Ronin,

Here is a tid bit to "Stir the Pot" with a Soup Ladle LOL ....

If I remember correctly, Simul8tr has one of the best (if not the best) PJ illumination. He used a 5 inch (125 mm) diameter soup ladle. Come to think of it, so did I (I copied him).

See my Plog posts #1 & #4.

Cheers!

Fulcrum

jonjandran,

What was the exact reflector used that gave a 10% reflectance? (Make & Model please)

Cheers!

Fulcrum

well im gonna use it mostly for movies through my DVD, but eventinaly i will add a htpc to the setup, dont play xbox or ps2 alot, i have my PC hooked up to the amp wich will be the source for the pj, so i can play my PC games on my projektor with wireless keyboard and mouse but mostly for movies in my regular DVDplayer

You could try the simflector design with thin aluminum sheeting that has been polished to mirror finish. Apparently, it performed well without a precondenser compared to the ladle also without a precon. But when adding a precon the ladle performed better. I've gotten about 50 lumens more with the simflector vs no reflector at all.
http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?s...19690&st=77

well i have a precondenser so i guess a ladle or bowl would work better?

i still havent made a mount for the reflector so its basicly just carefully placed in there where i think it looks brightest, it's a mix between even lightning and a bright spot in the middle, i took some pictures last night but they dont do the picture justice, i took it with iso80 and the lowest EV i could get, the f time is adjusted automaticly on my camera and stupid me picked the exposurepoint on the screen and not on the ambient lightning in the room so the pics are darker than it is in reality but im still not happy with the turnout quite yet, i dont have a screen yet and im projecting on a light grey wall so i guess that takes away lots of the light but i unno..

When i get some money i'll buy a lux-meter

Welcome into my livingroom, pardon the mess

No screen and the wall is a medium-gray wallpaper, u can compare the wall to what white looks like if you look
at the borders around the door and along the floor.. so the wall is not white.

2x 30W halogen lights running,




my daughter just couldn't take her eyes off that blue big fishy!!


with me in the pic, im 6'2", image is a bit dark compared to real life.

here's the torn corner, gonna remove the whole polar and replace it with the 3Dlens one when i come


here is a picture taken with the exposure corect to show how much of the room is lit up and how bright the image is,

Use this as a reference, cuz the next couple pictures are taken with the exposure set on the image rather than the dark walls of the room, so the other pictures are darker than in reality, so see the difference between these 2 pictures and use yer imagination brightning up the others =)

1st pic taken with ISO 200 1\5s exposure time with no exposure compensation.

2nd pic taken with ISO 80 1\5s exposure time and with -2 exposure compensation


here are the rest, as i said, taken with a setting way too too dark.

2nd pic taken with ISO 80 1\2s exposure time and with -2 exposure compensation


to be honest i dont even wanna put this pic up here cuz it really doesn't represent the reality at all
2nd pic taken with ISO 80 1\2s exposure time and with -2 exposure compensation

here's the ambient lightning, so as you can see the images are way too dark ,the room apear black but that's not the case, the first picture is fairly representative and shows that the room is not entirely dark and the picture is fairly bright, but compare the surrounding darkness with this picture showing how much light is entering the room u understand that the pictures arent corect. i'll take new tonight with corect exposure

What makes you not totally satisfied thus far? I think it looks great personally. I'm almost satisfied with what I have right now and it's getting dimmer. I think maybe I need a good lamp and reflector/precon setup. Once you have the box completely made with the top and bottom it should look a lil better too.

yeah i guess, the fresnels are real dirty and i have no clue how to clean them and what to use so i dont degrade the material, mainly why i dont like it right now is that it's still green, and i dont know for how long it will stay like that

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?s...leaning+fresnel

Maybe that helps.

lol thanks mate, good thing i kept on reading, cuz first it sounded like alcohol was the way to go, then a couple pages into the thread alc was the big NO NO so im lucky =D thanks, im having component->VGA converting problems, need to find a way to convert Component to VGA, rather than pulling component through a VGA contact

Ah ok, well then they must add that alcohol is a big NO NO right at the beginning!

Why are you planning to use component? Vga is just as good or even slightly better than component. When you use a HTPC you are completely ready:

- dvd player
- very good dvd upscaler (depending on software, cpu, etc.)
- H.264 decoding (with the 8500 GT (just 90 euro))
- you can play full HD (from Harddisk)
- in the future you can add a HD-DVD/blu ray drive
- you have a computer!!! So you can game and internet while projecting the image....
- very affordable!

why? well basicly cuz i have a dvd and amp for over 1200 bucks and i kinda feel like using it..

plus having ONE signal cable to my pj from my reciever and everything else hooked to the reciever is worth alot.
the pc is in another room and i dont wanna use it as htpc.

here's some updates =)

Some tweaks here and there but most fiddeling done has been with the panel-settings, the samsung has something called Magic brightness and it's like an overlay system, a square you can set size and position to cover for instance just a 16:9 square and set brightness and coloursettings for that area only, makes a tremendious difference!!

will post some before and after pictures with the magic-brightness later on

Me and PC desktop at 1280x1024 picture is 260cm wide and 220cm high (ish) anyone have a quick tool to convert to diagonal inches? oh well..


Here is a the standard pic of Gandalf paused DVD, image is 240cm wide, exposure close to spot on what you see in real life, at least the image, the surrounding room is a bit more lit up tho (still has bad light-leaking)


Same pic with a 6'2" swede spoiling everything... (yep i know im skinny, that's a whole different story)


i'll get back with the pics of magic-brightness comparisions.

here is the Component 2 VGA box i bought, not alot to hang in a tree but it works, dont have anything to compare with tho, guess i'll buy a more advanced one later on with more inputs than just component.



And here are some pictures showing the difference between setting the monitor to use Magic-brightness.
The MB area is to the left and default monitorsettings to the righ, yes the blacks does suffer a bit but there is some contrast-calculation in the background that prevents it from just acting as typical "brightness". u can set saturation\hue\brightness and Sharpness for this magic bright overlay, so u can actually make the colours pop instead of bleaching out when adding the brightness, very smart and does WONDERS for our DIY projectors.




since the pj is hocked up to a NAD DVD player via component-vga i have no other settings i can play with other than the panels own settings, if i had a decent HTPC it would work fine but now i dont.. but im happy with the results so far.

This is without the box being painted inside, still LOADS of lightleaks around the frames, the rear fresnel is a little bowed, and the reflector is the Ikea bowl, it does brighten the image a lil but it doesn't do wonders.. The box is still covered with towels and whatever i had laying around to keep light from escaping out in the room but as you all know from experience it's hopeless to keep the light from these monsterlamps to escape into the room if the box is not finished..

It looks great Ronin! Job well done .

I'm really curious tho if you have the typical 'glowies' now the INSIDE of your PJ has a lot of light bleeding. It would be usefull information to me to see a picture of a black projection (black screen) without fixing the light leakage yet!

(Magicbright: probably your blacks are going to be better when you've got it all sealed up)

yes i guess it will make some difference, i will take a picture with the pj in full black once the sun sets, i still dont have the ability to get my room as dark as i want it during daytime, so i'll haveto get back to ya on that note.

i opened up my Pro tripplet to see if i could do the pro lens mod and the picture got quite a bit smaller, actually the box i have wont hold the triplet with the focal length increase when doing that mod (from 500 to 550mm) and when i had it open i figured i would wipe off the lenses a bit, i did so with a cotton cloth and destilled water and now it's a bit clouded not sure if it effects the image but i mean in some degree it should! not to mention there be fingieprinties all over the front and back of the trippy atm. any clue as to how to wipe the trippylenses clean?

You watch loooooots of movies and brag with your chin up.

lol yeah math it's actually something i find myself doing without thinking about it LOL Had a friend over here last night and we watched a movie and he was impressed, he said he had a PJ in his cottage and that it was one of the better pj's out there and that it doesn't reach the resolution and sharpness of this =D wich is kind of funny because when he was here the whole frame with the rear frezzy and the LCD had fallen back towards the lamp so focusing was a bitch and the lightning was SOOO uneven, i couldn't figure out what it was untill i opened up all the cardboard and blankets and stuff i used to cover it up for lightleaks hehe, it was one of those "aahh... woha shit" experiences lol. took care of it and now it's all back as it should be =)

feels good that the projected image on the wall is beamed from something ive buildt myself, it feels great hehe! And once i get a proper screen it should pop out even more! now i have a bedsheet for a double-bed without any seams. actually i have 2 of them, helps the whites a tad, i noticed it when i tried with one bedsheet we had at home, noticed the whites where brighter where on the outer edges of the sheet since it's folded and sewed together there, so i figured i'd test with 2 layers and it helped quite a bit =)

That's nice to know. I was wondering about that. Or putting some kind of paint on a sheet. I'll probably go with the blackout cloth since it's rather inexpensive and gives good results. Or with a silver wall. Still have to know.

Hehe, good that your friend was impressed. I can't wait to see the superbowl on that supersized screen. Your results are nice!

over here in sweden superbowl aint something we all look forward since it's not a big thing.. europeian Rally tho =D =D now THAT*S gonna be sweet lol

thanks for the comments man im happy with it so far =)

Been thinking about what you said, painted sheet, now a glassbead screen works in souch a way that every "bead" or "bump" gives a highlight allways aiming at you since the beads are round, ive been thinking about finding a rather textured fabric and spraying it with some sort of silver paint or at least clearcoat to get a glass-like surface wich will folow the irregularitys of the cloth and such create highlights on every bump covered with clearcoat. it'll be interesting to test, i will indeed do some experiments with it and post results later on, maybe we're on to something here =)

That feeling is exactly the thing I'm looking forward to . And of course it would be nice to hear some oohs and aaahs from friends and family . But I'm not there... yet!!

dont worry mate, u'll get there soon enough! and trust me if you take yer time and align everythig carefully you will get those ooh's and aaah's hehe

Currently talking to a fella here in sweden who can get a hold of Da-lite highpower screens! this would rock!

ok i tried my hands on the pro-trippy mod and time after time i had horrible glowies after i did the mod, didn't know what to do, so i tried one last thing, i masked out a 4.3 window on the rear side of the trippy (the part inside the pj) with some black tape and the glowies where gone and i have corner to corner focus!! (nearly) but the picture is alot smaller, i dont know what to do about that, maybe i can use it for my own advantage, we'll see..

I think it has been done before. I remember something like apost about that...

I'll check

the idea crossed my mind as im using a sheet now and i get NO hotspot what so ever, but like all materials that let through light it allso dims the image, so i figured the texture of a fabric but with no light escaping through it would work, remains to be seen tho, let me know if ya find the thread.

man 720P rocks.. thinking more and more about a HTPC.. i'll see what i can do bout that..

720p...

Can't wait to get there.

Right now, my setup is coming along, but at a slooooow pace. I finally made my fresnel holders, but I'm not that good with wood, I realize.

ha, practice makes perfect. I hope that not everything ought to be correctly placed to the millimeter.

U'll get there eventionaly, lets just say that as long as everything is within 5mm's of where it should be u'll be fine, wont notice much of a difference, i'd say build so u can adjust things about an inch or 2

i have my mom and older sister here this weekend and we watched "Hitch" in 720P and they where impressed, first impression was something in the lines of "what's that big thing standing in the livingroom? looks like a coffin" hehe

i have some massive plans for my livingroom, blacking out around the screen (black drapes on the home cinema-wall will fake an increase the overall brightness of the image =)

im currently searching around for some reflective paint, such used for roadsigns and similar to see if i can come up with a nice mix for my stationary screen yet to be buildt.

i'll update once i have anything to update with lol

Your screen is 134 inches diagonal, according to my calculations!

You can use Pythagoras' theorem to work out the remaining side of any right-angled triangle using: Sq.root of X^2 + Y^2

260^2 + 220^2 = 116000. Find the square root of that for the diagonal length = 340.6cm

To convert to inches, just divide the 340.6 by 2.54 and hey-presto! =)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have to say that this thread is great and I am SO glad that I came across the DIY-beamer.com site, as I live in Ireland and was dreading having to import it all from America, so thanks!

I'm going to be starting a 17 inch project soon and am going to be following this thread mainly for instructions. Here's to hoping all goes well! =D

edit: oh also i added you on msn just in case i needed to ask you anything along the way =P

Thanks a heap man, using a hammer and building stuff is my deal, the math part is something im still working on hehe

I actually did what you said on a calculator (texas graph thingy) and i get it to 134" when converted to inches too, so WOHO i did something right hehe.

Building with a 17" pretty much requires the Pro lenses to get good results, i have no doubt u'll end up with a sweet result seeing you know yer way around numbers and calculating, im just using my head hehe

nice to know someone likes the thread tho =) im gonna be online on msn more from now on so we'll talk soon

Say hey to Ireland from me -allways wanted to go there!!

I have plans for my basement.

Hey, I finally have a projected image. But I realize that my fresnel holders are too wide - cutting the light path. Man, this is harder than I thought.

The fun part? playing dead or alive as big as my wall could go - that's priceless!!!

haha, first game i tried in 130" was Farcry with maxed out graphics -now that's one sweet experience, when a person in the game is real-size if you stand next to him hehe (felt weird!)

ive been playing around with different distances between the lenses inside the triplet and thus changing the imagesize (and the FL of the trippy) and i finaly got rid of some glowies i had, irritated the crap outa me hehe, bad side is the screen-size goes down in inches quite drasticly when altering the tripplet to focus over the entire lcd

i have found a thumbrule when it comes to glowies!, i slabbed up a couple picture to explain what i did.

Here is how the standard lens-package is put together (wich way the flange is at doesn't matter,
as long as the lens-package is in the same order and facing the right direction)



This created a large image and corner to corner focus was an issue,
but produced minimal glowies in my split setup.

Here is how i moded my pro lens after reading the extreme mods forum
about how to fix the corner to corner focus issue.



I used a peice of stiff electricity-wire cut to perfect length to lay snug along the
inner walls of the housing as a distance ring, replacing the 12mm one wich is a
bit too large to give good focus.
It created a smaller image but with much better corner to corner focus, but...

THERE BE GLOWIES ARRGH!!

So i tried creating a 4:3 square iris with black sticker-tape both before and
after the triplet with decent results, but with the downside that less light hit the
triplet and the image got quite a bit darker but the glowies where nearly gone
(nearly) ..

Now the reason why i put the large 12mm distance-ring facing into the pj was
due to the FL-increase from 500mm to 530-550mm and thus forcing the whole
triplet outside the box (buildt it a tiiny weeny tad too short hehe) and i figured
i'd push the lens-package as far away from the lcd as possible to alow me to
at least mount the tripplet with the flange facing towards lcd on the outside of
the box and move the projector to focus instead.

Wich i did and with the iris it all looked ok but after a while the dark image began
to irritate me. So i ripped the iris off and that reminded me of how bright it was
before i added the iris, and i decided i had to figure out what the heck was causing the glowies.

so after a while i tried adding another peice of wire to see if it had something to do
with the distance between those 2 lenses, but noticed no difference, only issue
was that i couldn't get the threaded locking-ring in place with the 12mm spacer
facing into the pj, so i removed it to get the locking-ring back on and WOLAH!!

so here is how it looks now.



my guess is that any flat surfaces very close to the first lens in the trippy cause some
sort of reflection that screws with the overall picture, meaning of-axis light apears.

So my hoping is that i will be able to remove glowies completely by lathing a 45deg
angle in the trippy housing toward the first lens instead of that 4mm tube-like surface
wich is how the lens is constructed from factory.

Like this



Im still working on it but this is what ive got so far.

Sorry bout the sloppy pictures, but at least i hope you understand what im trying to show with them.

Finish that box!

hehe working on it, money is the only thing between me and finishing up the box, but once i get my paycheck by the end of the month it should all work fine =)

Sweet.

I still can't believe how big everything gets and that we actually built those things.

I was a skeptic at first. But WOW!!!

gf comment : wow, that's big. ANd that box is ugly...
gf's mom comment : just how will you hang that thing, it's ugly.
gf's sister : But what is that thing

Brother-in-law : WOW!!! MAN! LET'S PLAY SOME XBOX!

(women...)

i bet i have close to if not the ugiest projector on LL. Cardboard, ductape, k-nex and some old shirts to help with light leaks.

hey X -that description sounds scaringly close to how my pj looks atm, with the one change being the shirts are actually towels - picture up soon


Math, I hear ya, i get that comment all the time from family and friends on the female half and they all rant about the size and that it's ugly, whilst all the guys just wanna own one hehe
------

Little update, i just fiddeled around with my screen wich atm consists of 2 IKEA bedsheets (yes 2 layers) and i just discovered what a HUUUGE Change it does to have a material that doesn't let through light even half a Milimeter

I hooked off a closet-door and projected on.. and now i haveto go through the hazzle of building a screen, man the difference is HUGE! during daylight they are both just as white if you dont project anything on it, but when a projected image is slapped on them both the bedsheet is SOOO washed out compared to the closet door, it's a tad too glossy ( i think ) but it's very marginal! i can see a small hotspot but it's bareable with ease!

i'll post images soon, the absolute flat surface helps alot with the ambient lightning not ruining the image, using fabric is an idea i'll scratch i think.. (pitty i wanted it to work)

Ha you guys, my family must be weird, my dad says how it is such a waste of time, and my brother shows little interest. My mom and sister however always want to watch movies on it!!! WTF am I going INSANE?!?!

that's nothing. my mom has been telling me to switch majors and go into engineering because of my PJ

Ronin, see if you can find painters canvas. Thats what I used, its a square weave cloth coated with a white paint. Very bright, durable and cheap! $30 bucks for a 70" wide piece 3 yards long. Oh yea, it doesnt let light through either.

Also, Ronin, you posted your triplet glowie idea in another thread, and i said white text on a black background has a haze and all that. Well, this week I am going to take apart my triplet and machine a bevel as per your drawing and see if it helps.

Painters Canvas?

Take a look at THIS guy's screen 9' X 12' (Home Depot's Painters Canvas).

Click to view attachment

Cheers!

Fulcrum

hehe drive-in(someones backyard)-movie!!!

NinHowFritz - must be a hormone-thing, maybe the male side of yer family is kinda female lol so no yer not insane, just missunderstood lol

simp1yamazn - Yeah i know what ya mean, people around me who has no clue about this forum wich is an ocean of information basicly telling you all you need to know to build a HD-projector, tells me im a genious and that i've buildt something that cant be buildt and so on, i keep telling them that it's not that complicated and i dunno how many times ive mentioned this forum but still they keep thinking ive got uber-knowlage in all this technical stuff lol - oh well i might as well take a bath in the sunshine being blown at my ass from friends and family due to this thingy standing in the middle of my livingroom looking like a stranded wale covered in towels lol

Natural Newbie - Sweet!! will be VERY interesting to see if my theory proves to be corect or if it depends on more than just the triplet, oh and dont forget to cover the machined area with some black matte paint - would you be so kind and post a result in my thread since im not allways browsing through everyones plog nowdays, been a stressfull couple weeks hehe


Is it just me or is it normal that DIY-ers like us take out their fulltower homecomputer in the livingroom and basicly replacing the monitor with the projector lol

Im using it right now and everytime i go back to my 17" crt i realize size DOES matter lol

Got the chamfer lathed, its about a 60 degree angle; even better.

I will take pics and post the results in both our plogs tonight or tomorro!

Sounds GREAT! can you tell allready if there was an improvement?

Oh and one other thing, projecting on cloth will allways create some glowies, i just yanked out a closet door with a ¨matte white laminated surface and lots of glowies dissapeared -not all but most of it =) so cloth is a factor.

I'm still at work. I will test to see if my canvas creates glowies also.

ok perfect i cant wait! =)

i have a problem ive been trying to attack, i know ive read about it somewhere in the forums but i cant find it

when projecting a pitch black screen i end up with this light-shape
(done in photoshop - not a photograph)



Any ideas? the whole inside of the PJ is painted matte black, including the frames.

ive figured out that heat enhances this effect and can be reduced with good airflow but even with forced airflow with the radial fan on full blow i cant get them to dissapear.