (hacked the noisy LL barrels fans and used the pot circuit from them)
• Bulge out the side of the Hass case to center the lamp and keep the box a slim as possible
• Small box focusing mech which slides on fuzzy velcro.... works excellent.. no light leaks.

All that I have left to do is;

• Put the LCD in the box... will do this weekend.
• Reduce some light leaks.... have the parts... just need to assemble.
• Stain the outside of the Pine Hass box to match the fake grain of the top and bottom sheets.
• Wired up the surround sound
• Install a good screen of some type or paint
• And finally...Permanetly route wires around the room... might involve one new little wall that will hold wires and also be a place when a curtain can hang to block the projector area off from the rest of the room.
• Oh... and paint the room darker

Already have nice screen shot using a transparencey of a Ziggy cartoon and some x-ray sheets of my girlfriends broken arm!

Pics to follow very soon.

Here is one of my basement and the setup I'll have.

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Later, Chris

sweet.. nice bank of arcade machines you got there

Yeah.... got WAY too much into that hobby in its hey day....

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Chris

What is the slider mechanism you spoke about. Do you have pics of it or a link?
I was thinking the same thing but putting it over my pool table and putting a light under. My ceilings are about 9' in the basement.

I must have put thousands of quarters into Defender many years ago

That looks like a nice room

Hello again....

Update... it is working!

Finally got around to finishing off all the little things I wanted to get right before doing an actual test.

I changed a few thing around in my design which took a while to complete.

Moved all the lcd electronics outside of the box (mounted on the side). To do this, I had to extend the cable from the main board to the lcd.... 2 hours+ of soldering/shrink wrapping about 40 connections... thankfully it worked just fine.

Modified my lcd sled to make it much more ridged ... it was a little loose and I was afraid it might eventually mess up the lcd panel.

Note: For the magnavox 15MF605T, you don't need to have the switch panel (with chanel/volume etc.) connected to the board... I'm just using the remote and it works nicely.

Left to do;

- Mount the IR sensor/on off switch to the case nicely... it is just hang off right now... might make a little 2" cube to put it in.

- Sand the outside of the box and stain it (going with a mohogany stain.

- Paint a screen on the wall with some flat white paint with a little grey added. Border in black... Any suggestion of the brand/color code for the gray? ... I read elsewhere that someone use a 1 part grey-5 part white mix. ?

- Do the AG removal ... but the picture looks nice right now, so this may wait a little bit.

- Try to calibrate the projector for a better image... but I'm not sure how to systematically do this? This pic is already nice.

- Move in all my speakers / audio stuff and wire it up... need to make a few s-video and component cables from cat5

- Paint my basement (darker) ... paint the ceiling mount.

- Make popcorn.... watch movies.

Chris

From a while back...

Box minus the sled;

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Apart for painting;

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Chris

My sliding ceiling mount ... half extended.

I've since cleaned it up and cut off the ends of the threaded rods.... will paint it to match the ceiling (which I'm going much darker with)

It give about 32" range of travel. Where it is set in the picture give me about a 9' wide image on my wall... it can be moved another ~ 13" forward from there or up to 19" inches back. The sliders are 26" drawer sliders from Princess Auto (Surplus place in Canada).. I modified them a bit so they could slide backwards a bit which gives 6" or so of extra travel.... I hind sight I don't think I'll need it for viewing, but it would let me put the project against the back wall for storage.

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My first test image with an old dirty transparancey;

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Chris

Nice job on the sliding mount.
That is thinking outside the box (no pun intended).

Yeah it worked out well... that picture is a bit misleading ... my ceilings are almost 10' ... about 9' where the mount is mounted to.... the front bottom of the Hass case is about 6'2" high (looks much lower in the picture).... I'm 5'10" so it works perfect... keystone correction gives a nice square image.

Chris

Nice idea chris,I bet that slides nice and smooth!!
Are you using some kind of bracket to mount the rods onto the slider???
Cheers P

Just using a small L-bracket from Home Depot... cut it down from about 2.5" to 1.5" and drilled a 3/8" hole in one arm and a smaller hole in the other.

Attached to the slider with a nut/bolt ... had to grind the head of the bolt down a bit to let it slide with the track because there are some high spots in the mechanism.

Chris

I sure hope those L brackets are strong enough to support the weight of that box....

It is very sturdy.... I could probably hang from the box if I wanted.

4 * 3/8 rods ... the weight is well distributed.

And, my ballast/cap is not in the box, so the box is relatively light.... next time it is down, I'll weigh it.

Kind of dark, but here is the mount extended fully and the rods are cut down to a reasonable length.

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Chris

Some screen shots.... still on a beige wall for now... painting a flat white screen soon before I deside on my final screen type.

Some high res pic I found on the net

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Close up of her eye

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Chris

Nice track....i guess it would be adjustable up and down too but would take some time.
I was thinking of something like using "barn door" track and the trolley hanger attached to an
adjustable pole. The box would go forward/backward, swivel, and up and down.
Some parts are TRACK and TROLLEY
http://outwaterhardware.com/catalog/form06...pn=TRA%2DXY2641

I will attach the track to the ceiling, put the trolley wheels in, then attach to a 3/4" pole and
attach to the Hass box from TESCORP.
I have not worked out the telescopic pole part yet but may use increasing/decreasing 8" pole sizes with
holes drilled and pins.
What do you think...any ideas?
I did see one of those camera tripods with the gears and crank but not sure if they can handle 60 lbs upside down without always extending.

Shrek 1024*768 still

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Hi-Res still .... taken at a weird angle... not bowed like that on the screen, but I might have taken it while I was still squaring up the projector with the wall... it was off by a few degrees at first.

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Chris

I almost did something like that, but the track I was going to use (a super heavy duty one at the surplus place) was gone when I went back to buy it.

I'd get a big pole (1.5" or so) ... and another big pole with it's I.D. the same as to O.D. of the other pole.

Have the pole threaded on each end and get 2 metal drain fixtures that they could screw into.

Then drill the poles while clamped together in a bunch of different levels of extension... and use a rod/cotter pin setup to adjust height.... I don't think you need to be fancier than that as height is something you won't adjust much (if ever) after you get it set up.

Just some ideas,
Chris

Yeah...not what i was thinking but now that makes more sense...your right in that i wont be adjusting the height too much so two poles should suffice along with numerous hole positions.
Thanks for the input..

Working nicely now... have a screen painted on the wall with Behr Silverscreen (770E-2) and Behr Peralescen White Opal (751) mixture... about 75%-25% ratio... works nicely, but I'd still like to brighten things up a bit.

What is the best reflector (that fits) with a Big Eye bulb?

What about combining two refectors as I've seen some people do?

Also, how do you easily figure out the best location for your bulb... mine is just at the default postion from the 220mm fresnel ... I have about 25mm range forward and back that I can adjust it... problem is, with my design, it is hard to adjuest without taking things apart a little with the machine off... hard to make comparisons.

Thanks, Chris