Hey everyone,

I'm in the process of designing the enclosure for my PJ. It's going to be a 17" straight shooter using an 18" FL Beseler lens and the LL pro fresnels. I am going to reduce the fresnel size by hiding parts of them behind a frame instead of worrying about cutting them.

Now, I have one question - aside from the looks, are there any functional disadvantages of making the enclosure too big? This is my first PJ, so I want to make sure that I have room for everything in there. This is also my first time working with wood (although my friend, who is helping, has done it before), so I am afraid that I may overdo it a bit and make the box humongous.

I don't really care if the box looks ugly/big/hideous. However, I do care if making it too big is going to cause functional problems. Thanks in advance for any help!

No, I'd say if you can tolerate it being large then do so. It'll be easier to adjust and modify in the future. In theory you could build a projector inside of a closet and put the triplet in the wall and it'd work fine. There are some considerations to be taken into account doing something like that but nothing insurmountable. In fact, it has been discussed by some and maybe that idea has been implemented but I don't think so. I built mine thinking it'd be big enough for anything I might encounter in the future but once I attempted the pro triplet mod which changes the FL of the triplet I found I couldn't move my LCD far enough away from the triplet. (I had another option but don't think I'll pursue it for other reasons.)

So, I'd say build big.

The short answer to your question is "no." My only thoughts of disadvantages have nothing to do with functionality/optics. Just make sure that you line everything up correctly, and that you close off all paths that light can take around your fresnel/lcd mounts so that only the light you want goes through the triplet.

If you care to think about non-functional disadvantages, I can think of a few off the top of my head:
1) Weight. If you make it out of wood, the larger the enclosure, the heavier it will be.
2) Movability. Is that even a word? Well, I don't mean portability, but just the general act of moving the entire unit to where you want. I build the standard "dog coffin" for my 17" projector, and it is about 44"x18"x18". I have quite the issue of moving this thing by myself. Its size makes it awkward to try to carry, and the weight doesn't help with that.
3) Head Injuries. Are you planning to ceiling mount this? If so, the larger the box, the further down from the ceiling it will hang. I have already hit my head on mine, so just another thought.

Me too, the thing is heavy and cumbersome...

I would imagine a big box would affect the airflow in one way or another, I can't decide if it would make it worse or better though.

More massive means more materials means more moola. Mmmm!

I'd put it like this:
Cutting the fresnels isn't that hard. Don't build the box big to avoid 30 minutes of work. Building big for future expansion is another thing... but you're likely to have smaller parts in the future.

In the relatively long term maybe but I'd argue it's just as likely we'll maybe see higher res similar sized panels (15 or 17 inch) in the relative short term.

But what do I know?

I feel DIY for the sake of DIY is more of a build it handleable and not micro sized or you're getting into a rather specialized niche of DIY.

Sorry, this just struck me funny. What material could you use that gets lighter?

Anti-matter of course...

Yeah, that does sound like a DUH comment.

One smartass comment deserves another!

Really though, My box is HUGE. 20" wide, 20"long, and 36" tall, I have no issue with cooling or anything else for that matter, Only problem is, I made it too short. lol I had to stack blocks under it to get it where I wanted.

Gotcha beat dude. Mine is like 21 x 30 x 48 inches, roughly. I can only hope it's the right height. I need one of those belts they wear at Lowe's and Home Depot when I move it.

And to I really think you should build a little big instead of really small.

Wow! Thanks for all of the helpful responses.

To address some issues brought up in the replies:

I realize that the size/weight will be significant, but this is my first PJ, so as others have said, I'd rather have it be too big rather than too small. Also, I am not going to mount this on the ceiling, so there should be no issues with bumping my head into it. Now, if one of my friends gets intoxicated and knocks it over, that's another story...

Now all I have to do is wait for my parts to get in. I hope the LL DIY store can ship them soon!

So does anyone know when the store will begin carrying anti-matter in their inventory?