I am knew to the forums and considering a small projector based on a 7" - 10.2" Portable DVD player and 4-6 CFL's. I have a series of questions to hopefully point me in the right direction. One other note, I am a college student and have a limited budget of $150-$200. Okay, here are the questions:

1. This bulb seems to have good specs. CRI of 82 and color temp of 6500K at 30 watts. From my reading on the forums I think it would be a good bulb to try out, however with no experience with projectors I am looking for some input. The cost is also a positive for me, as I can afford to replace these, and purchase 4 - 6 of them for my initial build.

2. I am looking to use one Fresnel Lens, will the 220mm S15 Fresnel Lens work along with the S15 Projection Lens Triplet in the Lumen Lab Store. I attempted to use the focal calculator II to do some calculations. I am still confused on weather or not this combination will work. This also leads me into my next question.

3. How do I determine the distance between the LCD and Fresnel Lens?

4. Will any of these optics work?

5. How much heat is actually produced by CFL's. I read here, that 30% of a CFL's energy is dissipated as heat. Does this mean cooling is not as big of a factor with this set-up?

6. I like the look of the acrylic in joecnc2006's build. However, I am having trouble finding a place to purchase this. If anyone knows of a place to purchase this product that would be great. Also how hard would it be to cut acrylic at home with a razor blade? I am assuming not easy. Do you think wood would be easier/cheaper. Another note, all my power tools are at home and unaccessible to me at school.

7. What about swapping in a Portable DVD player into an Infocus Litepro 550 Projector. Would this produce better results than a CFL setup?

8. I am looking at Insignia DVD players. Here are the current models. I would like to get the NS-PDVD10, because of the listed resolution. What are your thoughts? I realize this is most likely going to be expensive because of its specs. Any recommendations on a cheaper screen?

9. I am trying to play some Xbox 360, watch tv (my cable box has a composite output), and watch movies (streamed through the Xbox 360 from my pc). I am not looking for a giant screen, just an upgrade from a 27" CRT. Do you think this projector would be capable of a 50" to 60" image?

Sorry for the insane amount of questions. I just want to make sure the results I am looking for are feasible with my limited budget. Thanks for the help in advance.

I can go for a couple of these...

2. The S15 triplet needs a fresnel with a focal length of about 330 mm.

3. There's not really a "rule" here I don't think. Basically it's possible to focus the triplet on the fresnel lens while trying to focus on the LCD, so you want them far enough apart so the fresnel stays out of focus. I think 5 mm is probably about the minimum... for some reason I think 20 mm might be the standard (I might have completely made this up though).

4. I would doubt it. It seems that a lot of OHPs (overhead projectors) have a triplet with a fl of around 320 mm. Keep your eyes open for cheap, used OHPs.

5. IIRC CFLs aren't even as efficient as MH, so technically more heat is produced per watt.

6. Acrylic looks great! Look up "plastic supply" in the phone book. Anywhere that sells acrylic will be able to cut it, you could probably talk them into cutting it for free. You can also get it on eBay. You can "cut" it with a razor/knife, search the forum for "cut" and "fresnel" for tips (as the fresnels are also made from acrylic). You'll see that it's not exactly cheap. Also, from what I've seen black is the only color that is opaque.

8. I didn't look at this model (no time right now) but the manufacturers often use fuzzy logic to advertise that their players can do higher resolution than they actually can. (Each ACTUAL pixel (picture element) is made up of 3 sub pixels (red, green, and blue). The manufacturers often count all the subpixels, call them "dots" and advertise how many "dots" their screens have.

1. I am using nearly that exact bulb in my projector, only mine is the 5000K one. I tried some 6500K bulbs first, but to be honest with you, they were too blue. The projection was heavy on the blues, and it bugged me. Granted, not all people are as picky as me, but the 5000K bulbs look great. Oh, and I am using 8 of them curently with a 15" LCD (check out my PLOG). A few other folks here have ventured to the CFL route, check out their PLOG's as well.

2. In general, you want to match your fresnel lens focal length to your triplet focal length. Ideally, having the fresnel FL be a little bit longer than the triplet FL would be perfect. For example, I am using a 457mm FL triplet, and my fresnel FL is about 525mm (advertised as 550mm). But, the longer the FL of the fresnel, the bigger diameter your triplet needs to be to capture all of the light, so you don't won't to get too long of a FL fresnel either. You will find all sorts of discussions on this board about changing fresnel FL and all the pros and cons associated with doing each change.

3. Like Hirudin said, aim for 20mm, just make sure you have some adjustability in your design.

4. Avoid copy machine lenses, more trouble than it is worth for a first time build.

5. Hirudin is right again, CFL's are technically less efficient than MH bulbs. Speaking from experience, I am using 8, 30W bulbs, and I have just one 80mm fan (it auto adjusts its speed depending on temperature) and it is sufficient. I am also using a piece of thin acrylic as a heat shield (acrylic is slightly more transparent than lexan, and so far it is holding up just fine) between the lights and the LCD. If you pay attention on where you draw in cold air, and where you dump the hot air, one fan is fine. If you need help or suggestions just ask.

9. Again, speaking from experience, a 50-60 inch screen should be no problem with 6 CFL's. But keep in mind, your room needs to be dark (or nearly dark) to be able to view a nice projection because us CFL users have yet to optimize the light capture from these bulbs. I am getting about a 94" screen (4:3), and it is acceptable if the room is dark, but barely viewable if any lights are on in the room.

Hopefully this helped a little bit.

You may want to consider using a Xenon bulb instead of the CFL's. I am currently putting together a 2nd projector with a old 5" LCD portable DVD player (soon to be replaced eith a 7") and I found that there wasn't really room to capture the light (or condense) with such a small screen.
There is a member called weldonjb who is successfully using 3 xenon bulbs in a projector built into a computer case.....with the proper optics you might be able to use 2 or 1 bulbs.