This is my first attempt at making a PJ, so please bear with me!

I ordered the 10.6" panel/controller(genesis) from johnzo, and it should be getting here in the next couple of days.
I also got fresnels and some kind of light box assembly from him at the same time (hopefully they will work well).

For lighting, I saw that this bulb was suggested in several threads, so I figure I'll give it a shot:
CDM 150/TD/942 from http://www.bulbconnection.com/ViewItem/bcr...2F942/item.html

To go with that, people seem to like the Sola 150w Ballast, so:
http://www.1000bulbs.com/product.php?product=2547

For the triplet, I'm just going to buy the standard lens from the LL Store, as that seems to be the one everyone uses for this size LCD.

Do I need to buy one of the wiring kits from the LL store too, or can I just use the power supply from a computer?

My background info:
I'm a college student going for a major in Computer Science. I love programming, but I don't really touch hardware (other than building PCs), so this is going to be an adventure for me. Fortunately it's more of a group project (with some friends that are engineering majors), and they tell me they either know what's going on or can figure it out... I'm just hoping to learn a bunch along the way!

I mention all that so you guys will understand this:
I have to buy everything without *REALLY* understanding what's going on!

So please, if I'm buying something I shouldn't be (or forgetting something!), please tell me!

I'm going to be ordering stuff soon so that it'll get here before the end of this semester, but I'm definitely still open to suggestions!

Hope it goes well for you! Suggestion? Peruse the plogs, especially but not necessarily exclusively, those similar to the direction you are going with yours (vertical, coffin, etc). Plan, plan, plan, and then plan some more. Unless you are like Pun15er and SculptorM and some of the other folks here who seem able to envision something and have it magically have it bleed out their jigsaw- you'll want to spend more time planning to save less time in the shop wasting wood. Wasting is a strong word, miscut wood will serve as a lesson, and there's always need for scrap. But when you see someone's plog where they've drawn out to scale their ideas for a PJ on cardboard, or on paper to serve as cutouts for wood-cutting and think its "silly" ... think again! I've often been too impatient to draw out such plans- and after more than a year am still designing and redesigning my own PJ.
Take your time and have fun! and let us know how it goes!

Yeah, my plan as of right now is to get all the parts together and do the measurements and get a test setup in like a cardboard box, and then they (my engineer friends) were going to draw it up in a CAD program and then have it milled out of either wood or some kind of plastic (they have friends at a local .... "milling shop" I guess is the term). Right now I'm more concerned about ordering the right parts, since I will need to do that ASAP.

I've actually read four or five plogs for the 10.6" PJs, which is where I extracted a lot of the info I already have (like my proposed bulb and ballast). I will probably look at a few more though, it's just that my time is very limited since it's nearing the end of my semester and I have tons of projects due in like two weeks!

Ok, I'm ordering the Ballast and Bulb now, and I guess also the Standard Projection lens, since that should be a sure thing.

I'm still not sure what I need to order in the way of power supplies / wiring... I've read a bunch of plogs and no one really talks about that more than describing the wiring diagrams... I guess everyone else is already familiar with power and wiring and stuff? If so, I could really use some suggestions!

welcome about to 10.6's. Just started my mostly depending off your ballast for wiring, but you will probably want to use a switch for it. It's actually pretty simple once you get parts show us a wiring diagram like from the site or take apicture of the one off the ballast and we can help u.

Parts all shipped or shipping, so I should have almost everything I need by the end of next week!

I couldn't find where I would buy the socket for that bulb (TD7 / RX7), so I'm hoping it either comes with one or else I can buy one at Home Depot or some other hardware store locally.

I guess it'll be a week or two before I can really update anything to do with my progress, so for now I guess I'll just ask a couple more questions!

1) I SERIOUSLY have no idea how I'm supposed to power all this stuff... Do I use the same power supply to run the screen and the ballast, or do they plug in to the wall separately? Is a computer power supply good for this? I need SOME kind of DC adapter, right?

2) My friends suggested mounting the major heat-producing stuff on the outside of the projector box... Is doing that feasible / recommended? It seems like most people mount them completely inside their PJ boxes, so I'm guessing there must be some sort of reason?

Again, thanks for all the help, the community here is really great!

(I have not actually built one yet, but this is what I've gained from a year of reading around here...) Power comes into the box. Power gets split in two (after going through the fuse?). One set goes to the ballast and lamp portion (no DC adapter) and the other goes to the LCD circuitry (which uses/comes with a DC converter usually).


Some do mount the ballast outside to get the heat out of the box, but most of the heat usually comes from the bulb (which for obvious reasons needs to be inside ), so they leave the ballast in too for aesthetics (holy cow, I spelled that right). Since you are using the 150W ceramic bulb, taking the ballast outside the box might have a larger impact. If it's not an eyesore for you, you may be better off this way.

I found this diagram by Deathray64 to be very helpful. The whole thread is worth reading.

Click to view attachment

That's AWESOME! I only have time to glance at it right now, but that looks like it completely answers my question!

Lothar: I think I may end up putting the ballast outside, but like... somewhat enclosed via a metal box or something (it'll end up looking sort of like a wart probably).... That or just pay special attention to cooling, since I wanted to do this in a plastic milled case, and I'm not sure how much heat the material they use can take. I guess I can probably get them to use something that's rated way more than I'd ever see though.

News: I got a package from johnzo today (I wonder what's in it? ) and will post pictures in a bit (not that you guys haven't seen pictures of this same exact panel like 30 times). Exciting!

Ok, here we go... Picture time!!! I hope the forums software auto-resizes these... >_>
Edit: No, it didn't... So, the old (and rather large) pics are at http://cs.trinity.edu/~aharwell/PJbig/ if anyone wants to see them.

Controller and Accessories:

LCD Panel:




(And including my roommate's girlfriend:)

What I believe is a condenser lens?:



Reflector (Also from johnzo):
Before I remembered to turn off the flash on the camera:

After:

Fresnels:




Are these holes on the sides of one of the fresnels ok? Or will that cause problems?

This is the lightbox I got with the panel and fresnels (from johnzo) which appears to have the right socket for the bulb I bought, even though he didn't know what bulb I was buying! Crazy:

My Ballast (150w Sola):



And the mounts that came with it:

And the pizza I was eating in celebration of getting nearly all of my parts in:


I tried to be thorough... Unfortunately, a lot of those photos didn't look blurry when I took them, but definitely do now! Still, you get the idea. I also have the standard LL projection triplet, but it was wrapped up all nice in plastic and you all know what it looks like anyway.

Hopefully my bulb will get here soon... Not that it matters, since I won't be able to actually start any work until after my finals (which end on the 9th). So, until then, I suppose I will start thinking about what I want my case to look like. Since I'm getting it milled at a shop from CAD specifications, it can be nearly any material I want... Glass obviously wouldn't be a good choice, but I'm not sure what is best.

I'll sign off for today with a question about my case: Should I use wood or plastic or some kind of crazy other material?

Nice looking stuff.

A couple of questions.

What is the diameter of your condensor lens? And what is the focal length of the two fresnels?

Thanks and good luck

I sold him the additional parts. The rear frensel is 200mm and the front is 320mm.

I dont have the focal lenght for the condenser, but the lamp box kit has the reflector and condenser lenes and matches to work with the 200mm frensel (carpow uses those in all his setups).

I just roughly measures it I would say ~80mm.

Do you have any more of those 200mm fresnels? (Preferably without the holes). Your PM box is full.

I have one (and a light-box, as-above)...[what's with the holes, anyway...Carpow's frez are barely-larger than panel?].

So, what was diameter of that Pizza?

It'll be interesting to follow the fab of that plastic-case...straight-shooter?
Also...curious how those bases work with a CDM (they were intended for a 75-100w 'HID'-style).
[Nice-start, rm_you...]

Welcome to the 10.6" club. We're all learning so please pass on any information you learn while building. It will be interesting to see what you come up with.

David

with my 10.6 im having trouble with the picture. All the colors seem to be 'inverse' of what they should be (pink is black, blue is white, black is white). If you have pics of the way you connected the controller to the panel that could help me a lot. Also what is the other small board that attaches to the controller. Not the one with the buttons and the light but the one with like the red square? I didn't get that one?

Try rotating the polarizer a little. The angle of the polarizer will slowly shift your colors back to normal.

I suggested that as well. When the LCD is off, rotate it so you get the brightest white possible.

Ok, so I'll probably be starting work on this thing during the next week...

Meanwhile, there are a couple things that would be helpful to know:

1) What kind of DC adapter am I going to have to buy for this LCD Panel? I saw somewhere here that it needed somewhere between 2 and 4 amps, and there were varying opinions about voltage... I don't know very much about electronics, so can anyone help me out here?

2) Some people said their panels came with extra layers of stuff on them that needed to be peeled off. This leads to a few questions:
* How can I tell if mine has those layers?
* I've read about soaking the panel in water to loosen the layer, and then peeling it off. Is that really a good idea?
* Will it still work if I leave them on? (I'm almost too afraid to mess with the extra layers, since I might break the panel trying!)

1: I am using johnzo's 12.5v 2a power supply you could just pick one up at ratshack.

2: Pretty much every lcd has layers of ag, polars, etc... peeling it off helps us in picture quality. The water is DISTILLED water distilled water has few if any impurities that could cause damage.

Read some of the 10.6 plogs (and others) for stripping guides geckostudio has one.

Ok thanks! I'll probably go check out a few other local electronics stores this next weekend. Hopefully I can find something fairly cheap that will work, as my budget is trailing out... Thanks for the tip on stripping too, I'll go check out his PLOG shortly (a lot of people briefly mention stripping, but i've yet to see any really detailed guides).

I'm going shopping in a minute for the last few things I need (a power supply for the panel, and some wood for the mock-up frame (still planning on having the final box milled out of some kind of plastic, probably).

Also, I just tried the bulb i got (CDM150/TD/942) in the lamp box I got from johnzo and it fits perfectly! Score!

Wow, so... It's been a while. I left my projector stuff in storage over the summer of 2007, and was unfortunately way too busy during this fall to do ANYTHING not school related.

However, I'm back at it, and I've gotten the outer frame of the box built, but most importantly, I've gotten a lot of work done on this:

http://cs.trinity.edu/~aharwell/PJ/Projector.skp

That file is a Google Sketchup project for the box! If anyone with some building experience wants to take a look at that and make suggestions, I would really appreciate it! (Or even just tell me I'm retarded and should start over if it's horrible...) Note: I haven't included wiring stuff in there, but I have a fairly good diagram drawn up that I will try to scan or something soon... I figured that I have plenty of wire, so I will carve random little channels or something for getting wiring running through the box... Hopefully that won't be a huge deal.

Anyway, assuming I don't get horribly negative feedback or run into serious issues, I should be building and doing the first test of my light engine within the next couple of weeks. I'm really looking forward to it!