Hey everyone. As you could probably guess from the title, this will be my first PJ build. Not knowing enough to determine which components would be worth buying, I found a decent 15.4 LCD panel and bought the LL mega kit for 15" screens (just waiting on this now). I have my basic design mocked up, but I have a few questions.


1) What adjustments will I need to be able to make? I know I'll want the projection triplet movable for focusing and the front fresnel tiltable for keystoning. Will I need the bulb movable in relation to my fresnel/lcd setup? Will the fresnel/lcd setup need to be able to slide back and forth?

I WILL be moving this projector around. I don't plan on adding any zoom, as I know that is more costly, but I will have different size screens and different setups. So besides the two adjustments I know I'm adding, is there anything else I need?


2) Heat shielding: first, how necessary is it? Is it possible to build a box without, or is that just asking for trouble?

Second, will lexan/plexiglass work, or is only tempered glass suitable? I don't have a readily available source for tempered glass, but plexi is very easy to come by.


3) Anti-glare removal. I know I'd like to do this, but I'm worried about damaging my panel. How much benefit will this actually give me in terms of brightness or clarity?


4) Cooling. Obviously the LCD needs to stay cool, but how important is it that the ballast/bulb stay frosty? I'm trying to figure out airflow in my enclosure, and I need to know which parts need to be hit the hardest. Ideally I'd like to cool them all, but if that can only be accomplished well with tons of loud fans, I might want to see what else can be done.


That's it for now. I'm sure there will be more as I actually get into it. Thanks for your help!

mouser.com, i have a 110cfm and a 90cfm fan and a bitty 4 inch cooling my ballast outside the box, because the air is forced througth a channel the 90 cfm fans dont run at max speed so they are actually silent but cool well and really the only noise you hear is the sound of the air flowing


also 17 inch lcds are the same price if not cheaper than 15 inch lcds these days, so if you have the room on the wall and extra cash to get a little bigger lens, the go for the larger lcd, you lose a tad brightness(but i use a vertical mount bulb so its perfect)
but you can make a mad large picture

like so huge that if you play a game and sit in front of it, youll get dizzy, its great

I don't think the mega kit fresnels are going to work with a 15.4 4:3 LCD, I know it wont work with a 15.4 widescreen LCD. You'll either need to look into getting a different LCD or another set of fresnels.

You'll need a larger 220mm collimator, you can get one here (called the Pro Condenser Fresnel Lens). You can also get one at the store I mention below...

You'll also need a larger ~330mm fresnel, unfortunately the LL store does not carry a 330mm large fresnel (why not, I couldn't tell ya). Most people here go to 3dLens.com for that fresnel. I think it's slightly more expensive, like $27.50 or something. If you want, you can also get a 220mm fresnel there (same price I think) I think this one might be considered to be better than the LL one...

The other route you can go is to get the full pro lens kit (which is out of stock right now), that will give you 2 fresnels that are large enough and the pro triplet (which most people agree is the best out there for our purposes).

I guess there's another thing you could do...
Get the pro collimator and the pro field and find an alternative projection lens, I think a popular brand to use here is "belser" or something like that. You can find them used on eBay...

So many choices! The easiest is to just use a 15" LCD.