I am building a 17" vertical and wondered about the placement of the mirror... If I mounted it "higher" or further away from the collector wouldn't I be able to use a smaller mirror? Looking at a raytrace I notice the 'standard' LL box the focal point is just past the triplet (or in other words, in front of it) so if I placed the mirror just 'before' it enters the lens in a standard setup and place a small FS mirror here and of course the trip would be mounted at that point.
Well, gotta get back to work.. thx

Your assumptions are correct but more than one member has reported image quality suffers proportionally with increasing distance between LCD and FS mirror. YMMV. Note: Some have also folded after the triplet.

Thanks, Durachko.. I want to have as clear of a image as possible (I guess we all do!) so I guess I will use a larger mirror and place it closer to the LCD.
Overall, do you think a folded design can have as good image quality as a non-folded PJ if everything is tweaked and aligned right?
Thx

Impurities in the mirrors reflective surface is what would cause image distortions, as far as I know. So then, if the mirror is further from the LCD, the light hits the mirror in a smaller area, and any imperfections will affect more of the light reflecting off the mirror. I think that a folded design can have equal or even better results than a straight-shooter, look at commercial PJs, and they fold the light all over the place, esp. for the 3 LCD ones!

That makes perfect sense... thanks!
I think I will build it using a cheap-o "regular" Wal-Mart mirror to get everything set up and meanwhile order a good FS mirror.

Speaking of regular mirrors didn't someone on here take a regular mirror and remove the rear 'covering' with paint remover and use that? I always thought the rear of the mirror plating would be less than optimum.
Did he post any screenies?

Opps, didn't mean to name this thread the same as the other one.. "FS mirror placement"
...my bad!

I would argue it's impossible to achieve as good as a result with a folded design as a straight shooter BUT in practice and with care it would be almost equally impossible for the casual viewer to notice a difference between two WELL DONE builds differing only in a single fold.

elken has made some claims as to relative mirror qualities and their abilities to faithfully reflect colors but I wouldn't stress over it. He also was maybe the first to strip a normal mirror to convert it to a FS mirror.

GadgetSmith recently pointed out this source for FS mirrors.

Edit: Make sure you can FINELY adjust your mirror and place it with great care!

Placing the mirror is a pain in the butt. I had to change my layout after placing boards in the box. Causing me to move my mirror. I still haven't finalized the inside of the box. I want to make sure I have the sweetspot set.

Thanks for the feedback guys... I really wish I could NOT fold it for the reasons you guys mentioned but having a box 3-feet long sitting in the middle of the room can make a wife cringe!

Well it's important to get WAF. I didn't have it till I told her I was doing it weather she liked it or not.(mistake #1) I showed her tescorp pro-v design and she aproved. Of course now she is asking why I didn't make a ceiling mount. oh well.

I have the same problem
I hope this folded idea won't be that difficult to build !
and from what I have read on this thread... I will have to make a "L" deasign to have the best quality ..
I mean, my first idea was to make this :

But if I need to put the mirror closer to the LCD, then I probably will have to build it like :

What do you think ?

Because if I go like: , I guess the triplet won't be far enough !!
grrrr so much thing has to be checked to be sure the wife is ok with the idea hehe

PS: picture took from This thread

That may be so, but weren't Elken's killer screenies from his "150w ceramic epiphany" thread generated with tower-style vertical fold?

I would suppose that it would depend largely on the quality of the section of reflective surface that you are using -- if you get a wal-mart mirror that is perfect in a small area, just use that area near the triplet and you should get good results.