Where were they all months ago when we needed em? They had me thinking I was going blind! Be sure to let us know how it goes once its done.

For anyone concerned about the mod, dont be. Compared to stripping even an easy panel it's a piece of cake. As elken says, a soft clean work space is mandatory and I too used surgical gloves to avoid smudges. I would definitly put a screwdriver on the slotted nut ONLY after my thumbs were bleeding from trying and trying by hand. Mine was quite easy to undo tho. Have your spacer made before start too. You can test it for fit on the inside diameter of the caseing at the non flange end.

Fantastic discovery elken! Thank you. And same to you Dazz.

oh also, you probably wont notice the pin cushion (or corner focus) in wide screen. Bring up the desktop at 3:4 if you can, and sight the top or bottom of the projection against a straight edge.

How about some before and after pics?

sorry took no pics,, twas an experiment after last nights observations,, my main project was building fancy dancy powerball light engine, haven't even taken pics of its build..

Well, I do have access to a lathe, but a sketch would go a long way to explaining how to achieve zoom. Just have to get a pro lens now.....

Thanks elken for your efforts

I did the mod on my pro triplet, since i am experiencing the corner focus problem on my folded 17" setup. I talked about this some time ago on the french forum (www.allinbox.com) but wasn't brave enough to open the triplet. Used some electrical wire to do the o ring.

So the mod works well for corners, but now i see some sort of "smearing" in the center of the projection. You can see on the mouse cursor on a black background. The more the distance from the center the less is this "smearing". The smearing is exactly what i got before but in the corners ... Do you also experience this on your setup ?

On a side note i realize this was my first post on this forum. I spent a lot of time reading you here since 6 months, but never posted anything ... You guy do a fantastic job !

when you did the mod did you mark the lens 123 and arrows,,

also what thickness was your spacer?

mine is perfect all over focus

Yes i did everything properly. The wire i used is black, and a bit more than 3mm in diameter. With the curve of the lens it touch it must do something like 3.5mm, dunno. The focus is perfect that's not the problem just some sort of smearing exatly like looking through a window with vapor on it (you see ? sorry for my bad english), or something like a panel without AG removed (my AG is removed) ...

The problem does not show in the corner. I just see some chromatic aberration, but this has to be normal because of the fresnels.

I'll go back to the stock config and recheck that the problem is not there to be sure, but i don't think i'll have the time to do it today. I live in France and our "white house" equivalent is opened to the public 2 days per year. Today happen to be one of those 2 days ... Must have to see this, and see the toys of our old and tired president

By the way did you had the time to write the 9 magical numbers on a paper ? You know this ANSI thing ? I also saw that OSRAM will do a 400W cerarmic in early 2007

maybe try a slightly thicker spacer,, maybe it was just not enough,, your english is fine...

Could you post some more information on the 400w ceramic bulbs or where you got the info from.

An observation I made when I had my pro lens apart was the lens closest to the flange, although a bi-convex, was not a symmetrical bi-convex. The side facing the LCD had more curve on it than the side facing the inside of the lens tube. I did not need a measuring instrument to observe this, the difference can be seen visually.

My pro lens exhibits no pincushioning but others here say their's does. Assuming the design was not altered during production, and thats a big assumption, I'm just wondering if this lens was flipped at the factory on some lens assemblies. The second lens seems to be symmetrical bi-concave and the other end is convex/concave so the orientation on those is obvious.

I have not flipped mine to see what happens but from my experience with the original non-pro triplet which had crazing of what looked like grinding paste on two lens surfaces inside the triplet, well...anything can happen.

That was my first thought when I took it apart and saw that lens. I tried reversing that and all lens's and several combinations too. No cigar.

btw, you say you experience no pin cushioning. What about corner focus at full 4:3. Would be very interesting to measure the spacers on a known correct triplet.

ok for those who want to see the results,, following are straight as snapped macro shots of all parts of screen

more

After some thought on my "smearing" problem and more observation, i believe the problem is not caused by the triplet. As you can see it in this shot (a bit blurred cause it's hand held), the smearing is only horizontal. It make with think it is caused by the length of the arc (OSRAM HQI 400W). Moreover if I stop the light with my hands on the vertical axis on the triplet starting from the sides (thus reducing the light coming from the sides of the arc), then the problem disappear completely.

Here is the shot

Did more testing again. I only need to block 1cm on each side at the ouput of the triplet. Instead of the arc, could the problem be cause by reflections on the O'ring i put in there ? My ring is black but not matte

Wondering ...

are you using a mirror in the system at all?

I will at some stage this week throw the 400 HQI in PJ and check that factor too..

Yep front surface mirror, coming from lumenlab

F1 220, F2 650, 17", lumenlab reflector, condenser lens (90mm dia, 260mm focal)

can show a pic or draw diagram of setup,, that looks like a reflection effect ..

Try adjusting your lamp position slightly.

DJ

Thanks for your help DAZZLA and elken, i will do a few mod and see if it's not a reflexion.

PS: elken you can see some pics of my setup here (in french hehe) : my project

Meyer2, like Anakin said, would be very interesting that you measure the spacers on your KNOWN CORRECT TRIPLET, to help to the people which have ALMOST correct triplets.

Greetings.

THANK YOU SOO MUCH! I had one of the first batches of triplets, waited a year for the thing. When I got it in I was expecting great things and until tonight I never had them. It has been over 2 years since I sold my standard lens projector, that was the last time I had perfect corner to corner focus.

I followed the directions to a T and this worked fine. I just used some black rubber coated wire as my spacer and it works great.

I still have the slight horizontal blur. It is perfectly horizontal which makes me want to say it is the bulb. I have the old pulse strike lamp with the 2 inch chamber. My bulb is horizontal so my best guess is since it is not a precise point source it blurs slightly horizontally.

Why is everyone assuming the triplets are different. I havent seen anyone post that they have different spacers in a triplet. Mine was in the first batch and I had the same setup as in the pictures. Has anyone found theirs to be different?

foamcows so you also experience the slight horizontal smearing ? Did you have it before the mod ? Can you try this little simple mod : put 2 stripes of tape vertically on each side at the entry of the triplet (lcd side), i can be narrow (1cm or less with, 3cm height). Does it work to stop the smearing ?

ok here are some shots of screen,, the redish and bluish fringe, is not on screen, my cam on macro is doing that for some reason

ore

In the previous shots my marco shot, was showing red hue left and a blue right,, ummm well its valid,

but the reason is that the lens is now focussing so sharply the subpixels are not being smeared, result the macro is bordering on resolving the sub pixels, i used a maginifier to check it out , and yes tthe red pixies are on left side of pointer, and right side the edge pixies are the blue ones.. so its not any fault at all

ok here is the lens REAL LIFE MODIFICATION, by connect the dots..
and some results, in fact I tightened down more because of "o" ring being rubber,, and more square, and my son said S%^^T its even sharper... so there you have it,, I will take no more shots or say anymore, on it..

A proper machined ring would suit this much better too of course,, optics can be, umm are unforgiving as to alignment, in such a thing a a triplet..

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The previous pic was as it came out of housing..

this shows the LCD end lens as it should be

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the front lens, towards screen

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the change, note the rubber (really unsuitable, but will do for now) "O" ring

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The new stack ready for SRB housing

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the old spacer to be used to fill the extra space before the screw ring is put in

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completed rebuild, note the big orig "wrong spacer" plus screw ring,, tighten this down firm but DO NOT OVERTIGHTEN,, remember there is a lot of heat concentrated inside these triplets,, because of concentrated light in centre zone..

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the results................................
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My last and final word on this little excursion,, away from taking Luxies out of everyone,, and why I dont have time to play Luxies,,



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My remarks about smearing were not for ranting (humm not sure of this word ...), really. There is no doubt you are a plain genius

Those pics you posted are razor sharps

There is something I do not understand however. Your pics show that your replaced the SECOND o'ring with a home made, whereas DAZZLA schematics show that we have to replace the FIRST one ... I'm a little lost

ok,,, the lens that faces the projection screen has a spacer of about 4mm ( orignal ring) to the double concave then there was a 12mm to the rear lens which is convex on both sides. it is the 12mm ring you replace with a approx 3.5mm,, maybe confusion was there, follow my pics, they show config

and sorry I was not directing anything to you.. just if too much is said in a thread,, it gets too confusing..

ohhhh also dont go by the flange on mine reconstructed,, I reversed the pile in the housing so flange points to projection screen..

That's the explanation then ! Interesting, I must try that because this way you have the 12mm spacer facing the lcd instead of the screen, then the first lens is more recessed which will stop a bit of light coming from the sides of the triplet (because fov will be less). It should really minimize the horizontal smearing I see which i believe is caused by light going too far on the sides of the triplet because of the arc size. You can not have this problem with your little ceramic gem. I'm really excited about this 400W powerball coming in 2007

heheheh I might get a quarter excited if it was a 10mm arc,, but it wont..

at most I would myself look at 200 watt, but personally for myself never again a high wattage,, unless you doing what Arizona wnats which is big ar__e outside projection,, I hope he has parking spaces, and poles for speakers too

I went to your home,, looked thru,,, very nice build there,, impressive pictures too...

Hey Arkieeee,, you sleeping there ??

Ogo I have the ghosting as well. A couple of things that I have noticed:
By moving the arc away from the rear fresnel the ghosting is reduced. This reduces the arc image at the triplet. The down side is the corners start to become rusty.
Stopping the rear of the triplet down on all sides removes the ghosting all together with a small amount of lost lumens.
Stopping the triplet down at the front has the same effect.
The arc is either too large for the triplet, the ends of the arc are reflecting internally or externally.
An iris would be handy in this lens.
I’m going to go and disassemble it again and try a couple of things.

DJ

ohhhhhhhhhhhhh nooo not again,,, petunia's speak again,,, hehehehehhe

maybe for the large arc lamps,, 5mm is good...

seems I have a double bonus,, good focus, good image,,, gotta luvvvv that ballism of a lamp,,,

as I said early on,,, using a maginifier,, I could see the sub pixels extremely sharply and the colour RGB were very defined... hmmmm,,, hence why cam in macro mode showed the red and blue halo effect, which is not vis in real life...

maybe for the moment I have the sharpest pic in town.. ceramics rule ,,, heheheheh, sorry, I had to gloat then,,, now I will pull da head in,, cheesy grin

My first thought was that the flange was causing the ghost so I flipped the triplet, no joy. I’m now waiting for the permanent marker to dry, fingers crossed.

DJ

permism markism huhhhh hmmm... plotism lostism

My suspicion was correct it was internal reflection. The inside of the triplet casing, on mine at least, had been machined after it had been anodised so it was bare aluminium. I used a permanent black marker to black out case as well as the edges of the lens elements. The poltergeist has gone.

DJ

I believe that the inside of the case may work even better if it was coated with something that flat as the maker and the anodised aluminium still has a shine to it.
Elken’s small arc will probably still out preform a larger arc because he is only using a small section of the triplet.

DJ