After much perusing through the forums, finally got the nerve to order the S15 kit ($350). Bought a used Dell 1505FP from ebay ($50) and used the following thread to strip the monitor:

stripping dell 1505fp

Pics were up at one time but no longer show up.. However, the text description was well written and easy to follow.

Removed the AG on both sides of LCD using wet towel method and both came off w/o a hitch.. It took about 4 hours for the front AG and overnight for the back AG. Shiny and still works!

Started to build a LCD sled to hold fresnels, LCD, and isolation plate (lexan $10). Planning of contructing the enclosure from 1/2" mdf to accomodate the sled.. (Working inside -> out).

Camera is out of commission for now but will post pics shortly.

sounds good so far

I've been making some more progress and I promise to have some pics up soon!

In fact, I was able to assemble most all the components. I have yet to install the front fresnel as I am still working on the keystone mechanism.

I test fired the lamp last night and used the simplified wiring diagram that was posted by supraguy.

Then.. an interesting thing happened.. When I plugged the system in, the entire system powered on (at least the fan and lamp). I thought that I had wired the household switch correctly but there wasn't a clear indication of the hot/neutral screws but since it's a simple switch, I figured that it shouldn't matter. The 'on' may be 'off' and vice versa...

According to the wiring guide, it also seemed to suggest that you can turn the power off to the lamp and keep the fan running to cool. After about running the lamp for about 15 min, I tried to do that by switching off the power to the lamp. At this point, everything cut out.. meaning that I lost power to the system, but not only that, I lost power to my house (except the garage!). The circuit breaker in the pj didn't trip... The circuit breakers to the house didn't trip either..

After a pg&e service tech came, he found that the meter socket section has a bad source side meter clip lug. The lug connection is for service wire attachment.. I'm to have an electrician (if I don't do it myself and I'm thinking that this is probably left to professionals) come and repair it..

I'm not a scientist (well actually, I am), but I'm guessing that these two events are related.. If I try to rerun the pj, will the same thing happen or could it be that the meter socket section was just old and was ready to go anyways and that the added load of the pj put it over the top?

Anyways, any help or comments would be greatly appreciated.. And I'll follow up with some pics soon once I get electricity to my house going again!

I think that I may have figured out my wiring problem.. I've been waiting to refire the pj until I have an 8 hour window so that I can keep the lamp running continuously (hopefully this weekend).

As promised, here're a few pics of what my build looks like.. A lot of the ideas have been taken from others plogs so I don't think there's a whole lot new here but comments/suggestions are always welcomed.

Thanks!





I tried unsuccessfully to cut a clean rectangle from out of the front mdf face with my jigsaw.. So I ended up cutting four rectangles that make up the frame and secured them together with biscuits using a biscuit joiner and clamps. The inner box holding the triplet can move forward and back as the focusing mechanism. It's a little crude as the inner box doesn't slide too easily but I figure that I won't be adjusting it much once I get the pj in the position I want.



I decided to mount the ballast outside the enclosure and it seems to free up some space inside.



I like my reflector holder as it can be adjusted up/down/left/right/forward and back. It's a little hard to see, but I used a screw with wingnut (unviewable) with a spacer and large washers. I cut about a 1" hole in the back piece to allow for movement up/down/left/right and a twist of the wingnut secures the reflector in the desired position. The four screws can also be adjusted to move the reflector forwards and backwards.


Once I get the lid on and time to run the lamp, I'll do some tests/screenshots and post those as well.

Nice work!
Man, I need to get my wiring finished.

I like your adjustable reflector mount. Is the lamp adjustable, as well?

Thanks. Unfortunately, the lamp is not quickly adjustable.. I've screwed in the bottom plate of the lamp holder to the base of the enclosure and can move it that way by rescrewing it in (not really elegant)..

My plan was to build something similar to the reflector mount for the lamp so that it could be adjustable in the same manner but I didn't take into account that the lamp and mogul are pretty big and the enclosure couldn't accomodate a mount and keep the bulb centered.

I saw comp_atkins lamp mount and really liked that setup as you could engineer in up/down/left/right movement in a relatively small space. But since my lamp looks like a baton whose center is fairly far from the base, building this with that kind of freedom of movement in the space given would be fairly difficult.

Got my pj up and running this weekend although I still need to finish the top of the enclosure. What I ended up doing for the time being was to rotate the lid 90 degrees so that it still kept most of the light from leaking through.

There're 2 small splotches that are visible on the LCD and I couldn't get it cleaned off.. maybe damaged pixels? The bigger splotch in the pictures is something thats on my wall.

After tweaking some of the settings after the first 2 shots, the contrast seem to be a little better for the last one (yoda). I was standing a bit to the side so the pictures look a little trapezoidal but from straight on, it's fairly straight..







I think that I can still tweak some of the lamp/reflector/lens positions to get a brighter picture.. Anyone have suggestions?

Anyways, enjoy!

I did some lamp adjustments and tried to maximize the brightness as best I could..

Interestingly, it didn't seem like the reflector helped a whole lot in terms of increasing the brightness of the image.. Since I don't have a way to quantitate it, it's hard to say how much..

I think the following pics look a little nicer than the original ones I posted a few days ago...

The reflector needs to be touching the lamps outer casing for a T15 bulb.

thanks.. i'll give that a try..

Is it possible one Dell 1505FP to have two AG layers back and front and other to have only one AG layer in front ?
I guess it is possible...This is the back. So I'll give it a try without removing the front layer.
You can see the matrix is nearly transparent.