Hello!

Finally I started a plog!!!!

Right now I am using:

-10.6 panel stripped from the back reflective layers
-LL standard s15 lenses and triplet
-Lexan XL-10
-400 watt MH-400 BT-28 from Sylvania and M59 ballast.
-Bulb reflector, 120mm fan and fresnel frames from Tescorp

Ok...this is the enclosure. As you can see is kinda "algarete" (messy).

Originally i started this box for a 15". But then the 10.6 came into my life...

Now, as you can see I made a frame for the 10.6 and put it in. I remember thinking and planning a lot about how I was gonna build the pj, even after I had a clear idea and lots of pics from other plogs to get me going. But then I said to myself: "you will never finish unless you start". It is so very true.... So, without more anticipation here it is:

These are with the pj in action.

There is a lot of light leakage, but I had an enjoyable moment watching some scenes from Casino Royale.

They image is great, but a little dark at the bottom, and too bright at the top.



The light leaks.....there is a lot.



Bond,.....James Bond



Close up

Since it was a little too bright at the top, I tried moving the reflector around the bulb a little. It got a little better, but it still needs a lot of work

Original Picture



After moving reflector



Just a little improvement. But still, there were moments in which I wanted to just finish seeing the movie. This is such a joy for me!!!

I am using an unsplit setup. It works very good, but probably will change to a split setup to have the key-stoning advantage.

Also this box is way too big. So I need to make a smaller box and add an intake fan for better cooling of the bulb. I also ordered pre-cons from surplusshed.com to better concentrate the light through the panel. I bought three just in case one of them breaks, and I'm kinda counting on it unless I better the cooling. I also bought a 250 watt bulb which should be here soon. Maybe that one with the pre-con will give similar results and 150watts less to worry about...

I have a set of Fresnels pre-cut for this panel from johnzo1995. I will also test these and determine which I like best.

The controller I have is the Genesis 5221. Maybe, in the near future I will get the MST controller with HDMI/HDCP. But for now, computer through DVI will be OK.


I guess thats all for now. I have lot of work to do before I post any updates, but at least I got something started.

Please fell free to add any suggestions. They will be greatly welcome

thanks

Glad to see you got it going!! you got something in mind for a smaller enclosure?

Thanks TES

YES, I finally got it going. I will try to make it as small and simple as possible. I don't have the skill nor the tools, I guess, to make a fancy haas box. Thou I would very much like it. Maybe you could help with the plans and I would have someone else do it, but where is the DIY in that?

I still need to test the 400w vs. the 250w. I would stay with the 400w bulb if the 250w don't deliver like the 400w, but after seeing Philw's pj, I find that very hard to happen. Either way, I need to improve the cooling. Maybe add an 80mm for intake and two 120mm outtake. That would be enough. I hope its not too noisy.

By the way...projection size is about 80" diag.

I think the reason the top is bright like that is because of the unsplit-ness of your setup. The light is actually not going parallel through the LCD, but slightly angled, towards the triplet. If you look into an LCD monitor, you can notice that if you look down at it from above, the image looks washed out. Conversely, if you look up into an LCD monitor, the image will look dark. The only way to avoid this effect in your projector is to go to a split setup, or use a longer FL triplet/field fres to reduce the effect.

Enjoy!

Thanks NinHowFritz

I will try to do this tomorrow and post pics.

That is exactly what i figured out with my psone projector. But i always had a hard time describing it. Sadly, i dont use any fresnels in my projector so i cant fix it.

Ok

As NinHowFritz suggested, I tried with an unsplit setup. It definitely did the trick!! Brightness is more even now, but it is also a little less bright.

The camera takes a while as it absorbs light for the picture, so these pics and the first ones are a little brighter than what they really are.

First, the pics to compare with the first ones.







As you can see, the brightness is more even.

I also played a little with the gamma and brightness settings from the laptop that was feeding the pj.

Remember that these pics actually look darker in reality. Its the camera that keeps the lens open a little longer to absorb more light for the pic. Still, they give us an idea of what is going on.

I will show default and "enhanced" settings for comparison.

More

Here are a few more pics just for the fun of it. I always liked when members throw a lot of pics. So, I will try to do the same...

More

More from the trailer of Holiday and The Pursuit of Happyness











I think I should call this thread "The Pursuit of Happy Projection-ness" what do you think?

Ok

So, evenness has been fixed. Split fresnels did the trick

I think I have a good track!!

Tomorrow, I hope to start the new, smaller enclosure and hopefully this week I will be receiving the 250w bulb, the pre-con and pro-reflector.

Arizonavideo suggested to me through a PM that a smaller gap is better for these little panels. So using a 250w bulb, which has a smaller gap than my current 400w and pairing it with the pre-condenser would give me, equal or even more brightness than the 400w. Though I would also like to try the pre-con with the 400w too.

EDIT:

As you can see from the comparison pics above, brightness is not the greatest asset this pj has, unless of course I tinker with settings, and even though that would give me good results....I will eventually play content through my DVD player and plan on also hook my Direct TV to this box which wont give me that level of control.

Also, I have light leaks like crazy, but I don't think they influence that much on the picture.

Hope to come with an update soon!!

You are as camera happy as i am. I have to put my camera in another room so im not tempted to take pictures every few minuts when im watching a movie. The projector looks nice and with a bit of tweeking should turn out very well.

Thanks

Yes, I guess I am!! I like plogs with lots of pics from different scenes where you can see how the projector behaves with light and dark scenes. Expect this one to have plenty of pictures!!

Wanted to give a little update

I have received the 250w bulb, the pre-condensers and the pro-reflector for the bulb.

First I will test the 400w bulb with the pre-con. I will try to make cooling a little more efficient to prevent the pre-con from cracking. Then try with the 250w bulb and see how it goes. Then, off to build the final box.

Will post pics of the stuff soon.

I'm waiting to see how it turns out!

awesome..that's probably what I'll do when I first get my 10.6...stick it in my existing 15" projector..I imagine it doesn't take nearly the pinpoint precision to get good even lighting and perfect focus!

As I mentioned, this is the new stuff.



The 4.5" PCX pre-con (FL is 6.5"). I don't know what PCX is, but it looks like crystal to me. I hope it does not break when I try it with the 400w bulb.

Here is a comparison between both bulbs. You can see that the arc gap from the 250w MH is smaller than the 400w MH. This is good because it will allow more light to be "trapped" by the pre-con to be sent to the collimator fresnel. And the smaller the bulb, the smaller the arc gap should be. (If I said something wrong, someone please correct me).



Will not be able to update in a while. This week I will be gone to Knoxville for three weeks. Be back in September.

Cheers

Exactly! You just replace your current LCD with this new one and you are set! HDTV pj on a budget! as you can see, it works.

What happened with me was that I got the 10.6 before I finished the box for the 15". That why I have cardboard on top of my box instead of a proper piece of wood. But the focal distances for the lenses are exactly the same as those for the 15".

But eventually you wanna make a smaller box...15" box is pretty big, unless you don't mind keeping it that way. And also upgrade the light engine with a pre-con so you can trap more light to go through the lenses in an exact point.

Hope you join the club soon!!

PCX = Plano ConveX (flat on one side, rounded out on the other).

Thank you

I thought PCX was somekind of polycarbonate material or something like that

So how does one get even lighting using unsplit setup?

Ask JonJandran. His retrofit ASK uses the 10.6 in an unsplit config and he has no glowies to speak of.

Nope mine is split.

Really? Hmmm... I recall reading that you were using an unsplit setup. Was it ever unsplit? Perhaps it was the 1080p projector that was unsplit?

It was unsplit but I had the uneven blacks (backlight bleed) so I went to split.

Weird..

Because when I used my overhead projector, which has two fresnels glued together, I never had that problem. Is it because of the closeness of the fresnels?

eliwankenobi = You must have taken apart your OHP.My question is
1=Did you find any other glass like lexan or some UV filter?

What is your fascination with UV?

Most OV pj's have tempered glass as the bed which you lay the transparency on.

The ones I have opened do not have any other type of uv filter that I have seen.

No, it had tempered glass.

I almost considered keeping its light engine, but after doing the testing with the metal halide, I did not have as good color. The MH is better. I'll soon post a pic of the older overhead pj I used with the 15" LCD I had before the 10.6" LCD.

Well here are pics of the previous pj I used for my old 15". I'm still in TN and will be for another week. I'm crazy to get home to start the final pj!!









hope you like them. This pj was my first attemp at DIY pjs, inspired after the Tom's Hardware article. After that, my life changed

Your images are simply amazing.I think yours is the second PJ after Benchun's .Great clarity and evenness.Hats off to you.Tell me the secret dude.

Your one of the first to use the EYE 250 watt lamp. It should look great. Are you just going to hook it up to the 400 watt ballast?

What exact lamp is it?

This one?

http://www.eyelighting.com/tb/MH/CleanArc/...52-78-57791.pdf

Yes.. I bought it from this site

I will use the 250w bulb with a 250w M58 ballast that I got.

I really hope it does good with the pre-con. It should also run cooler! But before I run into that, I want to test the 400w with the pre-con and see how it goes.

OK, I decided to give an overdue update.

Things have changed a little since my last post. First of all, I got a PS3!!!

I am very happy with it, and hope that Blu-Ray wins the Hi-def war.

I've been using it in my standard def TV for a while now since I had to get acquainted with it , I've also had a lot work recently and to top it off I'm getting married!!!!! I've been working on wedding stuff this past month. Also me and my future wife have been working on what will become our new home. She's very exited about the projector too!!! But now I'm beginning to understand what other members refer as the wife acceptance factor (it has to look pretty so it goes with room decor)

In summary, I've been as busy as an ant collecting food for winter

But now back to business. I did not bother to try the pre-con with the 400watt standard MH BT-28. I also did not like how hot it gets inside my test bed. So I went ahead and changed the bulb for the new 250w MH. It has a smaller arc, and it does not get as hot!!. For example, the difference in heat that I felt when putting my hand just before the lexan is like night and day. So much that I'm considering to not use the lexan at all, put the bulb inside a light box and let the pyrex pre-con to be the only thing between the rear fresnel and the bulb.

I have also decided to go ahead and start making the smaller box. I plan to make it as small as the panel would allow me. So this means

1) Cut the standard fresnels accordingly

2) Make a light box for the bulb that also has the pre-con and the Pro-reflector as well. This I believe will be the most difficult thing. I'm aiming to do something similar to what Philw did with his light box using the same bulb here

I hooked up the PS3 to the Genesis controller of my 10.6 and it accepts a 1080p signal from the PS3 through component with no problem.
The image looked a little dark, but it was still viewable and enjoyable. I still need to put the pro-reflector and pre-con. So we all know it will be more bright after I install that

I need to try a blu-ray movie and see if I can play it at full 1080p resolution through component or better yet, if it accepts 1080p/24, but that's a long shot of hope.

I forgot to try 720p and 1080i and see how it works. If 1080p/i works for movies that would be great, and then I'm not sure if I'd mind with buying the MST controller since anyways all of it will be downconverted to 720p in the controller whether it comes from component or HDMI.

From now on, I will post results using the PS3 instead of a computer.

Well that's all for now. I could post pics as I like to do because I did not have my camera and didn't want to wait more to post an update. But pics will be coming soon!! Don't worry, this will be a picture loaded plog

I have two set of fresnels. The standard lumenlab s15 that are 220mm/317mm and the 200mm/320mm from johnzo.

I still don't know which one to use or what would be a better combination. If someone knows of a resourceful member that could help decide what would be the best lens combination it would be greatly appreciated. I was thinking on using the 200mm rear with the 317mm on front so that it would allow for a smaller box, but please help on this one.

I have this pre-con from surplus shed: SKU: L3381 4.5" DIAEMETER CONDENSER LENS, 6.5" FL

What would like to know is how to properly put pre-con lens in the light setup. Do I just put it on front of the bulb and that's it? or I have to put the pre-con at the distance of the rear fresnel. Say I use the 200mm rear fresnel, the pre-con would have to be 200mm away from the rear fresnel? Does its diameter and FL affect its placement? Please help on this.

Thanks

As I said before this will be a picture loaded plog and here are more pictures.

I changed to the 250watt bulb. I still don't have the pro-reflector, nor the pre-con installed so don't be surprised if the image is not that bright at all. The pics are a little out of focus because I was holding the camera with my hands instead of putting it in a tripod.












Image resolution is set at 1080p on the PS3 and its connected through component to the pj. Its my impression that at 1080p resolution through component, the controller does not scale the image well back to 720p.

Look at the sides of the picture below at 1080p





Now lets have a look at it with resolution set to 720p, the panel's native resolution. (well, its technically 768p, but you get the point)





It looks more centered and you can appreciate more of the picture on the sides that was not possible at the other resolution.

I have to do a lot of tweaking, as you can see, focus is terrible anywhere that its not the center of the image.

find heating a non issue with this bulb. It gets hot, but not nearly as hot as the 400watt. I did not find necessary to have the lexan as a heat shield, so I took it out and after an hour or so of testing the rear fresnel was fine you would not feel the air hot around the rear fresnel. After making the new enclosure and optimizing cooling for it, I know it will get a lot better.

Another thing I noticed is that after having the bulb on for a while, if you turn it off and then try to turn it back on, it will not work. Also, you hear a repeated clicking like sound coming from the ballast. After you let it cool for a while again, it goes on no problem.

I don't know why is this happening. If anyone of the more experienced here could help me with this, it will be greatly appreciated.

That always happens .This is called RESTRIKE TIME.You have to wait for a couple of minutes to start it again.Quite normal.Donot worry and enjoyyyyyyyy.

glad to see you have it working!! either set of fresnels will work, there isnt much difference between the 317mm fresnel and the 320mm fresnel. use the one thats already cut down. the important distance is between the panel and triplet.

Thanks TESCORP, this has taken me more time than I would have liked to, but I'm going to finish it!!!

Thanks umesh I will try later and check how much time it takes to restrike.

It ought to be around 15 minutes or so.
I have the standard kit and it's anywhere between 7 to 15 minutes. I usually do something else and put music on. after 3 or 4 songs, it's ok.

Nice build going. Keep it up.

And this is when you have the bulb on for a while, then you turn it off for a few seconds and then turn it back on again?

When I turn mine up you see light coming off from the bulb. Off course its not a lot, but it gets brighter after a couple of minutes untils it goes full power. Its after it has been on full power for a while that, when turn it off, and then back on that I hear the clicking sound coming from the ballast and no light coming out of the bulb whatsoever. I don't know if this is what you mean that it takes 7 to 15 minutes to re-strike.