OK call me paranoid..i just wanted to run my sled plans by you before taking the plunge. According to some drawings I've seen on here the distance from rear fresnel to lcd is 5/8" and the distance from lcd to front fresnel is 13/16". I'm thinking I'll just get some plywood, cut a groove down the middle one sawblade wide, then measure exactly those distances from the center line. I'll then use some insulator and slip the lenses/lcd panel in..here's my highly technical drawings done in the industry standard ms paint.
The small strips running across the top and bottom on the "front view" are 1x1's I thought I might put across the front/back on the top/bottom to sturdy it up a bit...



I will have some type of backing on the lcd to keep the air flow coming from the slot (mine's going to be in the bottom ) and the light from only coming through the "viewable" part of the lcd. The fresnel lenses will of course be perfectly aligned and the lcd panel will be centered on them. There will need to be a small gap under the first lens for the lcd circuit board. I was thinking of just banging some motherboard mounts into the wood and screwing the circuit board to them...any suggestions or worries? I would like to do some keystone correction but my design will make the front lens stationary....anyways just looking for comments concerns..I'm not very good at woodwork so I'm trying to keep it simple...

You will want to block light from coming through the sled blow the LCD.This part will be somewhat tricky, as you don't want to interfere with either the edge connectors to the LCD, or the airflow coming in from your bottom slot.

If you do not block off this light, it will show as an unfocused light blur over the top of your screen. Possibly you will be able to see details of the LCD circuit board. Not quite ideal...

thanks.i do plan on blocking off the back of the lcd..(that was the black line on the cut off view ). I think maybe I'll get a thin peice of something, cut out the viewable area of the lcd, and put some type of gasket material around the edge to seal it off at the lcd screen...still thinking of ways to do the swinging front fresnel....

K, sounds good.


For a swinging fresnel, many people simply hang the fresnel from a dowel. Cheap, effective, and works well.

I made a frame for mine, using the stuff for window screens, but rotated so that the groove that you lock the screen material in faces the insides. I then drilled a couple of holes in the sides, and used a couple of shelf pegs (The kind that hold in the movable shelves in bookcases) in the side. These in turn went into a couple of pieces of 1/4" MDF which was screwed into the side of my enclosure. The result is an easily pivoted fresnel frame.