jon, why the change in projector? are u going to switch ur current 10.6 into or are you going to do another build?

Man I just need more hobbies.

I'm going to put a 10.6" in this one also. It will help keep me busy.

Oh I added Stadium seating to my theater room and I put in some couches.

Very nice, those look comfortable! I see you turned your room into a bat cave also, i think I remember seeing it white before?

Hey jon.

I ended up with a 880 also. It appears the eballast has an option for lowering the output to 400W (dimming), which is pretty cool. I notice on mine that it is a split setup. What about yours ? .. can't seem to make out if it is split or not ?

Thanks they are VERY comfortable. They are made by Ashley but I bought them on sale at Big Lots for $310 each with tax

No it was black the whole time. My ceiling is white though. Never saw a reason to change it.



No mine is not split. I have the two fresnels glued together behind the Lcd. Pics of yours please

Hey thanks for pointing that out on the Eballast. i never noticed that.

What are you going to do with yours ?

Sure.

I bought it for the light engine. It is a working PJ, but the lamp has about 500 hours on it. It's got bad screendoor compared to the wuxga, but it's bright. After I play with the light engine I don't know... may sell it off... or maybe convert it with a 10.6" panel, although the throw would be rather short, so i'd likely not do that. I'm interested in seeing how you plan to get a 10.6" in that housing... not sure where you'll put the ballast it will certainly be in the way. A 7.2" panel would fit the bill, although throw might still be a bit shorter than i'd like, no controller for the 7.2" now anyway. I've also been doing some testing with a 150 lamp and several precondensers for use with a 10.6" panel... I may need to look at this precon for comparison too...

Click to view attachment

Thanks for the pics. Wish I had the split setup to play with.

Here's the plan. Eballast gets moved where the igniter is. Igniter gets move where the on/off switch is. All other electronics removed. A small 12v adapter added for controller. Fan wired straight to power. Controller goes in parallel to the Lcd. Male to female adapters go from controller to side of projector for inputs. Lcd metal adapted for 10.6" with threaded rods for split fresnels.

Piece of cake

Funny they are different (split vs. unsplit)

On the bottom of the unit my tag reads:

05-97 (may '97 production date I assume)
product 201.340
serial 000586
made in Norway (I would have bet anything China )

edit: serial #

Mine is 05-96
S/N 000338
product 201.340
made in Norway.

Guess they went to split for some reason.

Ok I finally installed my split fresnels.

I used #10 threaded rod and cut 4 holes in the lcd frame. Then I put a bolt on the rods on each side of the frame to hold the rods stiff. Then I cut the fresnels to size and drilled 4 holes in the appropriate spots. Then I just slid the fresnels on the rods. Add nuts and you're done.

It solved the uneven blacks/glowies problem. Lumens dropped down to about 450 lumens. But it looks great.

I need to add a filter and air diverter on top of the projector where I added the air slot. And I might change the fans that I added to some 120mm 120v fans just to make sure it stays cool.

Almost ready to move on to the 880

so where are you sourcing those bulbs for under
$50, i've seacrhed and searched and can't find a hmi 575w
for under $130 to save my life....

i'm on the quest to find the perfect bulb and
so far i'm down to HMI, HQI, or ceramic arc...what do you think
of your HMI and if it were run at lower voltage could it live a bit longer

Mike D>

Ebay, I think.

Generic for $55

Branded GE for $80

You can also buy them from a guy who frequents the projector part of the diyaudio forum. He goes by 18wheeler and his site is here but it looks like he's out of stock on the 575w hmi lamps at the moment.

Jon,

Pictures of the split setup?

man i'm on the verge of giving up
i've built a 15" and i'm having a alot of toruble getting the results i want
it's functional but i wish they're was a more concise method to get great results...
i'd really like to figure out what a good lamp is and to better understand how to implement a
pre-condensor to really get it right

if we look at this projector we can see obviously the best method is to use
shorter arcs , a reflector, a pre-con, hot glass, and 2 split fresnels

however with shorter arc bulbs
a lifespan of 500- 750 hrs is a bit of a pain

are they're good longer life options in ceramic or hqi?
or will their longer arcs continue to yield mediocre results in comparison
to LL65k T15's (which is what i have now)....

would someone just kill me and put me out of my misery ?

I have finally got round to retrofitting one of my ASK 960s.

The light engine has be retrofitted with a CDM 150 single ended lamp and eBallast, it was really easy, i cut a large whole in the fibre board like stuff (hope its not asbestos) and mounted the lamp and holder onto a plate and screwed it onto the side using existing screws.

Amazingly it sat in the pefect position without any major adjustments.

Once i fire it up will post my photos and update my plog.

Working on my LCD frame, its being a nightmare trying to get a good frame for it without the right tools. mostly using aluminium.

I thought about keeping the 575 watt system but having a bulb explode on me destroying the insides of one of the 960s i decided to go with a new and more reliable system.

DRJ

If nothing else, the best reason I can see in having/buying the Ask or the Barco for that matter is that all of the freshnels are perfectly aligned (well, to most of us at least-jonjandran has other ideas :-)) so all you have to do is retrofit either the lcd source and/or replace the light engine. There's more than enough space to place a CDM or similar lamp and not have to worry much about placement or space restrictions.

Here you go.

The projector is basically finished. Just a tweak here and there and it's completely done.

Here are some projection pics.

1080p from Blu-ray disc on the PS3.

124" diagonal with the projector 162" back.

Wow jonjandran.
Those are some of the finest S/S's I have seen.
Not only with DIY, but ever.
Good job pushing the bar higher for the rest of us.

Ditto that. Sweet pics. Gonna be a real run on those old units. Nice work. Very nice work.

Thanks guys.

Some Terminator 2 1080p pics. Same screen dimensions as before.

Alright jonjan,

IN.... SANE...... Awesome results.

I ordered my 10.6, and I just found an ASK 970 on craigslist. Looks like I'll be selling my my old projector and wuxga parts in the trading post!

I'm digging these screenies man.... bigtime....

Are you projecting on to your dalite high power? I need to get one of those... anyone interested in a kidney????

Yea that is projected on the Dalite High Power 9'x12'. Doesn't quite fill it up

I might need a new Kidney in a few years. Diabetes is taking it's toll on me.

It looks terrific. My wife said that if I could get it to fill the whole screen she didn't think she would be able to notice a difference between it and the commercial 1080p. And that's what I call a success.

jonjandran,

Truly amazing! What a diamond in the rough that I'm sitting on right now!

Please, can you show some front angle shots of how you placed the freshnels? Thanks

Victor

Sure , here you go .

Great screen shots, it is nice to see such great color. It is hard to get that from most of the longer arc lamps.

How much of an improvement in your black levels did you get in the split V the un-split setup?

Were the glowies bad or just sort of bad?

Do you miss the extra rez of the WUXGA?

The glowies were really bad. But it wasn't the glowies where there is a "halo" around words/items. It was the glowies only on a mostly black screen. More like the dreaded backlight bleed. There is still a little left but i haven't tried masking off the sides of the lcd yet. and it's barely noticeable and might just be a slight lack of alignment in the optics.

And yes the black levels improved also. It made the contrast much improved also.

The loss of res from 1080p to 720p is noticeable to me, but probably wouldn't be to most people. I've done so much research and had so many setups (projectors and T.V's) that I really know what to look for.

Most people would only notice it as a little less "sharpness".

But overall if I had built this one first, I don't think I would have ever built another. it's that good.

Thanks jon on the pix.

I'm curious as how you were able to drill through the freshnels, ie what bit did you use and at what speed.

Victor

Also, I used my 970 outdoors and got a max of about 149" on a widescreen movie before I couldn't move the focus any more. Are you able to get the same or do you have more range by switching to an unsplit design.

Looks great!

Im hanging to get mine finished, but the panel i got of Carpow had issues so im trying to get an exchange panel.

I used a 1/4" bit and just went real slow. It was very easy compared to the plexiglass that I've tried to drill. The fresnels must be softer.

I'm maxed out at 124". Any bigger and I can't focus. I would need to relocate my triplet to get bigger.

Where'd you get the frenels?

I used the LL standard 220mm/330mm fresnels.

Ahh, sweet so you just cut them down?

Also, does your fan still run after you turn off the projector? I see that you wired the fan direct, and I was wondering how you achieve the time delay on the fan cut off (if it does indeed happen at all...)

Thanks man!

I'm pumped about this one! I'm going on monday to pick up an ASK 970 I found on Craigslist. Woohoo craigslist...

Again, great job jonjan.

Yes I just cut them down.

I wired the cage fan direct and also to an attic thermostat. It comes on with the projector and stays on after the projector shuts off until it reaches 78degrees.

The 2 -80mm 12v fans are just wired direct and turn off/on with the projector.

Pm me if you need help when you get the 970

Jon,

Did you remove the old fan? any reasons?

Mine started to play up last night, i have pulled it apart and giving it an overhaul before i remount it.

Nope the old cage fan is still running fine.

Jonjan!

What used to be sitting where your e-ballast is now? Could you notate where you all your components are located inside the case?

Thanks Jonjandran

Just look at the first page in this thread , there are pics of the stock 960 with all the old equipment in it.

How's the 880 coming?

-Special request-
Could we get a few macro pics of the wiring you did with the new stuff to the stock stuff? Mostly the eballast area and around the voltage converter?

Thanks!

Haven't even started the 880 yet. Waiting for a triplet for it.

Just your standard cut wire/solder/heat shrink with a few wire nuts on the bigger wires. Even with a macro pic you wouldn't be able to tell what is going where are doing what.

Jon,

got any screen shots of you HC5000 in action compared to ASK?

Ohhhh..... yes please!??

Really ? You can find pics of the HC5000 in action all over the net. What are we looking for. We know a $5000 commercial 1080p will be better than an Lcd retrofit

Awwww.... c'mon....

You said it's ALMOST as good, right?

HC5000 pics. 1080p from Ps3 at 175" diagonal.
Bear in mind this is a commercial projector that has been properly calibrated.

Ok, out of curiosity i made a comparison between the ask screenshots and the comercial screenshots and here is the result. I have to say, the ask holds its own evin agenst a high end 1080p projector. Jonjandran, if you can turn down the blues on the ask i dont think that it would be possible to tell them appart.



(posted with permition of jonjandran)

ps. i adjusted the ask image becuase it was a little stretched but did nothing to it otherwise.

Wow, very true

Hey jonjan, is your 330 fresnel parallel to the lcd or adjusted to the lens shift angle? (sorry, I couldn't tell from the pics!)

Thanks!