I've decided that this weekend will be the official start of my 2nd projector. I plan on taking everything except the lighting engine from the old projector I had made, which only got use for about 10 hours due to bulb/ballast issues.

But now I have a new S51 ballast and a 400 watt Philips Ceramic Arc bulb to play with. This might be wierd but I will be orienting my bulb vertically as it is a V rated bulb.

New plan! Retro-fitting a DIY projector into a commercial Proxima 9320's casing!




The parts are as follows:

Standard Triplet and Fresnels
Masscool Fans
Philips 15PF7835/38 15" LCD TV (component, s-video, composite, co-ax, no VGA input...)
S51 Ballast/Mogul->35$
Philips Ceramic Arc 400w bulb->7.50$
LL Wiring Kit->25$

Please excuse my reserved posts, I do this so that in the future when people look at my Plog they don't have to surf through it to see the results, they will be right here.

Those CDM bulbs make me salivate (if not more )

Where the hell did you find a CDM 400W. This one is not listen anywhere ?

Is this FC2 Mastercolor CDM 400W (830 or 942 ?)

Could it be this one ?

CDM400

Yes that's the one!

It can be bought from http://www.bulbs.com/products/product_deta...inventory=11514
But I managed to snag two, 1-250w CDM philips and 1-400w CDM philips for 15$ shipped off of Ebay

About the stats on that page about the CDM 400w Philips, they aren't all accurate. I don't believe the CRI or lumen output is as high as listed, and as I have the bulb in hand right now with a ruler. I can see that the arc is not 32mm, it is 38mm.

Just take the image of the bulb in that picture, blow it up to 9.75" long, then measure the arc.

Thanks for that page though

Updates on my progress, so far I have taken off the panel that surrounded the inputs from my old projector. As well as removing fresnels, triplet and LCD panel from the old setup.

I've done almost all of the wiring, this time my wiring is good, unlike my first projector where I don't think my ground worked...

I only have the fans to wire up and also some of the live connections. I have a really ghetto fan thermostat from a long time ago, it's old and only goes up to 90f but I figure that if I just keep it on 90f then everything should work out fine since the fans will be on most of the time.

Well the thermostat I had to run the fans didn't work, so all my wiring except the thermostat is done. It looks messy but it really isn't that bad, I've stapled most of the wires down too avoid clutter

This is the arc of the bulb close up:

haha that pic actually made me laugh out loud wire spaghetti!

How do you make a circular hole in wood for fans, is there an attachment for a hand drill or something.

It's an adjustable hole cutter drill bit. I bought it at Menards for about 7$ in the drill section. I'll take a picture of it tomorrow

It's a minor improvement over my last boxes wiring But it's tested and working!

there are standard hole saws. these get very expensive for large sizes.



adjustable hole saws (most look pretty much like this.. this one for drywall I think)



then what I use for cutting FAN holes.. a jig saw



I can control it pretty well.. cut these with a jig saw



I will NOT be using the jigsaw to cut the hole for the triplet since I want it very precise. still up in the air on what to use though. probably get an adjustable saw bit and toss it on a drill press

An adjustable hole say is also called a fly cutter. You do not want to use a hand drill with a fly cutter. You can try but they will bind and stick bad.

I have a fly cutter and a drill press and some hole cuters to about 3" and a router with a circle cutter attachment, and for most holes I still use the jig saw. A good blade and some practice and you can make a fine hole fast.

You can make the whole PJ with a good jig saw and a drill Just have homedeop make the long rips on ther panel saw for $1.00

I use a hand drill with the hole cutter I have, it sticks occasionally, but I just pull the trigger back all the way and plow through the board. I have yet to make an ugly hole

Here is my hole cutter

Well I went to home depot an the only drill thing they had was the hole cutter and for the size I needed it was $40, so is there any other way using a drill to get the holes.

Maybe not what you're looking for price wise, but I finially tried my Dremel's hole cutting attachment and it worked very well. Much better than I had expected!

If you already have a Dremel I bet the attachment and blade wouldn't be much more than $20, or I think I got my whole Dremel kit for around $90...

Here's a pic of a similar one


If you end up using a standard hole saw (like the red on tameone posted above) here's a trick I've learned:
Drill the pilot hole seperately and mount the drill bit backward in the hole saw. This will help keep the hole saw centered.

Do you have a Menards close by? I'm sure they have an adjustable hole cutter like mine, or you could take Hirudins advice about the hole cutting dremel attachment.

Dremmel attatchments are surprisingly expensive. I don't think they make much money on the tool itself, it's selling that attatcments where the money is...

To make your own hole jig for your dremmel:

You will need:

A dremel.
The straight cut attatchment
cutting bit
Some 1/4" MDF or similar material
Short screws (3/8" - 1/2")
Screwdriver

Use the dremel to cut out 2 pieces of material. One will be roughly spoon shaped, with the round part somewhat larger than the base of your dremel. Precision isn't really important here. Cut 4 small strips, about 3/8" to 1/2" wide.

Use the small strips and the screws to fasten down the straight cut attatchment on the dremel on the "spoon" you can probably just use the dremel to make a hole for the bit.

Now, measure the radius of the circle you want (Measure from the OUTSIDE of the bit) and put a hole int he handle of the spoon in the proper place.

Use a nail or screw to hold down the center of the hold, and voila. You're ready to make a perfect circle, total cost, some time and about $2.

And do a test cut to see if it is right.

I would like to ask you, because I'm really suprized with you...
Two things:
1) AMAZING PRIZE. Where do you get this?
S51 Ballast/Mogul->35$
Philips Ceramic Arc 400w bulb->7.50$

2) I thought that the CERAMIC lamp 400W, don't exists yet (I rode in elken's post that go out in 2007 like the 150W lamp that make crazy to all the people for its quality), but I see that I'm mistaken.
In fact, I had purchased one of 150W ceramic kit last week (not comes yet).
I'm very interesting in your build.
Sorry for my terrible english.
Thank you.
Greetings.

Your English is actually pretty good!

There is a 400w Philips Ceramic Arc bulb out currently, available here: http://www.bulbs.com/products/product_deta...inventory=13318

The S51 Ballast/Mogul(on Ebay) was an excellent deal and I listed it in the Trading Post, but looks like it was deleted since the guy selling the Ballasts ran out. I got mine for 35$ Shipped.

The Ceramic arc 400w I bought was off of Ebay as well, I bought 2- 1x 250w CDM, and 1x 400w CDM both made by Philips for 15$ shipped. I just took 15$/2 to get 7.50$ considering there were 2x bulbs.

I also bought my LCD TV panel off Ebay for about 50$ shipped, nothing was wrong with it just the speakers were broken

Not too mention the new LL standard triplet I bought for 20$ shipped.

People who tell me they "don't trust" Ebay make me laugh. It's INCREDIBLY easy not to get scammed, don't buy items from people with less then 50 buyer feedback. Ebay is the best place to source your parts, if your smart and spend a little bit of time researching, you can get almost every part cheap. Dirt Cheap

I love Ebay...

The GOOD 400w Ceramic Arcs have yet to come out (check www.eyelighting.com), but my Philips CDM is still decent, and gets me better CRI then standard metal halides, and a slightly shorter arc. http://www.bulbs.com/products/product_deta...inventory=13318
The arc is actually 39mm NOT 32mm. I measured it myself.

menards is great, but i picked up a 15-piece titanium holesaw kit from harbour freight for 4 bucks.

another trick with dremels is (make sure to double check when you do this cuz not all of them work) to use the 'tool shop' brand from menards. i picked up a 10 piece diamond cut/engraving kit for 7 dollars, when the dremel brand was $15 for a 4 piece set.

Is there anyway you could cover it with some metal sheeting, like make box that surrounds the wires.

Without flashing? Yes, I think it is too close. If you flashed it so that the lamp didn't shine directly on it and had some airflow or a heatsink, I think it would be ok. IMHO. It looks kind of tricky though... in a tight spot.

What's the deal with that lamp? I've never seen that crazy coil around the arc chamber before. Looks like trouble...

[edit]Maybe a tube would work easiest for that... say a 4" galvanized duct with a hole in the side(like some lightboxes others have done before). Just a suggestion. At that angle the lamp would cool with convection somewhat, as long as there was an opening at the top and bottom.

Well, some things have changed, I no longer am doing what I originally had thought I was doing.

Ill start with a story. Here it goes, I bought a Proxima PRO AV 9320 with the intentions of getting it working and re-selling it, I paid 180$ total shipping included for the Proxima 9320 without a bulb in it.

Once I get it I look at the lens and there is something strange about it. It has the markings Short Throw High Precision Zoom Lens on it, I go on Ebay and I look up this exact lens. Well turns out the lens sells for around 800$ on Ebay, probably because it is compatible with many projectors, new and old.

I'm in the process of selling it, but in the mean time I bought a commercial bulb for it from www.diypro.us for about 80$. I fit the bulb into the reflector and turn on the projector, the bulb lights up and everything appears to be working, but no picture, just blank white (very bright 3000 lumens) screen appears. So I open her up and I can't tell what is wrong, so I was stumped for a while on what to do with this commercial projector. Then one day I measure the dimensions of it and go "Hmmm, that is similar to my DIY projector, a little to short (2" too short), and not long (4" to short) enough but both of those can be remedied."

I found the problem with the projector once I took it apart, one of the FFC connections was frayed a bit, and someone obviously tried fixing it with electrical tape. That worked great

So here I am taking apart this once 16,000$ projector for the good of LL. At this time I have completely dismantled/gutted the monster. I plan on puting everything from my DIY inside her, and possibly using some of the parts from the old projector in my DIY projector, like the heat shield.

I took some pictures of the insides and the lenses/mirrors:









These mirrors are trippy.

The dimensions are as follows->

9.2 x 15.4 x 22.9

Litherish

Looks like you got a lenslet array there in the picture..have you another or only one ?

Another Proxima 9320? Nope, just the one, if you were asking about the lenses/mirrors those are all of the ones that were in the projector.

If anyone is interested in the lenses/mirrors PM me and I'm willing to work something out.

Prism-> Sold

Two lenslets are sold to Mikyd

Edit: Dimensions for the prism are 2.5" x 2.375" x 2.5" and it is fairly heavy.

Well....I'm not sure if I want to build a DIY projector into the commercial housing like I originally intended to do, Or put the DIY stuff into my 50" RPTV I recently obtained...The RPTV would be easily viewable with the lights on, as opposed to the front projection DIY.

But the front projection would be bigger at around 100" compared to 50" if I tried making it into the RPTV.

I'm planning on getting a Wii at some point after it comes out, and I think it might be better to go 50" RPTV way as opposed to front projection basically because I could play it with the lights on as opposed to swinging a controller around in the dark....

Input?

How well did the tv strip?