So I've been reading these forums for awhile. Decided when I got my income tax return check to take the plunge and "attempt" at building. Since the first time I saw jonjandran's 1080p I've been in love. It took a lot of begging to my gf to allow me to do this.


Heres my parts and pictures.

Norwood Micro 15.4" (bought at ecost) - Delivered
Diagonal Screen Size 15.4″
Native Resolution 1280 x 800
Image Contrast Ratio 400:1
Response Time : 25ms

FFC extenters as mentioned by computercowboy in this thread
http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?s...mp;#entry184488

WM10242-ND and WM7710CT-ND from digikey.com

Lighting: (Delivered)
LL65K T15 Lamp
Mogul base HID Socket
LL/Vue 400w eBallast



Fresnels (LL Was out so I ordered from 3dlens)
http://www.3dlens.com/shop/large-fresnel-lens-a395a.php
http://www.3dlens.com/shop/large-fresnel-lens-a395b.php
18" Besler Purchased

Lexan (Home Depot) Yet to be purchased
Wood (Home Depot) Yet to be purchased
Goal is to go 1080p within three months of solid state

Primary use will be for Xbox and for movies. I don't watch much tv.

Still unsure how im going to build the focus unit.
Switch unit to cool after unit is off.

some pictures of the gear.

Bulb


FFC Connector

FFC Cable

Bulb Holder

EBallast

LCD Monitor


If anyone has any tips, ideas and or input.. .always welcome.

i see that mech assault.....has someone been softmodding?

I also see xbox screws by the torx bits. Seems like it hs been opened...maybe a TSOP flash? Anyway, good luck on the build.

LOL,,,, I got a original mech,,, LOL

Lol you guys are good. Fixed my date on the camera. Thinking of heading to home depot tomorrow to buy the wood. Trying to buy a beseler on ebay but people keep snatching them or i keep forgetting to bid

I dont know if I should start the build without the lense or just wait till I have ALL parts and begin. What do you guys think?

Had to transfer some things from this 200 gig I have on there for a friend.. XBMC is by far the best application for this xbox.







And since you're so observent, figured i'd take a pic of my 360, too.

Haven't posted because I am super busy with work. As soon as this month is over I should be ready to build. I'm waiting for my lense from 3dlense, and my beseler I bought on ebay. As soon as that stuff comes I will begin doing drawings and making the enclosure for the LCD, and Fresnels. Then the box build.

Got my fresnels today.. Just waiting for my beseler to arrive tomorrow via fedex! Cant wait!!!! I have the same feeling as i did when I was 6 and it was christmas eve!

Updates. I now have *all* parts for the build... except some lexan, and the frame for wood and other misc parts. Hopefully next weekend...

looks like your well on your way.....good luck on the build

I got the same monitor. I'm worried about connecting the 360 through VGA to it though. Do you have the VGA cable? Maybe you can answer my questions...
I was fooling around with the resolutions at my friends' house (I don't have an Xbox yet) and the images were stretched horribly. I read today that there's a "maintain aspect ratio" setting that would add black bars to a 4:3 screen from a widescreen game, is that true? (Or black bars to a 1280x768 screen when the game is 1280x720 native)

Also, the Xbox 360 can output in 1280x768. Have you tried it on a 1280x800 screen, like the X2Gen? Is the stretching noticable?

Awesome! Looking forward to seeing your progress!

wow you're well on your way! Rock on mate and keep us updated

I have not personally tested this. But I have seen my friends xbox and xbox360 with vga cables. It does add black bars to the frame so its not "stretched" It looks quite nice. I havent seen any stretching except for when you have text on the screen.. credits or if you use certain parts of the dash. You dont notice unless you LOOK for it. Once you KNOW its there.. its a constant reminder and you keep looking. Kinda stupid how the mind ruins everything for you..

I will have xbox and xbox360 vga cables. Guy at work is splicing a set for me this weekend.

While out shopping with the GF today, i noticed this object I could use as a reflector. Its about 5-6 inches. I "polished" it with my shirt. Tell me if you think this will be a decent reflector. You cant tell by the reflection but it is in the shape of a bowl...
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Then I saw this one. It isnt "smooth" but it has a larger circumfrence.

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a few guys from work and myself came up with this idea for a focus unit. Tell me if you think this would work and how it will effect any keystoning or laws of gravity.
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Time for some updates.
During the week i'll be working slowly, the next two weekends are busy. My gfs friend is getting married on friday.. Saturday i'm going to orlando for buisness. The weekend after that my friend is getting married. So progress will come slowly but surely. I'm impatient. So things will get done rather quick. Plus my gf keeps screaming about the mess and parts everywhere.

Question of the day > I just stripped and did my FFC extension. When I got up to get my camera i noticed "rings" on my panel. Are these something to worry about?

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The frame .. I used some MDF. Don't remember what size. Cut like butter with a jigsaw. (I borrowed some tools from a friend)


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Heres the fresnels into the frame. Not the most even cuts. I didn't want to glue because I knew it wouldnt be perm. I drilled 4 holes at each corner and put a plastic tie to hold the frame together. Works better than I thought.

It looks horrible and ugly, but i plan to tweak parts later.



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Like performing brain surgery. They make these things so they do not come apart easily.
All in all took me about an hour to strip not knowing about ANYTHING except that FFC. I was so nervous about tearing it. Was the same feeling as "borrowing" your parents car at 2 am with a car full of friends.

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LCD Stripped 100% and extension mod complete. Panel is tucked away until I figure out a decent way to mount it. No matter how I move it there is still tension on the original ffc..

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Any updates?

So i've been super busy with life. Between work, and social life. I havent even played my xbox lately. I did manage to do some electrical wiring. Spliced some wire and got a nice 120mm fan from radio shack, used an old a/c adapter to bring it down to 12v Issue I am facing now is this moron from lowes keeps cutting my lexan wrong. Its not straight or its not the right size. I've gone back 3x now to get it cut. He is always there. He is a miserable miserable man. I will prob. be updating on a regular basis now.

I back you !

Alright. So tonight I went to home depot to get another piece of lexan since the other one was so fudged. I was able to clamp the edges of the box to fit around the lexan. Also got a nice hole right above the lamp for my fans. I wanted to test the over-all temp with bulb on so I tried my wiring, I see my bulb flash for a quick second then nothing happens. I thought I would let it power up for about 5 minutes and still nothing. I am thinking theres a fault in my wiring somewhere. Anyways, I will bring it to my office tomorrow and let one of the guys there whos an electrical engineer look at it. I also had this issue where the top of the box fell inside of the box. Doh! A drawer knob fit perfect. So far everything is coming along.

Now i gotta search the forums to see how close I can have the lexan to my bulb without it melting. Any suggestions?

So, I put the lexan in. Let it run for about 30 minutes to see exactly how hot it would get with a much smaller enclosed space. Everything went well except it burnt my MDF. I Have a nice char spot there. :[

Some pics also updated.
View From the side.
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View from the back
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And a peek inside. The holes ontop of the bulb are the vent holes. Surprisingly, hardly any light escapes from this fan. Its spinning at 3000rpm, temp stays between 100-120. I can prolly lower the cpu fan speed to lower the sound. With the tv / radio on I cant really hear it. Only during silence.
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I'm going to go to the dollar store later today to see if i can get a metal mixing bowl to put around the bulb to act as a reflector to keep some of the heat off the MDF. For right now I have tinfoil on the back of the MDF to block some of the heat. I will attempt to mount my LCD in the box later today. Also, I have a switch from radio shack. I need to install that on my fan wiring. Its a 3 setting switch so I can power everything, turn it off, or just power whatever i want in the 3rd posistion to run only the fan so i can cool the bulb rather than waiting a good 20-30 minutes to cool down before i can do more testing.

Flashing is always a good idea, placed behind the bulb going down towards the ballast folded over and around it to protect wood and ballast from damage.

The first bowl looked okay for a reflector I have one similar to it in my light box it almost touches the bulb and I have yet to see any discoloration on it.

You should see my 'charred' wood! It burnt all the way through the bottom 1/2" MDF, and started on through the backpack I had the projector sitting on.

Can anyone offer any advice here about the FL mismatch, I was under the impression that you needed to use a front fresnel lens with greater >= FL to the triplet to make it work properly.

Examples would be LL standard lens FL 320mm with LL standard or 3dlens fresnel with FL 330mm
or Pro lens with FL 550mm + LL pro fresnel with FL 650mm

Now the besleler has an FL of 18" or 457.2 mm, I thought you needed to get a front fresnel with >= FL to make it work. I thought that the people doing builds with the beseler were using the pro fresnel.

my understanding of it is that the fresnel needs to make the light come to a point in the triplet or on the other side of the triplet out of the box, it seems to me that the combo of a fresnel with an FL of 330mm and the beseler lens will mean that the light will no reach the triplet.

If the 3dlens FL 330 mm will work with the beseler I will be psyched because I am planning a new build with a beseler and I have an extra front fresnel from 3dlens kicking around. I thought I would need the pro frezzies though.

What to the masters have to say?

I hit my snag for the day. Things were progressing so nice, too. When I did the design I was hoping to rest the lcd screen ontop of its control box. It is also hanging from a wood pole from side to side for future keystone purpose. Now the snag I hit was the power box is few inches long. maybe 7-8. The Fresnels need to be next to the lcd. In order to acomplish this i move the lcd to the end of the power box. but then there isnt enough room between the beseler and the fresnels.

Also, second issue I notice is my image is upside down.
I may be taking all of the parts out of the lcd control box and putting them on the floor of the box. we will see where this takes me now.

Not really Sure. I'm the wrong person to ask about that. I just got parts other people suggested.

I believe CC is correct Your field fressie is not the right one. I am sure someone here will trade you one for the field fresnel you have. or you could buy one from 3dlens and place that other one in the trade blog

After all the snags and issues, I think I am going to just sell all my parts. I just keep running into problem after problem and now ive just lost interest. Every thing ive tried with this project has had a problem and nothing went smooth. I am thinking about just getting the evo projector and calling it a day.

Finish it, it is quite rewarding. I am glad I finished mine. I got a good 5 months of use out of it before parting it out. Even if you end up moving on to somthing better and brighter it is worth finishing.

I am just sick of the mess being in my dining room. I am tired of the set backs and the issues. I just want to wipe my hands clean and call it done. Yeah, I put a lot of time into it and go pretty damn far. But at this point I just don't see it working out. I'd have to buy another 15" lcd monitor and the correct fresnels.