I am starting to built a projector using a 0.59" size (diagonal) panel.
The resolution of this panel is 800x600.
With a panel so small it will be possible to built a projector very small.

Where did you get such a small panel with 800*600 resolution?

Here:

http://www.kopin.com/commercial-display-products/

Wow, those are nice panels! And you can even order them without the backlight or frame! I forsee a slide projector conversion in my future...

Interesting, good found.

Thanks Supermaxy. Did you buy one? what is the price?

cheers.

$ 385

Perhaps an issue is getting enough light through to project a bright enough image...that is damn small

Whats the light throughput% of the panel

Seems like something that small you could forgo the collimating fresnel and use parabolic light.

don't think you even need a reflector.. the arcs we have to deal with are big and tend to block light from the center of a parabolic reflector leaving a dim spot in the middle.

I'm very interested in a panel like this, but I would chose for the wvga version. Shame they are so smalle, 1,8" wvga would of been perfect and probably cheaper to fabricate. I would use a 35w xenon D2S set, these are the sets which are used in car headlights. They work fine with a normal parabolic reflector and 3,5" tft. I would built it into a parablolic reflector from a 3-LCD beamer.

But I have a question too, normally photogaphry lensens can not be used for Diy beamers, but wouldn't it work with a 0,59" tft since this is even smaller then the film used in a camera?

hmm.. at that price I am almost willing to pick one up... wonder what the HD res one costs.

but how would you connect any device to them? there cant be and DVI or Compnent connection on something that small can there?

It's not because the tft is very small that the controller is just as small, however I'm very curious about the controllers size and inputs.

haha no i didnt mean the controller is just as small i just meant what FFC cable it uses, what controller it uses what inputs it has etc.

Well what did you mean by this then?

hehe I mean why would anyone bother to put a DVI or Component conection on an LCD that small? no one would watch video or play games on them, unless they were meant for projecotrs

Some of these panels are used in videoglasses or virtual reality purposes. I think they custom make the controllers, if the 385 dollar for the svga tft is treu I geuss this is excl controller. Pitty they don't have a wxga version that would of been perfect.

Building a PJ with such a small size LCD will present a whole new set of challenges. Primarily, how are you going to get enough light through such a small area to project a 100" (or even 80") image - and can these panels handle the amount of radiation required to do so.

The magnification factor will be staggering, remember that the brightness of an image drops in proportion to r squared (r being the distance from the lens to the image - which is in proportion to the magnification factor). So getting a lot of light through the LCD will be necessary for a watchable screen.

That being said, these panels might bring in a new era of DIY projection. The use of light tunnels may become mandatory, glass lenses will become practical (as opposed to the Fresnel lenses being used now), and shorter FL PJ lenses will be used (with much smaller FOV's compared to what we are currently using). Using what we do now, every small LCD DIY PJ would be long throw (very long), but can the LCDs handle all that light??

Well see.

Dave

You should think at the 3 lcd technology where the panels are 0,7" or smaller and where are used 150 or 200 W lamps.
You are truth when you say that glass lenses (as opposed to the Fresnel lenses being used now) will become practical.
And focal lenght of projection lenses could be smaller.
I think that the price of the projector could be smaller too.

Hi SuperMaxy

Have you got your panel yet...looking forward to the PLOG

Good building !

It would seem, as mentioned by Supermaxy, commercial projectors do reasonably well. What I'm thinking is that a few folks have put crappy small lcds in the old slide projectors with some success. These lcds might actually make that a pretty good way to go...

I took apart a slide projector that I bought at a garage sale and, other than cooling, it seems that one could just drop one of these LCD's in there. I mean, once you remove the slide changer unit, there is plenty of room for controller board etc. The projector can't have much distortion because it is meant to project pictures. Plus, it is bright enough to see at 70-80" diagonal in a dark room.

This would be extremely cool if it worked because then we could have portable DIY projectors, thus allowing us more bragging rights as we will reach more people.

So would a 2" diagonal or so lcd be a better idea? and with a 400w metal halide bulb. (assuming heat is not an issue ) how many lumens output do you think it would get. would you say 3000? i figured the reason why commercial lcd projectors are so bright is because they use smalller panels. and with a 400w mh bulb, they hit 3000 lumens easy.

Yes, a little bigger (2") would be better, but we can figure this out!

From the spec sheet, it looks like the display controller board has RGB. This means that it can have the same hacks as the PSOne screen (yay component). Plus it also has a "VGA mode".

I allready wrote them two mails (to all of there mail adresses) and I didn't get any respond.
I'm curious about the specs of the tft (refreshrate, contrast, colours?).

Be sure to post as soon as you get a response, elektron. You're not the only one who's curious, as you can see by the people posting above.

unfortunatly I don't think they will reply, the first mail I sent was some time ago.

I would order the 0,3" wqvga version for a little project. Once I tested to project the image of my t610 cellphone's screen on my wall through a 35mm 1:1,8 photography lense. It worked pretty good (read: readable) untill 0,5m (about 20") wide in a dark room. I figured the backlight of the phone couldn't possably have more then 10 Lumen of total light output (without going through the tft). So if I'd use a 5 watt Luxeon Led which produced 120 watt I should get a pretty clear projection, maybe even with a screendiagonal of 40". Why? Because of the 10 times bigger light output of the luxeonled in comparison with the backlight of mij cellphone, and also the little 0,3" display will hold back a lot less light then the 2" display from my cell. With a special lens the beamingangle (good word in english?) is 10° so it would be possible to get almost all the light through the tft (you'll always loose light around the tft) and through the lense without using a fresnel lense.

... well it's just a project

VERY small projector from Toshiba

Way to go with the sourcing of the lcd company
Please keep us informed with specs as far as refresh rates and contrast ratios and stuff
Oh Please confirm that there is some sort of video imputs in the controllers if possible

id say with such a small lcd you should just go with an ohp lamp...

i get them for around 10 bucks a peace...500w and there plug and play with the wall...

a little wireing is required but nothing to big....
same thing i went with on my ps1 project with tescorp...

i've said this before, but it's really exciting to know that these panels will keep getting smaller and higher resolution (while the others will drop in price)..making it possible for us to build smaller and cheaper projectors!

You might look at the LCD in some of the camcorders. If you can find one with a bad tape transport ( very common) they are worth nothing. some have a video in and fairly high rez like 800x600, most of the new displays are wide screen too.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Canon-ZR65-MC-Digital-...emZ300073582369

I had one a few years ago with a bad transport and the LCD looked great.

You will have to look to see if they have video in and to find out the rez.

I would think you could get one for less than $100.

You known with a LCD this small you don't need the optics that LL sells. The fact is that the reason that we use Fresnel Lens is because the equivalent glass lens would be very heavy and very thick.
With a lcd this small you would be better of to use standard archormatic lens you could easily get the right optics of surplusshed or some place like that. Your image quality would probably be better (LCD Dependant of course)

I've got a big lens from an RPTV that you could stick a tiny panel like that right up against and get a big image really fast .

Anything new?