My greetings to all lumen labers if I may say so..You guys have been not only an inspiration but literally an obsession, for the past few months, while I've been slowly researching & gathering parts. I have to say I've been closely folowing comments & plogs sush as Pun15her's, Samuraijack, Dazzzla, Ozstang65, Elken2004, ChristmasGT, SupraGuy, Hirudin, Arrik's, Durachko and of course many others, but really it's great to be able to get so many ideas and great minds put together for Lumen Lab members..

Anywhoo, the following parts have been sourced:

17" CMV CT-723D LCD
400W E-ballast / 6500K Lamp
Ikea Reflectors
Threaded Rods (Looks like I'm not going to be using the rod design after all)
UV sheet
220 & 550 Fresnels - (already had a 550)
Precon Lens thanks to Elken - (so I might very well get a 330 Fresnel to try with that)
Standard triplet, 355mm OHP lens, or 18''(not sure as yet) (Pro Lens is in)
MDF Board, flat angle line, lots of nuts & washers
Fans (on their way)
other bits and pieces

As title says, it's going to be a horizontal fold PJ. I have somewhat been constrained by space. Well after prolong consideration I decided to build the whole computer study room around the PJ, thus the small theatre experience..Originally it was going to be built in the bedroom as a vertical fold, but that didn't work so, now the measurements for the room it's going in are 3.5m x 2.5m, so throw it's going to be about 10feet. The thing about this whole experience is that I had to think & act bit backwards, that is I already bought a brand new electric screen and a used set of tall 5.1 speakers off E-Bay .

The plan is also to build a custom light box and perhaps include a fan controller, readable temp LCD as well..

Here's a sketch of the room setup in theory..
Click to view attachment

Please feel free to post any comments, this is work in progress, might use some ideas.

T4orce,

It looks like you've have a good start. Looking at your picture, will the image you project fill your intended screen completely? Or is there room to expand?

If you have a small room behind the wall, that the pj is currently positioned against, you could place your pj in that room and poke the triplet through the wall (something other LL members have done). This would give you several advantages.

A) A slightly larger picture
Eliminate any stray light
C) Eliminate fan noise.
D) Keep the Wife Approval Factor rating high, as the "ugly box" won't be readily in view.

Plus, hanging a simple picture over the end of the triplet, hides it completely.

Good luck on your PJ, it will be fun to build!

Cheers!

Fulcrum

Thanks Fulcrum, actually yeah I bought a 100" screen, which should be filled almost completely..as for the room behind the wall I thought about it, unfortunately that wall is the brick wall leading to the outside , but anyways I think it will turn out Ok..

More pics soon..

Here's some pics of the parts I'm using
E-ballast


Precon Lens next to a cheap light fixture I plan on using to mount it on..


Ikea reflector


Monitor strip..



Well I've got more pics, but looks like I've reached the limit for now..hmm
Will have more on the actual build hopefully soon.

Figured it out ..doh
Lenses..

OK, so enough preparation..or is it..here's some tools of the trade..I'm lucky I've got most tools

Nice cordless drill & jigsaw too..no more worrying about cuttin the cord or is just me

So first I tried to use the existing LCD metal frame..






But quickly realised it wasn't safe at all, as the corners of the actuall LCD panel were too close to the rods themselves, couldn't risk any cracks, so scraped that idea.
I believe theres a saying "Practice makes perfect"

..So new strategy, I decided to sandwich the LCD in between thin MDF frames, and route off the inside edges..than attaching the aluminium frame on top of it for rigidity.

A few squiggly lines later..



..and finaly





Next step..cutting the flat aluminium line and making frames.

Funny thing the jigsaw blade is red, but the camera here made it come out orange, I wonder how many times pictures of actual projection screen colours get distorted a bit as a result of camera/flash..either way the aluminium bar is no match for the jigsaw



So really this is more like half a frame, but we'll see how we go



At this point I thought why not make the alumium line longer on one end, and bend that to 90* to make a platform for the LCD board to be attached to ..



As a result the hammer won hands down by KO when it came in contact with & mr. aluminium got bent to say the least.. ..please someone rescue me





Next, inserting rods, washers and nuts..

Inside the room..



Notice the glue gun, I thought I would glue the LCD board between the two smaller boards just in case for extra rigidity



and while I was at it decided to actually glue the whole board to the panel, at least in the meantime..should really do it with screws, and here it is

Hmm..I just could't resist I had to play with my newly purchased laser guide/level..for only $5.50, thank you China people



..Now the moment of truth, after all the abuse the LCD got, I had to test it first..let's see
For the testing I used a cheap I believe 18watt fluorescent lamp to see if I get a picture.
Firing it up and..



yes.. we have a screen, hmm, how about testing it with a 500watt work lamp than?
bigger pics too



it's gonna get hot in here..



well, so far mission accomplished, but I'm not even close.
..so you may notice already some dirty spots on the AG, there's finger marks as well from the previous owner, but for $100 can't complain

Ok, so soon I'll post pics of the brand new 100" electric screen I got on E-bay for $102.50, and ideas for a light box, I'm cooking something up..hopefully

Some more drawings..

OK this is an idea for the light box, and you're gonna laugh, but I think it's very feasable..





It's a mini Toaster Oven/Broiler, that my dad bought, we never used it, was left outside and it already started to slightly rust..nothing a bit of woolmesh couldn't fix

Well it's already got the heat proof glass, and the measurements so far to fit the lamp are OK. The toaster goes up to 230degC, and the back of it claims to be rated at 900w, so looks like it's gonna come in handy after all..

Welcome to any comments/ideas..


Taking it appart..







it's just looking better and better..

more pics..

t4orce,

Keep up the good work, I like the toaster oven lightbox. Just make sure that the LCD controler is not

heated to much, becuase of the meltdown of the glue from the glue gun

Yeah, thanks, will do, actually that's the reason that I made it to face the front of the PJ not at the back toward the hot area, but anyways I know what you mean, I'll have to see how hot it gets once I get it going. .

Praise be to you..looking good !!

Many thanks..I just hope it performs too..

Quick update on some fans I just got today, they're 92mm and can blow a house down, well they're supposed to flow up to 110 cfm, but obviously quite loud, so I plan to use them with a fan controller, either way they were less than half price about $12 from $25 usually..



Specs:



You can see how thick they are compared to a standard 12cm fan..

No progress & no luck with getting more quality time with PJ, but here's some pics of the electric screen like promised, more for show off of course..
Curiosity hasn't killed this cat...yet

Good build ideas so far, one thing about those fans I had one in my pj yea it pushes a helluva lotta air you would only need one but the noise is killer I hope you are able to tone it down but it might be hard with two of those bad boys. Looking forward to seeing what else you get up to.

Not jealous of the screen

DM

Thanks, actually I totally agree with you on the noise part, I hooked one up to the PC and man, you'd go crazy having to listen to one alone all the time, I did get a fan controller, but even better, I found a good deal the other day browsing some computer forum, some 12cm aluminium Cooler Master fans(2 of them are new), they're a lot quieter, more surface area, more heat resistant, less rpm, less noise , so yeah can't wait to hook those up to the controller..







I only plan on using one ..maybe 2 fans for the light box of course, others for the big box..

..and the screen what can I say, was lucky, as I was planning on making one of course, I managed to bid in the last couple mins on Ebay, won and the rest is..history(just wanted to say that), I was able to save myself a further $45 by picking it up, most other companies on Ebay sell only by delivery..

Well, I finally got around to doing some more work..on the light oven..I mean light box
So I started on the mogul that came with the lamp, cos' it needed adjustement, to get ready for installing in the oven.



Well it's not the actual ceramic part but this part..

As usual images speak for themselves.

Trial fit..





Ready to cut.

Here's the cut pieces,


only need the small piece

Mounting to mogul..

The thing is that I had a little problem..



But I needed the mogul to somehow attach/slide into the white frame

In the next two pics you can see what I decided to do..


enlarging the holes for a little recess, so that the screws would sligtly fall in and mogul wouldn't come out..

..and cut from the top a narrow area for the screws to slide through,



and voila..



maybe this shows it better,



and a pic from the inside,



Not the most professional work but it'll have to do..

Well, here's the almost finished product so far,









Next, I have to most likely install a piece of threaded rod inside the box to mount the reflector, install the lamp, glass, cut the holes for the 120mm fans at the back, get some black heat proof paint..and figure out how am I going to mount the precon in front of the glass..hmm.. who said it was almost finished.

Anyways if anyone has any ideas, please feel free..

Till next time

OK, so this is an update but still a lot slower than I would like it to be, that is.. still stuck on the light box , the only thing that drives me now is, getting a picture..Sometimes I just wish I had built a nice simple wooden box, and just drop averything in..ah well, there goes having funn

So I managed to cut the holes for the fans, which took too long, as I was cutting through two layers of metal






Btw, if someone knows exactly how to change the subject line in the main topic, which is usefull for updates, please tell..I know someone said it before, but I don't see any options what so ever, please enlighten me..

So about time to mount the fans,



..a bit of glue to help with drilling the holes, as the surface wasn't exactly flat..glue comes off easily afterwards

I thought about covering any existent holes in the shell of the box, for light leaks, didn't really want to do it, but I knew it had to be done..
so I should've known better and done it properly the first time, with metal/aluminium sheet, but noo, I took the easy path with aluminium kitchen foil..







which was to be regreted later..

Regreted I say, because there's no way I was gonna get the inside of the lamp walls, left and right lined up with foil..



you can see there is a long cut in the wall on the right..so I looked around, found some aluminium sheet, and started doing it the right way..

ohh, and the foil came off with a vengeance..

after cutting and wrecking one side of the walls, I managed to get two almost identical ones cut, that fit quite nicely..



and..

Also needed to cover the larger area,





finnaly spraying a couple of black high heat paint layers..

Spraying the in sides..



and trying to speed up the drying/curing the paint with the work lamp..



and after, with the mounted threaded rod for the reflector..

I've been waiting for this for a while, so I managed to install the other bits, including the lamp, which is a real pain to install, because of the box design..



here, I have the front glass installed as well..



and here you can see the black bit on the right, where I blocked any holes with sheet metal from behind, secured it and painted..



the lamp doesn't seem perfectly alligned but, it'll have to do..


I also think I'm going to scrape mounting the precon lens to the box for now, as I can do a test run with the existing fresnels, and maybe even work out OK..

Also, time to start building the enclosure..next..and any other adjustements that I come across..

Go to your very first post of this thread and choose full edit then choose Topic Title and or Topic description then edit.

Thanks a million, I remember trying that before, and it didn't work, or maybe I was still blinded by the light.. , it works of course..it's never too late to feel a bit stupid

Cheers

heh..it's like 1 am and I'm still up), been working on the PJ all day till' midnight, and I had to make some updates..

Well the good news is that I started the enclosure, if there's any bad news it'll have to be that the box it's going to be a lot longer than I'd expected, I was expecting about 70cm length, but it's now reached a huge 108cm
the thing is that I didn't want any surprises, so I made it longer to accomodate for any future upgrades, plus being an horizontal fold it doesn't bother me at all.

I decided to leave enough room, for the light box to be able to move slightly forwards, but mainly backwards(about 9cm that is), the reason being, that I'm using the 220 Fresnel, and I plan on using a 330 in the future and the precon of course..

I had already bought some mdf 45cm x 90cm, which I thought was plenty(for the length that is), but either way it wasn't expensive, and it will come in handy for offcuts and the like..

Having to dissasemble my current desk, which extends on three corners in the computer room(every thing has to go anyways, for the small theatre experience), I thought of using the pieces of mdf that support the benchtop for the PJ enclosure. The benchtop itself is way too thick to be used at all. Either way, I thought the PJ would look nice in the dark cherry, kind of wood grain colour mdf , plus there's plenty of it..

Here's the enclosure and a trial fit with the light box to see roughly how high it will have to be..

As you can see, I've decided to install the ballast and PSU next to each other. both have built in fans, and I've cut around them enough at the back of the PJ, to allow for safe cooling..also I wanted to make sure at least the ballast wouldn't get too hot, so there will be a 80mm fan where you see marked in the pic..

Some of the panels might be modified as I go..but here's the fan installed with some ducting I bought for my computer and never used..



..speaking of computers, my main computer's PSU gave up, luckily I noticed the fan wasn't working, so I had to wait a bit before posting here, I am using an older computer and had to run a long network cable to my router..it's good to be back in business though..

Here's a different angle shot..




Next I had to find out at what height I need to install the LCD, so I finally used the laser guide I bought, to try and get the laser dot in the middle of the arc, and measure the distance to the bottom of the enclosure..(easier said than done)

Once that was done, I knew I wasn't too happy with the whole I cut for the ballast & PSU, I wanted to tidy it up, possibly install some mesh on the back..so out came the router, and an offset of about 2mm was routed off as in the pic you see.



I really wanted to use proper mesh, but no money and no time, well I found this lying around, it's pretty thick so cutting it with tin snipers didn't make me too happy, but it turned out OK in the end.

I was becoming lazy by now, and didn't bother to mask the edges for painting the inside black, out came a thich black permanent marker..it did the job in a couple of mins..



Trial fit..



Below you can see better how crooked the holes are, I had to cut them with the router free hand, as my jig saw blew up

This is back view, fits nicely..



and..with the gear inside..



truth is there was a lot of work, cutting everything, round holes, as well as aligning everything, trial fitting, well I'm actually glad that I can see how it's gonna look like..

next will have to install the LCD & fresnels, make cuttouts for the LCD control buttons, & fan controller, install mirror/lense and anything else I may think of.

So things haven't gone exactly to plan..especially since I've been sick for the past week and my zeal for finishing the PJ was slowly diminishing unfortunately..
but I thought I should post some new pics meanwhile to boost my confidence..

Stupid throat infection, my throat feels like thumbtacks, mdf dust probably didn't help either..

well I played a bit with one of the 2 PSU's I got off ebay, they're from Dell computers, and while trying to short out the PS On AND GROUND pins(to get it started without the PC) I discovered DELL has uncoventional pinouts for the ATX plug compared to a normal PSU, which would have a green wire as the PS ON, for Dell it's the grey wire(took a bit of googling but hey it works..) Learn something new everyday, thing is that I found different colour pinout diagrams, and could've easily blown it..literally..well a small test run



and it works.

Oh and I hooked up the fan controller I got as well, it has three channels controlling two fans each, and two ON/OFF switches which might come in handy..

By the way, this has been my other companion, that was sticking it's beak where it didn't belong, my next door neighbour's cockatoo..



nosey bugger too, it keeps banging the top of the fence if you don't pay him attention, whistles and keeps saying "Hello"



..but lately he salutes himself, saying "Hello Cocky" ..go figure

it helps to know I'm still the dominant species around..

no more funny jokes..

some night time pics

So I couldn't wait to cut the whole for the standard lens in the front panel of the enclosure, this is a mockup, with the mirror standing on its own, holding the lens with one hand and shooting with the other..





the bright area is on a piece of mdf covered in white melamine, the charcoal wall is terrible..and of course the fact that the box is not closed doesn't help at all. Well I found out it projects and also that after all the research I had done, my Lcd is upside down ..so much for my research

So while waiting to get better, I thought I need to reframe the Lcd anyway so why not take a stab at the ol' AG, I thought to myself 'If I stuff it up, I'm screwd as I have no more funds to invest till' after New year anyways'..but my conscience said 'what the heck'..I was really bored..so here goes nothin'

I got some new dishwashing cloth, laid it on the screen in two layers(after wetting it first)



got another scrunched up piece of cloth, kept wetting it than rolling it on the surface of the two layers till' they absorbed enough water to remain moist for a while..



than covered the whole thing with gladwrap, I think I read somewhere that it keeps water from evaporating..

so after about 6 hours I took a peak at it, but couldn't get any corners off..so still moist..gladwrap really works..left it overnight, and then by the time I got time to take a look, it was 16 hours later..

except this time..



after about 10 seconds with my trusty surgical knife one of the corners peeled off easily to my absolute amazement and satisfaction..



AG is off and looking beaut

and the difference..



Let's just hope it still works, keep fingers crossed on that one