Here is several months worth of work condensed down to a few posts.. I'll try and stick to the highlights. For more detail- feel free to check out my plog for more info than you probably wanted to know
The big parts:
Samsung 740N 17" monitor
Osram HQI TS-400WD bulb
S51 Ballast
Ikea bowl
Buhl 18" triplet from an opaque projector
Focus mech - also from opaque projector
650 and 220 fresnels from the LL store
FS mirror - LL store
XL-10 Lexan
Tempered Glass
3 120mm computer fans
The requisite Sketchup plans. The second pic shows the airflow and cones of light- but does not include the lamphousing in the lower section.


Which eventually translated to something in real life... (and is even close to the models )

Here are two shots of the final enclosure. There is a large door on each side, and some scored up flashing was used to make it look classy. The half round front covers over the intake fans, and also has a mesh dust filter built into the top.


The switchpanel is on the top of the back - and is currently sporting tape labels (decidedly not classy). Each switch has a status LED which changes from red to white depending on the switch state. The temp monitors the space before the first fresnel (on the lamp side) and also the temp in the top of the projector - selectable by the switch on top.

And now- the screenshots. I made sure to get in the requisite Fifth Element shots.. what post would be complete without them? No alterations were made aside from cropping the pics and resizing in photoshop. I'm projecting onto a blackout cloth screen with a black felt border. The screen measures 92.5" wide and 52" tall. This is a diagonal of 106" or so.

One last shot with Homer eating ooze. First one taken in darkness, the second with all the room lights on. That is 4 can lights in the ceiling, two lamps, and another light on the wall to the left of the screen.

Way to freakin go man makes me want to take a bash at my longthrow design again. Love the metal finish and you were lucky to score that focus mech from the opaque projector. What did the total height come up to for your pj. I was thinking about just redoing the design to make it higher than the couch and then use the space underneath for storage of games and stuff. Once again congrats on the pj and the nice looking screen .

DM

DM- I am enjoying the longer throw. The PJ is sittting about 8" from the back of the couch, and just as you were planning to do, is up on blocks. The projector measures 40" tall, and it is blocked up an additional 16" to hit the center of the screen. The total height could be trimmed by up to 8" as it includes 6" of space for ballast and such at the bottom and has ~2" of headroom above the mirror in the top, plus some various trim which adds some height. You'd have to use an e-ballast if you wanted to shrink it down, as the coil and core type is both large and heavy.. The projector is about 12' back from the screen- I would move the couch closer to avoid some of the fan noise from the pj, but then the screen fills up too much of your field of view (it's a problem I don't mind having... rather than looking at a too small TV ).

I understand my pj ias about 10.5' from the wall so I have a much smaller image but I like it about 77"x56" the screen material that I have is 86"x56" slight problem. The only solution is to build the screen as large as possible and bring it off the wall a few inches. I have my pj as far out from the wall as I want it to go.

It seems like we went with the same basic idea but I went extra large I could easily fit a 17" lcd or even a 19" I never cut down the longthrow fresnels just in case I want to upgrade later. i couldn't make out where you had your screen up on a mount or againts the wall though?

DM

HOF is a posibility (i would vote for you) excellent job, looks great

DM - it does seem that we're in a similar situation. I already had this screen built from a previous commercial unit (Panasonic AE100) which had an untimely demise. My screen is about 20" away from the wall. It has two little 1x2 legs on it (not really visible in pic) and is held vertical by some light chain from two hooks in front, and another length of chain that is strung from the screen to a handy vent cover (those are visible at the top of the screen in the light Homer pic). It worked out very well, as that gives me enough space to keep my center speaker under the screen, and left and right flush with it on either side. I can also stash my receiver, amp and power conditioner below, a little more out of sight than otherwise.

mdmfootball - thanks a lot for the vote of confidence! I certainly put a lot of time into this project, I'm very glad I achieved a satisfying result (it'd be a bit embarrassing to have spent several months and not get too much out of it.. aside from a huge paperweight )

Cool idea I'll probaly have to just go with a stand to rest my screen on something wife friendly so it might just end up looking like a really large rear projection tv. I have already been given the hint that she wants another coffee table built to store the dvd's in so I might just make this the base for the frame to rest on.

On a side note I also had to buy a Christmas tree and my main concern was I hope this thing doesn't end up blocking my screen

DM

The faux RPTV idea is a good one. I have actually been given the OK by my wife to extend the black fabric which is already up on the ceiling down behind the screen - so that way the front of the room will be all black except for the screen (yay!) I'm going to pull all the grilles off my front speakers to help compensate for the extra layer of fabric.

What is your plan for the coffee table storage? It seems it might be hard to see and access all of the movies if they were stored in a rectangular or cube type shape.. I also need some extra space for DVD storage.. I was thinking of making my own version of the boltz racks... substituting the steel sides for MDF ones probably... and using sheathed threaded rods for some of the cross supports.


lol... isn't it funny how home theater related concerns seem to trump all others.... ? Hope your wife didn't notice if you tried to get a smaller tree than usual

That's Flippin awesome! Nice Build!

LOL I kinda convinced her that the base for the screen would make a good storage area for her decorations as as well as the dvd's It really was a good idea although I did butcher a few pieces of wood today we are both artist by profession but I can think in 3D better than her she needs diagrams and pictures before it makes sense.

As for the tree thee were only like 4 left on the lot all were pretty big so it's a good thing I didn't think about how it might intefer with the screen . Her mom was with me so I couldn't lie about them being all out.

DM

DM- if the coffee table/screen base/dvd/storage piece of furnature works out... let me know what you come up with. I'm very curious to see what such a multi functional piece looks like

I ended up with just the rptv style screen with storage underneath but I love the way it came out. It's like a 90" diagonal tv in the room.

Starting from about post 215 and down. I'll post a pic of the screen with the lights on later though kinda been busy using it. Today has almost been a full day of Halo2 about 6 guys 4 on the pj and two on the 19" in the other room.
PJ Screen

DM

One minor update... I finally replaced the gross looking labels on the back of my pj. I found some letters at jo-ann fabrics (60% off no less...) and glued them on. They're a very thin metal letter, and I used some crappy craft-type glue. There is still some visible residue, but in theory this stuff dries clear. Either way- it beats the tape. I couldn't find anything smaller that wasn't truly ridiculous looking. So I had to settle for X and O to indicate off and on.

LOL man it works I hope you actualy had time to enjoy the PJ over the Holidays, I really should label my pj a bit better my wife uses it but she still calls me over to turn it on or off every once in awhile. I will look into an auto shut off device though just in case she forgets been there before nothing like the smell of burning fresnels.

DM

DM - hehe... the auto-off might not be a bad idea. The letters are a bit goofy... but they might be 'cute' and improve the WAF of the whole project.

Here are a few new screenshots - I added some black curtains on either side of the screen that extend toward the viewing area. I also cleaned up the internal optics (lots of crap had settled in there) and added some black fabric around the triplet inside the pj. (so i figured that was enough to justify some more screens! )
Everyone's favorite girl:

some crazy technology from ghost in the shell 2

batou confronting yet another android geisha (the encode is a hair soft- hence the slight lack of detail on these two)

Kadaj (probably) from the second final fantasy movie... showing cloud his blade...

And two more from the 2nd FF movie:

Yep... more screens... and yes... another re-cal of sorts. This time I used the Avia test DVD to get everything dialed in (rather than my eyeballing settings - which was good enough for a bit). I reset all software values to off or default, and messed with the LCD panel values first. I dialed those in as accurately as possible, then moved to software adjustments. I was able to do everything I needed via LCD adjustments and those found in the FFDshow decoder.
Here is one from Hero:

and one from the animatrix


One of the things that stands out after a calibration using Avia are the colors. I was able to get these to as close to accurate as i've ever seen. I did have to boost up the blue level in the panel, but that helped me dial in hue and saturation with software. The shots from the FF movie really show off this difference. Previous to the cal, I thought they were pretty sweet looking- and after they seem kinda gross . The top pic in each comparison is the calibrated one. The bottom pics are brighter... however there is no loss of detail in the top pic at all- and all of the colors seem more natural. The uncalibrated pics seem to have a yellowish cast, which is certainly noticeable on skin tones, and in the stained glass.


I would post up some Fifth element shots- but my HD version is WMV encoded, and FFDshow is pitching a bit of a fit when asked to play it (and any other decompressor is not calibrated via Avia). As soon as i can dig out my DVD version of it, I'll throw up some leeloo comparison pics. I'll add in a few of Nemo too- as I can't think of anything more colorful as source material

Here is some shots of my FFDShow tweaks. For comparison purposes, the right side is processed - the left side is unchanged source material. Check out my Plog for the full story. And post up any questions/comments there - I check that one a little more regularly

great results man... I've been following your efforts for a while. I think your evenness is especially good. Hopefully because of the 18" opaque (I'm using one in my 10.6er build). Enjoy your PJ man!

regards,
Brian

P SU did you have any trouble with your FS mirror placement I could never get mine focus using the FS mirror and I had to use a RS mirror which is still working fine in my verticle set-up.

RR

RR - My focus isn't perfect along the entire screen. I have found that there are slight variances along the image - nothing terrible - and difficult to spot from my seating location. It is a visible with small text, like when I have a windows file explorer window open, but it it's nearly bad enough to cause any problems reading it. I think that Elken did a little work with using stripper to remove the paint backing of regular RS mirrors to make DIY FS mirrors - which are much thicker and less prone to flex or bend. If you're not happy with your current RS setup - might be worth looking into. I had originally thought that maybe my LCD or fresnels were not quite in alignment that caused the focus problem - thanks for putting me back on track!

I am very happy with my results using a RS mirror only when I try to use a test pattern with a black background and white lines the double image is noticable but as you can see my over all pictures are great
http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11405 but by me knowing my slight problem I now if I could get a FS mirror to work in my set-up it would just make my picture 100% ,let me see your results are outstanding and your verticle PJ is a work of art you should be very proud how it turn out.

RR