Hi all,
I'm a 20 year old junior mechanical engineering student from Vermont. I go to school in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins University, and with a little luck I should have a nice little home theater system in my room by the start of fall semester.

Work has already begun on my PJ after many hours study the other in depth PLOG's on this website. I found SJ's to be very helpful with all the little details that you never realize until you get to them.

Anyway, as for the basics - I have decided to go with a design similar to Rorshack's Military design (sorry if I massacred your name, but I think I spelled it right). I have made a couple of modifications to make the design a little easier fine tuning in the long run (I hope ). As for drawing of that, I have a couple cad drawings but am not sure how post them.

As far as components go, I have gone with the KIS (keep it simple) and KIC (keep it cheap) ideaologies.

For starters, I raided the LL warehouse and bought the 15" lens kit, including fresnels and triplet. Also from LL, I purchased the T15 lamp and electronic ballast (very sharp I might add). Can't forget the pre reflector either (which was my prime reason for choosing the T15, that and its color rendering capability).
From NewEgg, I bought a ViewEra 15" lcd monitor. I'll post the model number later, but it had good specs, and was very cheap after the $50 MIR. Also from NewEgg, I bought the KWorld TVBox which I will use as my upscaler and a general base for all of my video inputs and outputs.
Aside from that, I purchased a bunch of random electronic parts from Allied Electric (i.e. breaker, rocker switches, shrink tubing, power cables, etc.
Lastly, I bought a couple of 80mm mechtronic computer fans off ebay, and acquired many random accessories from my local Ace Hardware. (with BOOM, tough actin' Tinactin - I love John Madden skits...).

I am at work now, so I can't take any pictures but my progress over the weekend has amounted to this.
1. Fabricate an adjustable reflector holder and mount from nothing but a fan guard, some tin flashing, and JB Weld.
2. Strip the monitor (believe me, it's much more difficult than it sounds, but I'll explain that in my next post.

Right now I'm in the process of brainstorming fresnel/lcd mounting possibilities.
In line with the KIS method, I want to mount the rear fresnel and lcd on either side of the same frame (3/4" plywood, maybe). This will be the only part of my design that has no adjustability, everything else will move with respect to those. My reflector and lamp will be mounted on a single unit which will be able to move forward or back by turning a bolt in the back of the design. The front fresnel will be able to adjust slightly to fix keystoning, and I'm thinking that I will use the very sophisticated binder clip and dowel design, or some variation of it to do so. Also using the shower drain pvc method of triplet focusing.

I plan to keep all controls and electronics in a seperate base box, like the military design, which will be connected via a hinge. This will be a challenge for me. I have had little experience wiring/soldering in my lifetime, so there will be a little practice between now and then, but I plan to hard wire everything and cover the connections via shrink tubing to keep everything as clean as possible.

Sorry for rattling on, I'll try to prevent this in future posts. Basically - if anyone can give me some ideas for simple and effective fresnel/lcd tray mounts, I would appreciate it. So far my idea is those little mirror clipsto hold everything in place, but I'm open to suggestions.

Thanks,
Josh

So as far as the monitor stripping. I'm not sure who did this monitor before me, but they were right, it did have an ffc issue, which requires a 10-pin extension. Not having them available on LL, I bought the 20 pin instead, that way if I cut a little to close on one side, the other half should still be salvagable.

This monitor was a challenge to strip but was not impossible. Most of it came apart very easily, until I got down to the nitty gritty near the circuitry. The two circuit board connected directly to the lcd posed a problem to me. There were two screws holding on of the boards down that must have been soldered to the board itself. After nearly breaking a couple of tiny screwdrivers, it ended up coming down to cutting one screw with a hacksaw blade. The other was completely inaccessible to the hack saw, so it was Dremmel Time, Baby. That was the most nerve wrenching thing I’ve done in a long time. There was literally no room for error, as I was cutting the top off a screw attached directly to the circuit board. Also, around the screw head was a copper colored ring that looked to be connected to the circuitry itself. I was able to remove the screw without breaking that circle.

Lo and behold after disassembly was complete, I rewired the screen to my laptop, and it was a complete success. No dead spots, perfect resolution. I was pleased, to say the least.

But anyway, this monitor is doable, but not for the faint of heart. Anytime a dremmel is required, there is always a bit of risk involved. Proceed with caution.

Sounds like you are off to good start Joshua. Congratulation on the LCD disassembly.

I've seen the military PJ, I thought it used a much smaller LCD. Pretty sleek design for a 15'er.

Two things come to mind right off hand.
1) Pleeeeeeaaase be careful with how many times you hook up and unhook the connections on that LCD. The will wear out after a very short period of time if you do it frequently. They're just not made to be unhooked.

2) If you want to post pics from your cad software, I have the following suggestions. If it has an option to export to image, try that (guessing it doesn't if you're having difficulties). If not (and it's a windoze app), try displaying the image and using the alt-prtsc key sequence then paste the resulting image from the clipboard into paint. Save this as either a bmp (this will likely be a rather bloated file) or as a jpg or gif - you're likely to lose a bit of color quality doing jpg or gif, so check it before posting.

Just some rambling thoughts...

Gus

Ok, not much done last night, basically just played around with my new soldering iron and got rather proficient at soldering. Not as scary as I thought it might be.

Well, got a few questions for anybody out there. First off, do I need to buy the guide to be declared a buyer?

I mean, I've spent $300+ on LL and am still just a member, how do I become a buyer?

Now, the more important questions. Using the LL T15 lamp, how close can my lexan heat sheild be from my rear fresnel if there is a 7-8" distance from the lamp to the lexan? I know it depends on airflow and stuff, but would putting them back to back be a bad idea? I have fans sucking the air out directly above my lamp, just so you know.

Now, as far as keystone adjustment goes, I plan to use this thing from a lower location, say the floor or more likely a short coffee table. If my lcd is mounted with respect to my box with no adjustment available, will it be alright to mount the collector fresnel on a central axis and swivel it for adjustments? I know I want everything to be perfectly lined up as far as lighting goes, which is my reason to mount it about a central axis, and I also know I want the collector very close to the lcd (about 10 mm). However, with that set up, I only have about 4.6 degrees of adjustment before the collector would be touching the lcd. 4.6 degrees will only give me about 6" of vertical motion on a screen 6 feet away (about an 80" high screen, I think). Will it be worth the loss in picture quality to move the collector a little farther from the lcd, say 20 mm gap instead of 10 mm gap to get a possible 12" vertical adjustment?

Still trying to upload some cad's, should be up soon

Josh

Sorry, I had to cut and paste in word, I hope you can see it, its just a basic air flow design.

Now, some general keystone adjustment questions.

First off, some questions about the fresnel hanging from dowel method with multiple dowel hanging positions.

I was just wondering, for a larger adjustment (like 10 degrees or more) does this affect the resolution of the image, as the center of the image is no longer in line with the center of the fresnel, or do people adjust the height of their mounts so that they adjust for the height change?

Worrying about poor image quality, I was thinking about having side mounts at the middle of the fresnel (height wise) and have an arched groove routed in the sides of the box for the dowel to to track in as I adjust it for keystoning, maintaining the perfect alignment with the light path. Of course the downside to that method is that I have very little room for keystone adjustment if I want the front fresnel relatively close to the lcd (like 10 mm or so).

Which do people feel will create more clarity issues, the height difference from the hanging method or the inability to move the fresnel with respect to the lcd?

When keystoning, how close can the fresnel come to the lcd before quality takes a hit? Right now, there will be almost no gap between the bottom of my collector fresnel and the bottom of my lcd, and about 10-14mm between the two at the middle. Will this be alright, or should I move the fresnel even farther away to make room at the bottom?

Thanks,
Josh Doe

officially killed my viewera v152 monitor with a damn short and flimsy ffc

it came unsoldered when trying to attach the not so flimsy extension cable

I need help quick.

I need a few good models to look for at bestbuy, circuit city, or walmart tomorrow. I am really looking for something that is easy to strip and will not require and extension cable

I am only a week away from heading back to college and really want to get this done. I need something I can buy in person tomorrow.

Help appreciated more than you could ever know

Josh

I think its a $20 donation to become a 'customer' but to be honest I never looked into so I could be pulling this straight from my (_(_)