So I've got an LCD finally, and am starting the brainstorming process. I want my projector to be as portable as possible, so I'm trying to steer clear of 3/4" wood if at all possible.

Does anyone see a reason I can't make a box out of aluminum? The fabrication wouldn't be a concern, I know I could do it. I just want to make sure that this isn't a terrible idea for some unforseen reason.

Got the LCD stripped, dremeled out the back plate to make a nice frame.
Got the Triplet
Fresnels on order
Haven't decided on a lamp yet
Tempered glass on order
Norpro on order

--------------------- Updated List -----------------------------

Lenses - $60 at the Lumenlab Store
LCD - $40 at ebay searching for "dim", sometimes "dark"
Glass - $19 at Sound Glass (local shop)
Lighting Rig - $66 at lightingcloseout
Norpro - $8.75 at Lighting Unlimited
Evercool PCAC Blower - $10 at nexfan
Miscellaneous Electrical Items - ~$20 at allelectronics
Blackout Cloth - $15 at JoAnn Fabrics

Aluminum is fine but you have to take care not to short any electronics.

I should think that aluminum would help dissipate heat better as well...wood insulates, but Al acts like a heatsink...

R

just make sure you don't touch the box while she's running, it's gonna be hot!

Went through 3 cutting wheels, guess I need to get some of those reinforced ones. It's nice to have a good frame for it though.

Such a relief to have that delicate thing back in it's home! Anyone else use a Philips 150S? Not the optimal LCD, but for $40 dollars, I think it will work. I guess I have one stuck subpixel, a red one, and in the viewing area. Could be worse.

As noted, it's gonna be really hot.

You could hit a similar weight with better strength and less heat issues, I'd think, if you built a frame from something like 3/4x1/8" aluminum angle stock and used 1/8" plywood (used for doorskins) or masonite for the sides.

Looking forward to seeing your pics!
Phil.

$40 for your LCD. thats a pretty good deal. i'm sure you can live with that stuck pixel.

I am not sure where it is but some one here has a pixel massage technique that might fix it, cant hurt for $40.00 bucks worth of panel.

Yeah, I'm happy with $40 bucks off ebay. I bought it broken, then fixed it, then ripped it apart. I was tempted to reassemble it and get another broken one. Maybe later.

I considered the frame and wood - actually still am. It's gonna come down to the prices...

I saw and tried the pixel massage technique, but was afraid to get too aggressive with it. I'm not sure if I pressed hard enough, but better safe than sorry!

I think I'm gonna look for a lamp setup at a local walk-in store, don't really want to pay shipping for the coil and core. That and the fresnels are the only thing holding me back.

Got the Norpro, finally ordered a lamp setup. Just tossing around a few design ideas right now.

If you did go with the Al angle stock for a frame, and then use 18" ply, what would be the best method to make the frame?
I am not a welder, so that is probably out, but what else is there??
rivet??
I too am looking for light, and protable.......
Thanks

Yeah, I'm with you on that one. You pretty much have to have a dedicated rig if you want to weld aluminum anyway. It's a major pain if you want to do steel with the same one.

I was thinking about riveting everything. Given the density of aluminum, I calculated that making a standard rectangular box out of 1/8" sheet would come out to about 14 pounds plus the frame. 1/16 would be 7 pounds of sheet metal. Don't know if I can go that thin though. I'm also gonna go with a double-layered rear compartment with about a 1/2" gap between the two. I am trying to think up a way to make it something other than a big cube, but I have a lot of planning to do for that. It also depends on what kind of scraps I can get a hold of. I am also considering remotely mounting the ballast and power supplies, that would make the plans a little more flexible.

wouldn't cost that much to get someone to weld it ...

Pre-cut all the alloy first - personally i'd do compound mitres on each end, by that i mean 45 back from each side of the angle to form a point, then 3 pieces could butt together at the corners quiet neat. Do all the hard yards first and then get someone to stitch it together. maybe a friend has the welding skills to do a job at "mate's rates".

Otherwise something i reckon would look great is woodern blocks at each corner with a routered groove for the alloy angle to fit into. glue em in with a bit of araladite or something like that and polish it up ..... would look neat.

And being a dad, my concern would be heat .... don't want little fingers touching the shiny steel and start burning, so decent insulation would be a must ... in my view anyway ..

Here is an Alumn. Frame i built for a Vertical projector. (Riveted together)

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?s...indpost&p=11101

Rivet is good (see Joe's results for a good example), using wooden blocks at the corners and slotting or screwing into them is another good option. Nuts & bolts would be OK, self-tapping machine screws would be something to consider, and another option to look at is just gluing stuff with epoxy.

Hope this helps,
Phil.

Hey Joe are you going to sell that frame?

Scott

I could make more.

What would one cost?

Scott

I was thinking of an aluminum box as well - using angle aluminum for a frame

prob. looking close to 40 - 45 with the labor to do it, but it is light to ship.

Hey Joe, what would you say your box weighs with your ply sheeting compared to some of the other boxes that are made here with either 1/2" -3/4" pine, ply, or MDF???
Thanks, just wondering if the weight diff is worth the extra work??

Also, on a side note, do you think it would work to make a box with, say, 1/4"-3/8" pine/mdf and use 1x1" stringers in the corners??
basically, i guess, that would make the frame out of 1x1" stringers instead of angle aluminum............... just trying to cut weight everywhere I can.
Thanks
Ryan

I decided I'm gonna go with some square aluminum tube for the frame, and a bunch of L brackets and such to fasten them together. I was gonna go with thinner aluminum sheet for the outside, but I came across some 1/8" for free. It's not pretty, but it's FREE! So with sheet that heavy, I'm thinking I can skimp on the frame a little, with proper construction. Hopefully my lamp and ballast will get here soon, so I can start working out the dimensions. I plan on cutting a lot of corners (literally).

projector prob weighs about 35 pounds, you can shead 10 lbs easily, but one thing you can do if uoi have access to a tablesaw, is rip wall studs that you buy for about 2.50 each 8' long, then riped at 1/2" - 3/4" stips that stuff is light and still sturdy enough to use for framing.

The lighting rig came in, I wired it all for the test and fired it up. Came on slowly like they always do, and slowly got brighter and brighter. It only reached a certain point though, and never got brighter. It was bright and all, and I couldn't look directly at it, but the room didn't seem to be lit up all that bright. I ran it for about an hour, then went to bed. Could there be something wrong here, or is it just me? I'm not exactly sure how bright is bright. It just didn't blow me away like I thought it would.

This bulb is HUGE! With the mogul base, it's about 12" long, but the center of the arc envelope is about 8" from the end of the base. That means that in order to center it the case would have to be 16" wide! And here I am trying to go compact...

What is the smallest bulb that would just plug right in to what I already have? I don't want to go changing the ballast or base, or adding ignitors and stuff. Anyone have measurements from base to center? I want to start making this thing, but I don't know what my options are.

I was gonna make a fancy aluminum box with all the corners chopped off, but bending and all would have made it pretty complicated. I figured a nice rectangular one would fit my time schedule a little better, and ended up smaller than I imagined they all were. Work is keeping me pretty busy, but hopefully this weekend I can start putting stuff in the box.

The box and the location for my "remote ballast." I'd be surprised if the box even weighed 10 lbs at this point. The sheet ended up not being 1/8 inch, but it's more than 1/16. Probably one of the guages, but I have no clue. The white crap you see on the side is where Castrol Super Clean decided to leak onto it during the night. Seems to have etched itself right into the aluminum. Maybe it can be polished out later, doesn't seem too deep.

That looks great. And 10 lbs isn't too bad either.

Best of luck polishing out the white.

Well I really am trying to make progress, but I'm also trying to be quiet. In the dorms that I'm in, everyone works different shifts and you never know when your neighbor may be sleeping. What's holding me back right now is cutting a hole for the lens in the front which is proving to be pretty loud. To make matters worse, my dremel is starting to crap out on me. The thing is practically new! The lower speeds are completely gone, and everything else is intermittent. As soon as I manage to get this hole knocked out, the rest should go smoothly.

Is it dremel brand or are you just calling it dremel. My dremel that I got for my new projector (and to replace the one I killed on my first) came with a 5 yr warrenty. When my old one crapped out, I bought a 20 dremel-like rotary to tide me over till I got a new dremel and it lasted me all of a night (seriously)!
-Jeremy

Love the metal box. I know if I build another projector (and I probably will when I get board with this one), i will make it out of aluminum and perhaps weld it together. Aluminum is just so freaking expensive!

I still use my Dremel that I bought in the '70's. Used it last night as a matter of fact. I think that you guy's might be pushing it beyond its capacity.

what kind of bulb did u get with that kit?

Yeah, it's a Dremel Multipro 395 with a 5 year warranty. I really procrastinate things like that though. I had no idea they made those in the 70's! Well, I guess since I've only been around since the mid 80's I wouldn't know that, but it fascinates me for some reason.

I know what you mean about the price of aluminum, glad I didn't have to buy mine. It seems to be a pretty strong temper too. Not real flexible though, I tried to bend some of the scraps that were ripped off by the table saw, and they wouldn't really bend. They would eventually snap though. I'm gonna have to find something else to fab up miscellaneous brackets with.

The bulb is what I believe to be the philips version of the EYE bulb. I bought it at Home Depot after I realized how big the one that came with my kit is. I still have it too, don't know why.

Thanks to Jimmy who lent me his dremel to finish up with, I have finally made some progress! I'm glad to finally have this stupid hole cut out.

Hopefully I won't get any tunneling. Some sort of upgrade is warranted for this focusing mechanism. I'd like a larger diameter to ensure I stay out of the FOV, and more adjustment, as I only have about 3/4" total movement here.

Finally managed to find a way to get these cards mounted. The panel, fresnels, and the smaller controller card are actually all one piece, and come out together. The larger card is just mounted to the side of the box with stand offs.

Bulb and norpro mounted seperately. I can move the bulb in all directions a little pretty easily, but haven't made any adjustments yet. The norpro should be perfectly on center, so hopefully no adjustment will be needed. I could move it front to back if need be, with spacers or a different stand off.

Don't worry, that's not the permanent mounting solution for the tempered glass...

Ok, so I got excited, monkey-strung all the wiring, and fired it up. I made absolutey NO adjustments to ANYTHING. It was a little better than I expected for the original image. I haven't installed the top, the fan or the air intake, and I have a lot of wiring to do. I just had to see how it looked until it started to get warm. I'm not even sure if the bulb had time to warm up completely. It was enough to see that I'm on to something though. I snapped a quick pick before my pillow started to smolder . I need lots of advice on how to take pics in the dark. I have a nice camera, just don't know what I'm doing. I'll probably have to delete this embarrassment of a screenshot later.

You are going to have a great projector! I know that you are still in the tweaking stage but I don't see how you are going to have enough room between your fresnel frame and your LCD to have a cooling slot. Maybe I'm missing something, but it looks like an easy fix if you mounted the fresnel on the other side of the frame. Do you have an alternate cooling scheme to the plans?

Yes, my cooling system will be somewhat unconventional. I decided that this aluminum is too hard to cut for me to want to make a long slot. I'm going to drill a pattern of 1/2" holes in the lid towards the front of the projector, and mount an air conditioner filter over it. I may shield it from light if I need to. The air path will go through a gap on the left side of the front fresnel, across the front of the panel, through a gap on the right side of the panel, across the back of the panel, then through a gap on the left side of the rear fresnel, around the tempered glass, and out. I might channel it through the gap between the flashing I'm going to line it with and the box.

That sounds interesting, I particularly like the idea of cooling both sides of the panel.

Hopefully it will help. I also set the tempered glass back a ways. I'm hoping it will keep the heat farther away. We'll see. Unfortunantly right now it's back to the books. Eventually I will get all this homework out of the way and get back to the projector.

out with the old...(not enough movement as I need for varying throw distances)

In with the new...

A 3" pipe cap with a hole cut in it for the lens. It slides inside a piece of 4" pipe that has part of a 4" coupler cemented on the outside for mounting ease.

I've got the PJ torn apart right now for some fine tuning and some cleaning, but I want to start taking some screenshots when I get it back together. Does anyone have any tips on setting up the camera? I have a tripod and a FULLY adjustable sony 5.0MP, so I should be able to get something good here. I just wanna know what settings to change, if anyone has some advice.

Nice metal work, how much does ite weigh??? I'm going to be placing my PJ on a high shelf at about 9feet and I don't want to be on a ladder with a 75lbs box made of MDF (that stuff is so heavy compared to plain old solid wood).

Thanks. I think it's about 15lbs, though I have no accurate way of measuring it. I also have mine on a shelf, and my wall doesn't even have studs! It's holding though, with the right anchors. I really wanted it to be light, for portability reasons. I plan on using it in various places.

Have you tried a special aluminium cutting blade for a jigsaw?? I have a Piranha from Black and Decker (in the U.K)