Just ordered the S15 lens kit from lumenlab (£55 inc. p&p) and an LCD screen from ebay (£50). now i just gotta wait...

ok, its now march - 2 months after the things arrived. I was so excited about building it all that i havn't bothered to post anything here until now.
here is a list of parts i used:

NECmultisyncLCD1550v - Ebay £50
s15 lenses ( fresnels and projection lens) - Lumen lab £55 -postage 2 uk expensive
2 way light switch, digital thermometer, fan - all for £20 from maplin
another fan i already had (from an old ohp found in skip)
500W linear halogen floodlight (yes you heard - i am on a budjet!) Focus DIY - £5
Wood, screws, wires & connectors - free (already had)

it took me about 4 long days to build the basic projecter and get it all working, but when i did... WOW! i was amased at how good the results were seing as it's my first build, i was doing it on a small budjet, and i didn't take that much care to measure everything spot-on, and i was using a cheap light.

Congrats. Theres nothing wrong with using a different type of light. Its good to see people still trying other options. All that matters is that you are happy the results.

first i dimantled the lcd.


above is a pic of the lcd out of it's case. i took this so i could see how to put it back together.

i was a bit scared of taking all the bits appart in case they weren's supposed to be.


the backlights i didn't need (Top) , nor the controller (thin board nect to cloth), and i tested to see if it would work without them...

.... yes it did!
in this pic above, you can see i mounted all the bits back to some of the metal they were origionally screwed to ( i cut most of this off with a hacksaw that i didn't need). this gave it protection and a way to secure it all to the box.

i dont have any pics of actually building the box, but here it is in its first working stage.

from left to right, i have: light, lexan,rear fres, lcd, front fres, proj lens.

Now for some results... it is approx 2m diagonal (2 1/2 feet) on creamish-white wall

the thing in the middle is the temp probe

And here she is - the ugly mug

As you can see, it all looks pretty fine and dandy. But..... one MASSIVE issue i had with it was the amount of infrared heat produced by the halohen light.
even with my 2 fans on, and the lexan shield, the lcd surface temp still managed to reach 40 degrees c in about 5 mins!! not at all good when i held my hand in front of the light i could actually smell burning hairs and had to whip it away quick it was that hot!!

so...yesterday my metal halide light arrived (floodlight from ebay including built in ballast only £40! it would have been near to £100 otherwise ) so i was very happy. wired it up and tested it - hardly any heat! anthough it did buzz a bit. i think it may be the old type of magnet-coil ballast that buzzes in the process - oh well, its not that loud.

Unfortunately i will have to wait untill exams are over ( im in the last year of school doing GCSE's) until i can start modifying anything. as you can imagine, i dont really want anything like this to distract me from revising.

the summer holiday starts at the end of june, so i should have plenty of time to muck about with it then

Interesting! I saw a bulb just like the one you were using in your build while looking in Home Depot for my own projector parts and I wondered how well it would work.

Frankly I'm surprised you got that good of a result. So you're going to go to the LL Bulb and E.Ballast setup, instead?

Still, very very cool result. Very cool indeed.

yes nice results
you can def. see the yellowness of that bulb though

still very bright

after months of thinking my account was broken i tried to log in using firefox - and hey presto!

have now changed my light source (did a while ago) due to the halogen light overheating the whole thing.
now it is actually usable and much brighter and cooler at only 250 watt (metal halide) instead of 400 watts (halogen)

so overall i am extremely happy with this investment.

i will post some pics of it later

this is the same background but with new light for comparison

sanded it today ready to paint it some time, looks great though as it is:-)