Nice Sketchup work!

I noticed you were having a little trouble with creating semi-spheres. It took me a long time to figure that one out, myself. Here's that way that I do it:

1) Create the circle for the base using the correct radius.
2) Draw a perpendicular line from the center of the circle, making it the same length as the depth of your semi-sphere.
3) Use the Arc Tool to create an arc from the end of the perpendicular line to an endpoint of the previously drawn circle.
4) Draw another line from the center of the original circle to the other point of the arc you created. This will fill in the arc area.
5) Use the Follow Me Tool to push (left click and hold) the newly created arced surface around the perimeter of the original circle. Release the mouse button when you have reached the originating point on the circle.

If you want the semi-sphere to be hollow inside, simply delete the original circle when you're done.

O, thanks Quasi_Mojo. Didn't know spheres were possible in sketchup, i luckily have previous experience working in 3d environments (3dmax, milkshape, etc..) so the transition was fairly simple except learning how to do things different ways which you just showed me one of them.

How are you planning to mount the fresnels and the LCD?

EDIT:

Also, you don't want to impede the airflow. The danger for the LCD is not from radiant heat from the lamp, but rather from turning 95% of the light hitting it to heat.

I actually haven't figured out how i will be mounting the Fres's, LCD and Lexan. If you have any suggestions i am all hears (or rather eyes), one thing i want is to be able to adjust pretty much all of them at least an inch or so front to back and be able to tilt the field fres for keystoning but i have yet to find or figure out how this can be achieved while not effecting anything else. I might have to sacrifice my personal taste for something that will just work.

Make a sled such as these. Quasi's great sled. I think he made it ou tof balsa wood. If you do not think you have the technical skills to do that the you can cut groves into plywood and slide the lenses in.

My LCD/Fresnel cassette does not allow for the amount of adjustment that violated is looking for. In my cassette, the LCD and rear fresnel are held stationary and cannot be moved. While this isn't a problem in itself, if I had to do it all again, I'd allow for adjustment of the cassette forward and back about an inch for tweaking.
And I used Basswood to build mine, which is a hardwood.

Well not an update on my project but just some encounters with professional projectors. I work for a company that delivers, repairs and installs office and school furniture and every school seems to have projectors now and i have seen dozens of different projectors. well today we went to a school to unload and install some combo desks and i had a chance to observe some A/V guys installing projectors and got a first hand look at a Epson Powerlite 83+ projector, at the time i knew nothing about this particular projector and asked an A/V guy about them cause of my new found interest in projectors. At first i asked him if he knew the native resolution of the Epson's he was installing and he said 2,000 something and my jaw dropped i then asked what the price of those bad boys were and he responded with about $2,000 USD and i was stunned. Told him about my in progress build said i had my fresnels triplet and all i needed was an LCD and HID light source and he asked me what kind of projector it was and at first i was wondering if he was paying any attention to what i was saying or maybe he didn't know that much about them except that he knows how to install them since he named a lot of make and models and said he hates the dell projectors but some of them have an auto correcting features that he thought was fantastic, said they auto flip the image and keystone correct themselves . He seemed to know about keystoning so he wasn't completely projector illiterate, i just now did a search for the projector he was telling me about and he was way off on the specs, the Powerlite 83+ has a native res of 1024x768 opposed to the 2,000 something and they didn't cost $2,000.00 USD but $900.00 USD. I just thought it was a little strange that even with my limited knowledge of projectors i still seemed to know more about them then an Licensed A/V guy, although his knowledge is more broad than just projectors, i assume he doesn't work much on them besides maybe setting them up and maybe changing the bulb. Wish i grabbed some cellphone pics of it in action, he had a pen that was tracked by the PC to write, click, drag, etc... which i thought was pretty neat, they also used some type of board that had almost no glare and only a bit of reflectiveness, i felt the material and it seemed like a smooth plastic wood material (not sure how to describe it)

No real point to this post except to share a bit of info related to our passion, going back to that school on monday to finish it up and ill try to get some pics with my phone.

EDIT: Another thing that i noticed was all the florescent lights were on in the classroom along with the light from the open windows at about 1pm and th projected image was crisp and clear with that much ambient light.

Well it was payday and decided to get some parts today at Home Depot got a sheet of 12x24in Lexan, a Master Flow adjustable attic thermostat and a PVC Fiberglass Shower Base Drain. I ended up scraping my original triplet focusing mechanism and went with another design using the shower drain, it doesn't provide that much adjustment, just under an inch.

Making more progress with parts, went to lowes and picked up some 3/4in MDF board and thanks to sdubb i should have a LCD with the AG stripped already, a M59 ballast, CAP, and Socket in a week or so for a good price. Don't have the funds to get a 400w bulb so im still going to have to use my 70w for mock-up and testing, would like to get started building the box but im still trying to figure out how to build my sled.

Box day is always great isn't it?!?! I love getting in new parts, you get the feeling that "Now I can really start the build!"

well what do you know. You scared the crap out of me with those box pics but it looks like all is good I would have given you the bulb but I am a cheapskate and didnt want to pay anymore shipping

Well thanks anyways sdubb like many before me i have just went through my second LCD, because of stupidity ended up ripping a FPC connected to the panel and now this build has changed from a 4:3 15" to a 16:9 15.4". Just ordered a 15.4" Samsung w/ MST Controller from johnzo, was debating if i should just buy a 10.9" or a 15.4", with the 15.4" i will need to buy new fresnels and MDF to build a new box and sled. I could use the box i already built but it would require me to cut the new fresnels i plan to get which i don't want to do at least right now, later on when i feel like taking on the task i could just alter the box, sled, fresnels, etc.. to get the smallest footprint i can get with a straight through. I could have just bought another 15" for about $70 but i decided to just go all out and if i mess this screen up then im going to hang up my DIY lab coat for a while. The choice between the 10.9" and 15.4" came out to be more cost efficient since the difference in price would allow the funds for more MDF and new fresnels. On the plus side the 15.4" has higher res and a larger projected image opposed to the 10.9".

I may be able to get an actual projection screen for free, not sure of make or model but a friend works for a catering place and they are getting a new screen and goin to throw away this one soon. Friend said the material is developing a couple wrinkles from someone at work just letting the screen retract all willy nilly and the spring or whatever it uses to retract the screen is messed up but im thinking i could fix it or rig it up to work somehow. Even if i can't fix the wrinkles or retracting mechanism the material itself will bring much joy to me and for free who could argue. From what my friend has said its a very large screen that is around 8'x8' or 10'x10' with a black border.


EDIT: Also i have obtained all wiring and electronics i need to wire the whole box up except for a 5amp breaker/fuse and a bulb. I do have one question if anyone is reading this to help me but i have a 120VAC to 12VDC with an output rating of 500mA to combine with a 100mm 100mA, a 80mm 140mA and a 60mm 150mA fan for a total of 390mA is this a safe combo for the 500mA adapter?

As long as the total amperage that your fans draw doesn't exceed the output of the adapter, you're OK. However, the adapter (which is a transformer) will run warm-to-hot as the load approaches it's capacity. So you would want some form of cooling on the adapter, because you don't want your fans to fail. I recommend that you find another adapter of about 750-1000 ma to give some operating "room". If you have any surplus computer equipment store in your area, it shouldn't be hard to find nor cost more than $15.

Happy Days!!
Projector working and got my first projected image. First impressions i was very happy mainly cause i did not kill my panel, ordered a power supply from johnzo and it was dead so johnzo sent another one and this one worked. Hooked it all up it the controller board would power on but no image so i started messing, touching, flicking, pulling, pushing and wiggling everything i could think of. Finally decided to re-re-re-re-re-reinsert the troublesome FPC (that has 2 rows of a different pitch on one connector), this time i was at a breaking point and just forcefully rammed the FPC in the connector and powered it on and BAM! blue screen. Mounted the panel to my sled and retested it and nothing, started messing with everything and figured out the small 8pin .5mm pitch FPC had to be in a certain position to work, guess with it in the other positions it would pull the FPC away from the contact points, so i mounted everything finished making the box minus the lid and just couldn't wait to test her out so i threw it in front of the screen and hooked up my PS2 and threw in Shadow Of The Colossus.

In this picture i have yet to properly mount the box so the image is tilted and i haven't tweaked anything except the triplet to get in in focus, the reflector is about 10mm from center cause the slits i made for the vertical adjustment doesn't allow me to get it center. Waiting on my long SVGA cable so i can get a higher resolution source to the projector, the RGB component input which from what i have read is either 640x480 or 800x600. I have yet to adjust the settings on my camera so the projected image is about 15-20% brighter in this image than in real life and i think i turned the brightness and contrast up here so colors look a little washed out.

This is taken in a completely dark room besides the light leaks from the box and the projected image is roughly 6-7ft diagonal



After this picture was taken i have done a few things, adjusted the bulb slightly which its still not perfect, moved the reflector closer to center and still not perfect, mounted the box to the ceiling and made a lid for the box.

One mentionable thing about this Hitachi panel i figured out so far is the FPC connectors are pretty durable, i put them through some considerable abuse. Right now it doesn't bother me but im sure in time it will is that one FPC connector is in the way and you can just notice it in the bottom left corner.