Ok so this is the beginning of my projector Log. I will try to keep it updated as I am still in the aquisition phase of my project. So far I have purchased a gateway FPD 1750 off of ebay with 1280X1024 16ms and 450:1 it has a backlight problem. I also purchased a LL s15 triplett and 3dlens 220 fl and 330fl frensel lenses. My idea is to first build a standard style projector and then house it within a coffee table. My throw will be approx 6 ft. and using focal calc I should get approx 85" diag 5:4 screen. I am debating what type of bulb and ballast to get as money is a concern. Suggestions would be appreciated. I am so happy to have found this forum. When my wife and I bought our house in January I was given one bedroom to be my football/manroom. We currently have a 40" hdtv downstairs in the den however I wanted something bigger for my room. I was looking at commercial pj's however the bulb costs were really a concern. Once I found this forum I knew this was what I was looking for. I am a big DIYer I just finised tileing my master bath labor day weekend . I am really looking foreward to this project.

your parts list looks good so far. 17" LCD works fine with the standard triplet as long as you buy the larger dimension fresnels such as those from 3dlens.

The LL t15 bulb is one, if not the best 400w MH bulb.

you can buy an m59 probe start ballast + cap for about $45. check out the venture V90D6413K, specs here http://www.venturelighting.com/VLPS/Ballas...MH/V90D6413.pdf

available here for $46.50 http://www.hidirect.com/framesets/ballast.htm

this should work fine with the T15 bulb and is an inexpensive alternative to the LL eBallast. I think a few people on the board are using this very ballast.

if $50 is too expensive for the bulb, check out the 400 Watt Metal Halide Lamps on hidirect.com. you want an E39 mogul lamp, clear, ANSI code M59 (if you use the M59 ballast). bulb type is up to you. I'm assuming all the clear bulbs listed here are rather huge.

Hi Billy,

Best of luck with your project. Have fun and keep us posted!

I'm starting my PJ now, too, and I got the FPD1750 from ebay as well. If yours is similar to mine, then it will come apart easily, and there is only one circuit board on the panel, attached with several FFC's along the top (which conveniently becomes the bottom in our projectors )

I'm going to try dual 330's from 3DLens and a Philips CDM150 from Elken2004's famous thread.

I should probably start my own PLOG, instead of hijacking yours.

I searched on this forum for the FPD1750 to see if it was compatible and found your posts. I was hoping you had a plog already so I could steal your setup

Hey,

Tile Job looks great! I did a few thousand feet of that this summer. I appreciate all the effort that went into it.

As for the ballast. . . Look on Ebay! If you have a question about whether it will work, just ask! People around here are very knowledgeable and helpful.

Good luck

Granite

Ok I decided to go ahead and make the first cuts for my projector box. I used a modified HAAS design and increased the size based on the 17" lcd in place of the 15". I went with a more angular design as the projector will be completly out of sight once the coffee table is built. I also applied the first coat of flat black paint to the interior. I hope I made the dimensions big enough. I believe it is 13.5" tall at the tallest point, 6" tall at the ends and 30" long.

Nice work so far. I'm going with the standard triplet as well, it'll be interesting to see our results.

I don't have a PLOG yet, I'm too busy overthinking everything and trying to do everything absolutely perfectly. Yeah... that always works out.

you will need to make it 15" wide I.D. to fit the 17" screen. BTW, if you go with the T-15 bulb it is a Pulse start and will not work with the M59 ballast. you would need the M135 ballast, cap, and ignitor. or you could go with the E-ballast which will work with either a pulse or probe start bulb.

I started a thread a couple of days ago and got told it was a probe start

I made the I.D. 15.5" wide. Thank you for the reassurance I was a little worried and if money wasnt an issue I would have purchased one of your boxes. They look great by the way. I still have not decided on the ballast and bulb yet. Would like to know which type of bulb ballast combo takes the least amount of time to turn on?

I got my lcd and frensels in yesterday. I belive the lcd will work fine right now when I turn it on it displays the image from my computer for about 20 seconds then the screen goes dark I cant tell if there is still a picture on the lcd I will test it further tonight. I also included a picture of my DIY end table using an old stainless steel keg from the 40's.

Well I had some time this weekend to work on the projector. I used the shower drain method for triplet mounting and focusing. I also boxed in the bottom of the projector and framed the LCD. I temporarily placed the frensel lenses and used a 75 watt desk lamp to project an image. I was relieved to actually see the projection on my wall. I did not take any pictures of that however I do have some new pictures of my progress.

Last night I was messing around with my projector as I still haven't ordered a light source. I remebered that in my garage there are some 300 watt incandesent lightbulbs. I took one and put it in my desk lamp and then into the projector. I was suprized with the result. When I aligned the bulb correctly the picture was actually watchable. I'm definetly getting more excited about this project every day. My fans are being delivered today and hopefully I will have some extra cash to order my bulb and ballast on friday . I have some work to do this weekend finishing up the enclosure but it is realitevly minor work.

Any lamp wil work but which one is best? If yo dont want to run a condenser lens then a T15 is your bect choice or a 400 watt HQI.

With a condenser lens then the 150 watt ceramic or a lot of the small shell 250 watt look good like a 250 watt HQI.

If you go with a coill ballast they can have the power level adjusted some to meet your needs.

You really need to have a condenser lens with the 150 ceramic.

I made a little more progress last night. I attached one of my top panels with small hinges and the rear panel will be attached as soon as I make some holes for my exhaust fans In addition I made some legs for aiming the projector which are tightened with wingnuts. I also picked up some Lexan xl-10, Tin sheet metal, and weatherstripping for around the top panels from homedepot. I also started building a frame for my rear fresnel and heat shield. Thanks everyone for your help

Ok last night I went to lowes to pickup some short woodscrews for the pj and decided to look at the outdoor floodlights to see if they had anything useful. I found something not really useful for our pj but a great deal for me as I really wanted to finish construction on my pj box this weekend so I found 175 watt mercury vapor ed28 outdoor security light for $3.20. I believe it was worth it if only for the mogul base. I actually bought two of them one to be used as intended and the other I have already taken apart to find a h39 ballast. They didnt have any good deals on Metal halide light fixtures so that idea was pretty much dead. I believe the origional price for these was $64.99.

Ok following are some pics and a couple screenshots I have the pj working with the 175 MV bulb and ballast.
no time will post more later

Well this weekend i got the pj working with the 175 watt mercury vapor bulb and the results are less than stellar. :angry: I did know this going in because I was waiting to buy my real bulb and ballast. It is watchable however. The screenshots above are at a 48" diagonal. The colors are horrible with the bulbs CRI of 20 and only approx 8000 lumens the picture is very dark. I am going on vacation for a few days starting on wed hopefully when I get back I can get my bulb and ballast and start working on the coffe table I will put this in. I now have the projector in my manroom running in forced widescreen through powerstrip at 1280x720. In this widescreen resoultion my diagonal is about 72" I have not measured the throw but according to the focal calc it should be about 5.35 feet. Hopefully I can get it back to 6 feet of throw and about a 82" diag. in 16:9. I would also like to thank everyone here for all their help. Seeing this thing work has definetly motivated me to get this thing finished if that is ever possible. . I think I am going for a 400 watt mh bulb.

Ok I just got back from Cozumel, Mexico tonight and thought I would post an update. Monday I found a s51 ballast locally so I am getting closer to a real light source. The projector is watchable for bright viewing such as football however movies are very difficult to watch. I am planning on getting the s400dd bulb. I will probably order it tomorrow while at work.

Sounds exciting. I am also attempting to build this exact idea. I built my box last weekend. It is a beast, but I made it that way to figure out all of the dimensions, how large to build the coffee table, what degree I needed to raise projector. Once I find an optimal placement, I will definately let you know. I will start a new PLOG tomorrow with all of my updates. I have an old one, but its ... well its old. I look forward to seeing you progress.

My friend purchased a core and coil ballast to save $ and now has decided that if he had to do it over again, he would get an electronic one just because they are cooler and cooling isnt always easy. I took his advice and purchased LLs ballast, bulb, and socket (some ppl call it mogul). Just my thoughts. What will you use to connect input devices to your monitor?

I purchased the ViewSonic N6. Its worked quite well so far.

For input I have a HTPC currently its an Athalon xp 2800, 1.5gb, 440gb, PVR150, 6600gt, avermediahdtv tuner running Windows Vista RC2. I am actually planning on cooling the whole coffee table as I will have my htpc and maybe a can refrigerator built-in. I am planning on piping the heat out a vent through the side of my house during the summer and probably will use the setup to heat the room in the winter. Once I get the projector finished up I will start on the coffee table project. my overall dimensions should be 36" wide by 60" long mainly because I will be projecting out the front of my coffee table rather than the side. I really would like to put an lcd screen in the table top somwhere I am planning on making my table sides black and the table top slate tile with cherry stained trim to compliment the rest of the things in my room.

Again, sounds good. Have you had any trouble getting the corners of the projection to be well lit? I cant seem to find the optimal fit. What did you do to build your frames? How did you know the distance they would be from the triplet? from the bulb? So far its looking great.

I built my rear frensel and lcd frame out of wood and then for my front frensel I used the gravity keystone method. My corners are darker than the rest of the screen. It's watchable however I have not done much tweaking to adjust the light source. I am waiting to get my new bulb. I also watched my first full movie on the projector last night.

dark edges are a result of using 17" LCD with the standard triplet. You can try moving the bulb a bit further from the collimating fresnel, but you will be sacrificing max brightness for more even distribution.

Finally !!!! I recieved my Ushio S400DD in the mail yesterday from atlanta light bulbs. I changed the ballast and put it in the projector last night and wow was I impressed with the difference from the temporary bulb. The colors were so much better so was the focus and brightness. I watched some of the MNF game last night. My ota hdtv tuner card should arrive later this week so I am looking foreard to trying the hdtv functionality. I am usign windows vista RC2 and I am impressed with the media center function however I can't play dvds as there is a problem with the sound :angry: I will post some pictures later this week when my new digi cam arrives.

Ok I know I havent posted in a while but I have been pretty busy. I started on the coffee table portion of this project two weekends ago hopefully I can get some work done on it this weekend. here are some screenshots of the no so finished product.

Ok Update time here are some updated pictures of my progress. I just realized after a couple months now that my bulb was not aligned correctly and now it is and my brightness has increased notably. I also have the Coffee table portion roughly finished I have not taken any recent pictures of it but basically it only needs paint stain and a table top. Thanks to everyone who contributes to this site!!






Here is a blank monitor off shot showing the light distribution for the time being I have an Ikea reflector on the way I also need to do a little more alignment.

nice work!! Got any more pics of the coffee table? how is the keystoning?

Not yet I just put in the external switches last night and I am still working on the cooling issues my plan is to stain the sides and paint the corner posts black. I will post some more pics when I get a chance the keystoning is not to bad with the keystone correction. I am also using only a 15.4" widescreen section of my 17" lcd I am sacrificing brightness to use the bottom portion of my 17" for the picture but it allows the picture to be higher on the wall with less keystoning.

Ok tonight I actually got some work done on the projector. I cut up an old computer case so I could have everything the way I wanted it inside the coffee table. I'll post some pictures below

Before Tonight's work




After

Well my new Fan controller should be waiting on me when I get home along with 4 new panaflo fans. Hopefully these additional fans will take care of my overheating problems. I hope to get my refelctor mounted new fans mounted & wired to fan controller. I will try to update tonight with my results and resulting temps. I know I haven't posted about my temps before but I think it is a lack of airflow through the coffee table. I also think that my pj fans may be too low of CFM so I am replacing both of them. The fan controller I bought also has 4 temp sensors so I can monitor in box temps as well as my HDDs and vid card.

Well I no fan controller today. I guess I must have misread the deliverly date. I should have it tomorrow. I did however mount my reflector and cut holes in the bottom of the table for 6 more fans. So tomorrow I should just have to wire the fans and mount the last 4 fans in the holes I made and fire it up to check the alignment of the reflector. I'll post some pictures when I have finished the fans and put everything back in the coffee table. Hopefully I'll be able to keep my LCD temps below 105 after all this additional work. I have also been thinking about putting either one or two 19" widescreen monitors that will flip up out of the top of the coffee table. Alright I'll post more tomorrow.

That's amazing, and I love your enclosure design.

Thanks

Well I got all the new fans installed and the fan controller working. I also used an old power supply to power all the fans so my regular Computer power supply is not overly taxed. Right now I have 12 80mm fans running in my coffee table. 2 are attached to the PJ box and the other 10 are blowing air up from under the coffee table. I also made it so that the table top sits about 1/2" up so the hot air can blow out of the top of the coffee table. With all fans at Max rpm my lcd temps are steady @ 93 degrees as opposed to my previous measurements. With all fans turned down one notch my temps rose to 103 degrees which is acceptable. I have taken some new pictures and will post them when I get a chance. I will probably get some substancial work done on the projector next week when I have off from work.

If I were you I'd add another fan or two to the actual pj enclosure. Hot days will certainly raise it above 93, in my opinion the best bet is to make sure your LCD doesn't exceed 89-90F. I'd add a single 120mm or another 2 80mms to the back of your enclosure. Just some advise to think ahead.

I was actually just thinking that because I would like to slow the fans down from max speed. I think i'll ad a 120mm . That would give me an excuse to buy some more stuff from SVC. I really don't know much about ideal lcd temps all i know is what I read in the guide which said over 105 F is bad. I was hitting 115 and then shutting it down before the new fans. The 4 80mm fans I added are panaflow 48cfm fans.

Ok so I'll post some pictures

Installing the fans


New fan controller up and running


One more for good measure.

Ok I have a few new pictures with better even illumination and a little brighter I also have resolved most of my pincussioning problems which came from my front fresnel being warped

Ok, hopefully you can help me out and clear a few thing up for me.

Were you able to clear up the issues with low edge lighting? From what I can tell, the fact that you are only using a 15.4" part of your panel should make it function much better with the standard triplet.

Another thing too, does the 1280 x 1024 turn out to be 1280 x 720 when you use powerstrip to resize your image. I'm wondering because I'm really interested in having 720p but the LL Pro triplet is a beefy $200. I've been looking at the few 1280 x 800 15.4" panels that exist so I could use the standard triplet but they don't look all that great.

It looks like you got some pretty nice reslts though but its hard to tell for shure from picures. Are you happy with the 17", LL standard triplet setup?

Oh, and great job with everything, i especially like your table.

Yes I was able to clear up the issues of low edge lighting by using a reflector behind the bulb and moving the bulb back some. I am very pleased with my results. Using powerstrip you can pretty much do any section of the screen you like. I use 1280x720 but you could do 1280x768 or 1280x800 and you can also reposition the section of the screen you are using. one day I will post some good screenshots using some of the standard screenshots.

Hey Billy..great results.

I'm building the standard "dog coffin" but I might do what you did and cut away the box where it doesn't interfere with the light path. Now for my question:

You mentioned your front fresnel was bowing..was this just causing the image to warp or was it also giving causing you to not be able to get a sharp image all the way across the image? The way my fresnels are slid into my sled they only have support on the sides..I'm thinking about just notching out a couple strips of wood and sticking them on the fresnels at the top and bottom to straighten them out some more.

again..nice job!

It was mainly causing pincussioning on my image. I ended up framing my front fresnel lens all the way around. I was just hanging it from a dowel but for some reason it started bowing as did my rear which I just had top and bottom support on I ended up framing both of them all the way around and am happy with the results. I am still having a little bit of trouble with focus at the bottom of my image due to keystoning but it is bearable since the majority of the image is now in focus.

Your build is really sweet.

I always liked coffe table designs, but it would interfere with the layout of my Rec. Room.

Ok here are some Pics of Halflife 2

Your pictures are looking really good.

How loud are the ten fans?

They are tolerable right now I am planning on adding 2 more 120mm to the updraft fans I also have already added one 120mm fan to the pj. I believe once I add the two 120mm fans to the bottom I should be able to turn the louder fans down a little bit.

I just spent my spending money for feb on a new handgun so the progress on my projector has stalled. I am contemplating changing my design to a vertical design in which the triplet ascends up from the top of the coffee table. This will be a bit challenging and I need to double check my measurements to ensure that it is a feasible option based on the height of my coffee table and the obstruction of the view by the triplett assembly. I Also I wanted to do this so that I can make a more adjustable projector design for better focus, keystoning and other issues.

So I spent some time this week working on a google sketchup drawing on the modifications I am planning on making to my projector as stated in the previous post. I should be able to shave around 6-8 inches off the depth of my box. I should also have less keystoning problems. Here are a couple pictures and a link to my sketchup file that you can download an mess with if you want. I updated the sketchup file and the Pictures the floating rectangle is the size of the coffee table I have now which is approx 3' x5'






Here is the Google Sketchup file