I've been working for a couple of weeks on an enclosure for an unsplit system that appears slightly different that the ones I've seen documented here so far. Now that it appears that there's a possibility it may work someday, I'd like to share some pictures and ideas. The design pictured below (stars added for dramatic effect only) started with the following goals:

- Employ relatively easy building techniques. Mostly wood and other materials that are reasonably easy to work with and, most importantly, built with ONLY right angles. Other angles are cool, but they multiply the pains of building by one or two orders of magnitude.

- No keystoning. This thing will be lowered from the ceiling to the right height (phase II of this project).

- Be pretty. I want to make the proj visually fit into the front half of a 4,000 loft in an old warehouse I'm rennovating. The 2nd picture attached shows the target viewing wall (with offensive light covered with thick curtain)

- Short throw. I only need about 8' of throw.

The (bad) model attached is meant to represent an enclosure that is built mostly of high gloss, bright red birch veneer plywood (same stain / poly gloss as red table in 2nd image), with a layer of 1/8" bright blue plastic (part of leftover Lexan sheet) covering the front and back facing pieces.

Original Design: (red is glossy stained birch plywood, blue is Lexan)
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Viewing Area: (goal is to lower PJ from ceiling with giant pulley system, then to build some matching speaker enclosures that aren't butt-ugly like the ones shown)
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Nice design.
I think that is going to look awesome.I love the colours too,should be stunning.
Good luck with it,the loft looks amazing too.Perfect for a pool table??
Cheers P

Thanks pun15her, my fingers are crossed :-)

You're right, there's pool table room in this fortress, but ping-pong is the current table game of choice, occupying a little of the 2nd floor (I'm living on / rennovating the 3rd).

The monitor I eviscerated for this project is a Hanns·G JC-151A, which has a 600:1 contrast ratio, 16ms response time, 1024x768 resolution, and a built in power supply. It was easy to tear apart, so I won't post pictures of the details unless anyone is interested.

The part of the LCD disembowling procedure that may be interesting to anyone considering this panel, though, is the FFC connection, which I've included pictures of below. The first picture shows the original setup, and the 2nd shows my incorrect solution.

Here's where an extension is needed:
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Here's where I incorrectly used a 16-pin extension, when I needed what looks like 2 more pins are needed on each side (new extension is on order, I wait with excitement). Luckily, this panel did not cease to function after a few wildly wrong attempts to make this now-obviously bad choice of extension work:
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I take it there is a work out "section" as well?
I see free weights! Damn, 4000sf, that is huge.
Perfect for a theater!
Good luck, great design idea.
Bluto

I bought this monitor from TigerDirect.ca for 169.24 CAN shipped. I like it so much I'm thinking of buying another one for the PJ and keeping this one for the computer!

Though its defiantly a budget model the image is crisp and with a little gamma adjustment the colours look excellent! Even the 2 watt (1 watt each) speakers are passable for everyday computer use but definatly not for music.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the solution to the FCC connection problem!

Cheers

Uhg, you might not see that solution from me ... I just got my shiny new 20 pin extension the mail today, and immediately proceeded to break the zif connector, then to try a bunch of crazy stuff that may well have smoked my shiny new LCD panel's electronics. It still makes pretty colors, so I haven't given up quite yet, and will try to fiddle more with it tomorrow before declaring defeat and buying one more LCD monitor.

- Saddened DIY Projector Guy

Thanks for the good words Mr. B. Yep, there are some temporary free weights spread around. I'm living in the front half of the place while working on the back half, which is where those weights and their friends in storage will end up. Here's a shot from the other direction, which includes the projector-in-progress in the rear right corner in front of the freight elevator. Most of the rennovations are built with the same technology I'd like to use on this project - plywood, sometimes stained, blue spaceship plastic highlights (same plastic as the glowing wall ends), and lots of nice, easy 90 degree angles.

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Although it appears that I've just done the final bad thing to my once-great 15" Hanns, and will now be in search of a replacement, the rest of the enclosure is going well and has been, as planned, relatively easy. Each "box section" consists of a frame of glued together pieces with blue plastic attached that extends about 1/8" beyond the frame's edge, which is slotted into grooves cut into the next larger box section. A section is shown here in front of the larger assembled piece (the plastic is still covered with brown paper, which I'll remove upon final assembly ... I'll still end up taking everything apart in order to stain and polyurethane it):

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Thats really too bad to hear (and some what eye opening). May I venture to ask what crazy stuff you tried so I might not repeat the same mistake?

Initially, things were done by the book - everything was grounded, power was always carefully removed before making configuration changes, notes were taken, and the tone was one of generally amicable scientific inquiry. However, the longer the situation insisted on not causing my extension-bearing panel to function as expected, the more that civil atmosphere degenerated to the sort of free-for-all one might expect in a prison cafeteria after someone trips and knocks over a really big guy's tray. The rising crescendo of curses issuing from my mouth brought a tide of electrical and mechanical improprieties - jiggled cables with power on, abandonment of certain grounding practices, and, ultimately, overly exuberant and repeated plugging and unplugging of a delicate ZIF connector whose creator never intended it for the sort of calisthenics through which I put it.

Sigh. At any rate, you can read about a similar failure with this same panel here. I honestly think that, despite shanenegaard's and my own failure, the Hanns-G JC151A might well be usable, and I can't really put my finger on exactly what wasn't lining up. However, that will not stop me from taking the easier path and finding my next panel in the fine FFC-issue-free list of 15" panels compiled by shanenegaard and provided for the benefit and sanity of mankind here.

lol Man it sucks but at least you seem to be able to tranfer some of your pain and anger into words balling up into a corner also helps but isn't as effective as cursing like a drunken sailor. Good thing you have space in that place to let loose. I must say though that I love the neatness of the enclosure you are building so I hope you get your lcd sittuation sorted out soon.


DM

LOL, sounds like you've experienced this before!


Your PJ is gonna look sweet Polka.....I can picture it already. It reminds me a little of Samurai's but with more edges.

Samurai's art deco projector kicks ass, but the design appeared to require more skill than I currently possess, and I'm in a 90-degree angle-only mood Despite busting my LCD (grrr), the basic enclosure is done and ready for testing, so here's a better look at what I've got in mind. I'll have to yank it back apart to stain and finish, but it's ready for a test drive!

Top view, w/ front pointing right. I'm not going to try hiding any screws. A friend directed me toward some nice black square drive screws here, which you can see all over (2nd panel from left is accidentally flipped horizontally, will fix on final build):
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Side view, w/ front pointing left. All ready for fresnals and LCD panel in the large chamber, light in the next one over to the right, fan in the rear on the far left. All of the faces pointing toward the front and back are actually blue plastic, but the protective paper is still on to prevent scratches till final build (I'm careful when not occupied destroying expensive LCD panels):
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Uh-Oh... seems i was a little over zelous about jumping on this incredable deal. I will go to the electronics store in town and see if they stock FFC's with two larger pins on the outside.

Thats when i do my strip of course... which wont be till i recieve the lenses and such.

Well wish me luck on the currently dubious JC141A

Thanks for the heads up. I will post my results soon

Sorry to lead you off of the straight and righteous path with overly enthusiastic reviews - that damn thing looks like it should work, the price was right, and the specs were good ... but, alas, I got spanked. Good luck to you, I'll try not to be covetous if you suceed

In case you or anyone is reviewing the compatible monitors list, I went through each of the FFC-issue-free panels compiled by shanenegaard and found a couple that are still being produced here.

My ballast, a slightly purplish but mostly red VUE, somewhat larger and heavier than a brick, has made clunky noises ever since I purchased it from that charming, slightly cross-eyed, teetering crack whore from Compton who no longer wanted her fish tank (at least, that's who I imagine buying it from on eBay). So it was with great curiousity that I recently mounted the vaguely obscene 8" long Ushio bulb into its confusingly defined mogul base, rigged up a temporary mount, clamped the affair to my 40% built enclosure, and plugged it into the aforementioned loosey-goosey ballast.

It made a funny noise and glowed a sickly (yet not unattractive) green ... probably quite beautiful in a fish tank:

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Crap. I suspected more breakage of parts ... I just ordered a new monitor! But, this time, I did not do any of the unclean things I had done to my poor, poor Hanns LCD panel. What happened??

Then, I waited 30 seconds.

The bulb began to glow brighter than my wildest imaginings of the core of the sun:

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Bravo, Lumenlab, that damn thing is bright!! I hope the enclosure doesn't spontaneously combust.

Wait till I slap a reflector on it.

I'm mounting the reflector using long screws and springs as described ... somewhere, I can't find the thread. But, it seems like an easy to mount a pro reflector ... hole in electrical box cover plate, screws with some springs (taken from pieces of door hardware found in Home Depot) ...

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... and some fender washers to hold it on.

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Reflector mount was easy, just a few pieces of old door pull plates ...

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... chopped up ...

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... and screwed together with sheet metal screws.

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There will be a gap of about an inch or two above the reflector plate for airflow.

Finally, this sucker fits where the back little box meets the next box, with a little space on top to allow the fan to do it's business:

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It's hard to tell, but the brightness with the reflector vs without has me all worked up:

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Going to make the lens assembly slide on plexiglass rails after figuring out the right focal range:

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My new HP L1506 to replace poor Hanns came in fast. The thing practically stripped itself - everything was super easy to remove, and lack of FFC dealings warmed my heart. Time to test this sucker!

The test setup is an old freight elevator - the wall doesn't have junk in the way, but it's dark scratched crappy gray, so not the best for judging brightness:

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But, it works!

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The brightness is not so bright, though. Need to experiment with distances, but it appears that removing the AG will be my next topic of study. Still, despite an awful surface and suspect brightness, good enough to watch a classic:

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This is a realy cool project good luck on the ag removal if you get to that.

Thanks Ed, I'm wading through the vast amounts of AG removal data now, trying to figure out the best way to remove the stuff, tempted by the possible ease with which soaking could take the stuff off, scared by the few horror stories of unsuccessful attempts.

After much reading and a little fretting, I couldn't resist the temptation to get the AG off my LCD, especially given the resulting improvements in image color that have been reported. So, I soaked it with a couple layers of this:

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The sheets are leftover muslin from another project, which laid nice and flat. Each sheet doesn't absorb much, but a few on top of each other held a good bit of water. I kept the sheets good and wet overnight, with a piece of plywood on top to hold everything down.

Next morning, I started poking around with an exacto knife ... and very carefully pried up a corner of POLARIZER! Even though this is my first go at this, I knew immediately what it was from the descriptions on the forum. Not what I wanted to do, but the corner was small, so I let the thing soak for 2 more hours (while scouring the forums on polarizer replacement in case I had to do it), then went back at it on another corner. No dice, no way could I get in between the AG and polarizer, so I just took a deep breath and carefully yanked up all of the polarizing film on that side.

There was only one area where the polarizer and AG separated, and that was quite by accident:

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Off to buy a sheet of polarizer. I wonder what the latest state of the art recommendation is for a sheet? As of this post, polarization.com is out of the good stuff ... any ideas?

While waiting 8 to 25 days for a sheet of new polarizer from Far Away (3dlens.com is in Taiwan?), I ripped apart the test projector, cut down some long pieces, and started finishing the pieces. So far, it has one coat of red stain (diluted 4 parts stain, 3 parts mineral spirits) and a few coats of gloss finish water-based polyurethane. I'm just going to keep layering on poly till that polarizer gets here ...

Dismembered Projector, Before:
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Disemboweled Projector, After:
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Okay I'll make you a deal you can't resist, I already bought a sheet of polarizer film not going to use it anymore since my lcd is dea. It's for a 15" lcd and the good news is that it is already fixed at a 45 degree angle it's yours if you want it. I tested it out on my magnavox lcd by just placing it over it and it actualy had a slightly better contrast than the original polarizer film. Let me know soon though cause I'll be heading to Florida on the 5th and since it's a trip with the wife I won't be allowed to do anything related to my pj lol yea right... I bought it for $50 but I'll let it go cheaper and thats including shipping.

I need to get rid of though before it tempts me to replace the polarizer on my boxlight panel .

Your design is going to be tight when you finish it just take care of your lcd though so you don't cause anymore damage.


DM

lol man my bad didn't see that you ordered one already..

Man I love this design I thought of something similar but I got scared

DM, thanks for the polar offer - would definitely take you up on it in a minute if I hadn't already plunked down some magic credit card dollars on a sheet from 3dlens.com. I'm not really sure if my screen's polar is 45 degrees or not, either (how can you tell if you don't have a sheet of known-orientation to twist around?).

Thanks for the kind words This has been more challenging to build than a coffin-style enclosure, granted, but it was really not that hard to build. The most important component of the fabrication process was a good set of drawings w/ measurements ... once that's done, you're just cutting square pieces of plywood w/ some quarter inch deep, saw blade wide grooves (super easy to cut with a table saw) in which to recess the plastic face edges.

My original plan involved lots of slopes and angles, but I ran screaming after realizing how precise (and confusing) all the cuts would have needed to be in order to avoid an end product that looked like it was built by blind 2nd graders.

Yep you are right about not having something to go by for reference. I ordered it thiniking the sheet would be much larger but it was just a little larger than a 15" lcd perfect for fixing a 15" polar replacement if you actualy have a 45 degree.

It is amazing though how many pieces you have in that pj like a puzzle.

DM

Six section cubes makes 24 side and top pieces (the ones being stained/finished in the picture), plus 7 hidden front/back pieces w/ 7 pieces of matching pretty blue lexan. I guess a total of 38 pieces vs the standard setup's 6 pieces does sound like maximus painicus in the gluteus, but it's just easy slice-n-dice work rather than the precision hard stuff that would result were any curves or strange angles involved.

Wow, I guess I've taken an 8 month sabatical from projector building. Work has been greedily sucking up all my brain's CPU cycles, but now I'm back at it, hoping to wrap this thing up over the next few weeks. All of the enclosure parts are stained, slathered in a few coats of polyurethane, and ready to assemble. Now, just need to attach some new polarizing film (to fix the old layer that I accidentally destroyed) and get the electronics working. Here's a look at the partially assembled enclosure.

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Great to have you back, I liked the look of your PJ, Good luck.

Wow... You came back at the same time i decided to. Gotta say after the horrible exprience with the Hanns-G monitor (ok it was nothing more then a mildly irritating exprence) I was left discouraged (um... more like distracted) but with a 11 month absence, I think its time enough to get back to work lol

Good to see your back at it. Wish I had as much good work to show for it.

Best of luck!

Whoops, accidentally posted this as a new topic, duh, here it is again:

I've had the 95% done version of this thing sitting around forever, and finally got it mounted and running a while back. Ended up getting a smaller, higher res LCD panel from a place called Manhattan LCD, installed it, hung the projected from floor-to-ceiling steel cables w a funky sort of suspended table, rigged up a sort of home-made cable raceway, built a simple screen, and hooked it up to a Windows Media Center Extender (dma2100). Here's what the whole mess looks like:

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Thanks to the great community on this site for all the help along the way. Next project: new home rolled speaker / sub enclosures, should have that done within 2 years :-)

Welcome back!

Nice job on the projector!

I'm envious of all the space you have - love the open floor plan.

Pretty ingenious with the wire hanging/end table deco, Do you have to gently place any item on the table before the pj begins to twist uncontrollably or is it pretty much motionless to a bump?

It looks like it's solidly anchored to the ceiling and floor, so there shouldn't be much motion to it.