Hi everyone!
After reading the article about Mr. Jalopy's Urban Guerrilla Movie House in Make Vol. 11 and combing through the Lumenlab forums for a couple of weeks, I decided to start my first DIY projector build and plog. So here it is…

Over the past month, I’ve managed to get a hold of almost all the main parts for my pj. Here’s what I have so far:

All prices include shipping if bought online.

Projections lens:

Spotlight 18” EFL General Scientific Corp., U.S.A.: railroadstan (eBay)
My wanna-be Charles Beseler lens. 5 3/8” outside diameter and 6 7/8” long. The mark on the masking tape represents the place to measure from based on DAZZZLA’s FocalCalc. I’ll explain the test I did to estimate this later.
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Bulb and ballast:

PlusRite 400W MH bulb and 400W Advance ballast: mdmfootball (lumenlab)
The bulb and ballast I got used from mdmfootball, thanks!!
Some specs:
Bulb:

• Metal Halide
• 400watt
• 6500K
• M59

Ballast:

• 400 watt
• Multi-tap 120/208/240/277
• M59

Mogul base: Natural_Newbie (Lumenlab)
Already painted black. Thanks NN!!
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LCDs:

Polaroid 1511-TLXB HDTV: finestdeal (eBay)
I’m so glad I got this!!! It had to come from Canada, but was the best deal I’d ever seen for one of these. The HDTV was a returned item and was only missing the stand. Besides that, it was perfect! My friend paid almost $250 for his brand new. His Xbox 360 looks great on it so I grabbed this one.
Some specs:

• 15.4”
• Inputs: HDMI, VGA, Component, Composite, SVideo, Coaxial, and Antenna.
• 1280 x 800 (although 1280x768 looks better.)
• 400:1
• 16ms response time
• 16:10

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2 Acer AL1714b: graceron75 and scd1928 (eBay)
The first one was broken and I later realized that I couldn’t fix it. It has a bad controller board. I couldn’t find a replacement so I bought another AL1714b.
Some specs:

• 17”
• VGA
• 1280x1024
• 350:1 (we’ll see how the contrast turns out)
• 14ms response time
• 5:4

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Fresnel lenses:
550mm fresnel lens
Specs:

• 550mm focal length
• Origional size: 431mm x 406mm
• Cut down size: 400mm x 320mm (will cut soon)

330mm fresnel lens:
Specs:

• 330mm focal lenght
• Origional size: 395mm x 395mm
• Cut down size: 395mm x 320mm (will cut soon)

Thanks TESCORP!!

Pre-Conderser:

2 4.5x6.5 plano-convex pre-condenser lenses: dezracer (eBay)
I have to thank sensibull for bringing it to my attention about these. Thanks!! I got one on 11/23 and just bough another one on 12/13 to do my testing with since it has a chip on the edge.
Specs:

• 4.5” diameter
• 6.5” focal length
• ~1” thick

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Fans:

3 Antec 120mm x 12mm case fans: the-fan-van (eBay)
Specs:

• 12V DC
• 85 cfm
• 1800 RPM
• 32 dBa

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Total costs so far:

Spotlight 18”: $91.00
PlusRite 400W bulb and ballast: $65.00
Mogul base: $7.00
Polaroid 15.4” HDTV: $120.56
Acer AL1714b (broken): $37.19
Acer AL1714b (good): $130.01
550mm fresnel: $33.94
330mm fresnel: $33.94
Pre-condenser (good): $17.05
Pre-condenser (flaw): $14.59
Antec 120mm fans (3): $24.52

2 LCD's?
Construction Begins
First screen shots!! no reflector or precon
First screen shots with reflector and precon


Links:
My Flickr Picture Sets: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21845604@N04/sets/

You might be wondering why I have 2 LCDs. Well, as of now, I plan of being able to switch the LCDs out of the projector. This is something that I have never seen done before. If anyone has tried this, please let me know.
I'll be using the Polaroid mostly for movies, tv, my xbox with a component cable, and what ever else doesn't use a VGA port. The VGA port actually does look very decent, I just don't want a wide screen for my PC. As for the Acer 17", I'll use that for my PC to play games and show presentations and what ever else. I understand that there are a lot of issues with this and that this greatly increases the chances of damaging the LCDs. I have though about this for a while and have an idea, and will explain later.

I'd be very careful with the lcds.... very careful. My tv detects 1366x768 over vga even when I feed it 1280x800 what about yours?

I know it accepts 1366x768 also, but don't remember all the other resolutions above this. What I was trying to do was give it it's native resolution, which is 1280 x 800, but things look a little smashed down. With 1280 x 768, the image doesn't look distorted.

I've been running around town for the last few days and managed to find some more things for my pj. Today I almost finished my SolidWorks drawing and started cutting out the sides.

Here's a sample, it's not final or complete:

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Ballast doesn't fit in the back any more...

So the constructions begins!!

Today I was able to start cutting out the main curve on the sides. The radius is 1500mm and I cut it out using a long piece of wood and a jig saw. The radius pivoted on a steel rod that passed through two other pieces of wood that were clamped down to the work bench. This method seemed to work really well for me. It was really tricky making sure that the board that I was cutting was in the correct place and was clamped down securely before I cut it. Here's some pics:

The Jig:
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The sides: (not cut to size yet)
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Today I cut the sides down to size, cut a 10mm notch for the top and bottom panels, and cut the slots to guide/hold the LCD in place. After measuring several times and then cutting, everything fit together well!

Here's some pics:

The frame, not screwed together yet...
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15.4 LCD bezel:
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Yet another jig. This one worked very well also. It really made it easy to consistently cut a groove along the curves on both of the sides. I used a scrap piece of wood that came from the 1500mm radius curve that I cut off the sides. I screwed a small 2x4 perpendicular to this piece so that I could clamp it to the router fence.

Overall pic. of the jig:
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Close up:
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Hi Gusty! Hmm...your name seems vaguely familiar! HAHA...GUESS WHO?!?!
I'm actually thinking about building one of these things, so I joined up!

Nice job so far. Are you the first to use the Polaroid 1511? It looks like a nice find and with the smaller size you will get good throw.

It also looks like your wood working skills are more than up to the job. How do you plan on attaching the lid? I routed a L shaped channel and it has worked fine so far with a 1/4 hard board lid fitting nice and tight with no light leaks or rubber seal needed.

It's Christmas Eve!!!

Worked another long day on my projector and was able to screw the sides together, cut out the holes for the lens and fans, cut the fresnels down to size, and continue on the LCD frame.

I found this really nice hardware at OSH. I was a little tricky lining up everything to put it all together, but after measuring and clamping everything, it all went together nicely.

A pic of the bolts (10x20 threads), washers, and threaded inserts that I'll be using:
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The hardware in use:
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Threaded insert:
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Hey!! Is this my cousin that I can't wait to see tomorrow? Glad you want to build one too!!

Nice quote!! That is definitely pi with 54 sig figs. (not including that last zero.) I'll be using that to figure out how long of a piece of wood I needed to cut in order to cover the top and bottom of my pj.

EDIT: Looks like you updated the accuracy of pi. Too many sig-figs to count!!




Honestly, I think that I'm the only one who's use the Polariod 1511 so far. I got some draw latches the other day. I think that they're similar to the one's that many other people have used to keep the top pinned down. Here's what they look like:
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Glad to hear the "L" shaped notch worked well for you, since this is what I plan on doing also. Well, it's already cut that way, so that's what I'm doing. can't change it now... I bought some foam tape to help seal between the top of the LCD bezel and the cover, right next to the air inlet and filter. It might not really be necessary, but I'll give it a try anyways.

The construction continues...

Everything is bolted together now with the hardware that I explained above.
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The removable LCD bezel sled thing. Partially hanging out a little. The whole bezel and controller board mount slide out of the bottom of the pj, so that my 17" could be used also. Still need to reinforce the controller mount. It bends a little too much still
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My personal DIY project inspector:
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"Meow, you better check to make sure this corner is square!! Meow!!"

Well everyone, construction on this PJ is coming to a temporary halt as of Christmas morning. I'll be visiting some family for Christmas and can't work on it. I have so many things to explain, so I'll try and post stuff in the meantime.

I'm using this tv (controller from element 1510 and panel from the polaroid). It's been good so far.

So your using the same LCD from the Polaroid HDTV but a different controller board? What's an element 1510? What kind of inputs does it have? The Polaroid has a lot of nice features, was just wondering why you used a different controller board.

The tvs are 100% identical, you can see it in my plog. I broke an ffc on my panel so I had to replace it.

Well I'm back!! Can't wait to get started on it again! Will update soon!

Arkcom: interesting... looks almost exactly the same. Glad the controller board works with the LCD from Polaroid. Do you have any screen shots?

Well, I haven't been able to work on my projector yet since my clutch is going out on my '86 VW Vanagon! I gotta spend today and tomorrow working on getting it running again.

Got my Vanagon all put back together, but now I started school!!

After doing a little research on magnetic circuit breakers, like the ones on the side of your house, I began to think that it would be really cool to mod a 15 amp magnetic circuit breaker so that it trips at around 7 amps. Sounded like it could be done, but never seen anyone do it before. I was thinking that I could do this by increasing the amount of turns on the coil in the breaker. Turns out (pun definitely intended) that there weren't any coils in my circuit breaker. Oh no!! Here's a pic:

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After fiddling around with it, I began to understood how this one works. I decided to move the magnetic rod closer to the releasing mechanism. Even after running over 20 amps through it, a toaster and a hair dryer, I still never got it to trip. Weird I even tried making the mag. arm parallel to the releasing mech by bending it, and it still didn't trip.


I know some of you might be thinking, "Just go down and buy a 5 amp circuit breaker switch and be done with it." Well, to be honest, I thought that this would be a lot more fun, I'd probably learn something in the process, their only $6, and, well, I couldn't find any 5 amp breakers either. Any more info. about the electro-magnetic rod thing using AC would be helpful, but I'll be trying some more ideas in the mean time.

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UPDATE: never got this to work as a 7 amp circuit breaker...

I also was able to get my reflector cut out and polished! I made it out of a 3" hemispherical stainless steel ladle that my mom had. Yeah, I couldn't find any in the stores here, so I bought her a new one for Christmas!! I only ended up using about half of the ladle. So here it is...

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Yeah, that's an 1/8" hole in the middle of it. I was going to use it to help me cut a perfect circle out of the bottom of the ladle but it didn't work... I ended up putting it in a vice and hacksawing it off. I then took a metal grinder and ground it down to size and shape. I'll now use the hole to mount it. Hopefully, since it's so small, it won't have too much of an affect on the reflection. I guess we'll see later. As of now, I don't recommend drilling a hole in your reflector. Oh well...

The ladle had, and still kinda does, hundereds of circular groves on the inside surface from when it was made. I first used 1000 grit sand paper to get most of the small groves out. I then used a drill, polishing bob, and two different polishing compounds that came in a kit that my dad got for restoring his first bike. I could have polished it a little more, but I already spent over 1 hour working on it. There'll be room for improvement, later.

I've been working on bending the sheets of wood that will be used for the top and bottom of my pj. I soaked them one at a time with a wet towel overnight while they were clamped as show below. The next day I took the towel off and let it dry. I might need to do this again, but it definitely put a nice curve in the plywood.

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I've been really busy both in college and on my pj. I have some screenshots that I'll post later.

Sorry about my Flickr page. Someone flagged my profile so now it's restricted and you have to have and account and log in to see them. Nothing that I've uploaded is offensive, copyrighted or whatever. Weird... I'll try and get it fixed.


UPDATE: Flickr is not flagged anymore...

Alright, well finals are coming up. Got just over two more weeks till summer!

Well, some great friends are moving and we're gonna throw a Halo 3/COD 4 party for them. Really wanted to improve on the last party so I added the reflector (with a rivet in the middle) and my 6.5 pre-condenser. Just got it running this evening. Here's some pics.

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Yes, these pictures are fairly accurate compared to how it actually looks with all the lights off. I'm very excited!

Here's the pics that I promised a couple months ago...

These were taken at the last Halo 3 party we had. Remember, no reflector or pre-con. Also, the rear fresnel is a 330mm. Really bad initial setup but we stilled played on it for 7 hours straight. This was really the first time that I ran it for a long time and fortunately nothing caught on fire.

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You can see that the corners are dim and the right side of the image is a little brighter since the bulb wasn't centered. Pretty much all this stuff is fixed now.

The one thing that I'm worried about now is having my precon crack. That would be bad...

After only 20+ minutes, it was already up to 190F! This might be normal or it might not be. Anyone know what temperature theirs starts to level off at?

I still want to think of a better way to keep it cooler. The way it's mounted allows it to expand some so that it won't crack because of pressure on it. I'm just wondering at what temp this will crack just due to heat. Anyone have any ideas?

In case you didn't notice, I bought this precon off ebay from a guy who said that they were from stage spotlights. Should be able to withstand some heat...