We welcome DeathRay64 to the moderating team.

News from China on the lenses we are all waiting for. The samples of the replacement lenses including the basic lens kits are being Fed Exed to me this week. Once in hand I can test them and place the order. From the time the order is placed I expect it to take between 10 and 14 days for delivery.

The new basic lens kits are an improvement over the old design and are oversized to accommodate your entire 15" panel. These lenses are also one millimeter thinner which allows for more light transmission.

The new field lenses are the large fresnels with a more universal 650mm focal length. This does not require a change in the layout or placement of the other lenses.

Also on order from China:

240v 400w eBallasts for European builders and 120v 250w eBallasts for the 7" and smaller builders.

New optics will be available for 7" builders within a few weeks.

Lens samples shipped from China Global Express today. Won't be long now.

Received the lens samples and there is still a problem with the pro field lens focal length. Speaking with the manufacturer about it tonight and if it looks like I can't get this resolved I'll go to a different manufacturer. Naturally I'll report on my findings asap. Thanks for your patience, this is a real pain.

For those waiting for the regular lens kits they are on the way to me from China, I expect them within 10 days time.

I have new ballasts samples coming in that look very promising. They have the dimming feature but I'm not sure that is of much use to us. The main concern for me is whether they will outperform the Chinese ballasts. More soon.

The regular lens kits will be shipping this week.

Regular lens kits are here.

Fresnels get cut and shipped starting tomorrow (Thur).

eBallasts ordered.

Pulse strike T15s in stock.

Still awaiting info on ƒ650s.

The new mold for the pro field lenses is finished and testing is underway. Samples to follow soon. Fingers crossed.

Good news (for once). The new regular lens kits (S15) are correct, so no more cut corners or small fresnel problems. We now have a lens specifically for the project and made to our specs. Ample room for keystone; a full 13mm wider than the panel, and 1mm thinner for max light transmission. We also reduced the field lens focal length to 317mm to account for the split lens designs that we use. This will get all of the light through the triplet.

On the pro lens front: A error in the mold cutter gears caused the problem with the last pro field lenses. The problem has been (allegedly) corrected, and the field lens samples have been shipped Fed Ex from China. (Fingers crossed) all will be well with the samples, at which point I can order and begin distributing the proper lenses.

We also now permanently stock the S400DD/eBallast/mogul combo for $159

Happy holidays to everyone! Having a hard time shopping for that 'person who already has everything'? Consider making a donation in his/her name to feed a starving child: http://fmsc.org/

Lumenlab donated this year, and we hope that you will consider giving a gift that truly keeps on giving.

News from China:

The shipment of S15 lens kits is in the air and will be landing at my airport on December 25. Due to the holiday I anticipate picking them up on Monday, Dec 27. The pro lens samples were sent along with this shipment, so at that time I will have them to evaluate.

The ballasts are shipping on Dec 24 and we anticipate receiving them within a week from tomorrow.

Pro lens samples have not yet shown up. I was expecting them today at the latest. I suppose the holiday has slowed them down.

The S15 lens kits and eBallasts are here and going through customs now. We hope they will clear tomorrow.

Pro lens samples arrived, so far so good. Testing in my test bed tonight, will report my findings asap.

S15 lenses cleared today, pick them up tomorrow.

The new pro field lens works well so far. I have a few more tests I'd like to try before we commit. I'll make a conclusion within the next 2 days.

Also, Lumenlab will donate $1 from each guide sale for the next 30 days to the Asian tsunami relief effort (Red Cross).

Hi everybody. I'm still testing the pro field lens. I really don't want to overlook anything and end up with problems down the road. Please bear with me, I hope to have made a decision by tomorrow.

Also we have increased our tsunami donations to $2 per guide sale for the next month.

Hi Folks, Sorry to report that the new field lens is still too far out of spec to be used properly in our system. I have two options available, one of which is switching to a new manufacturer and eating the cost for the replacement lenses. We are attempting to contact another manufacturer now. I am also going to persue a different tack with the current manufacturer to see what can be done. I'm very sorry for all of you who have waited so patiently, and I assure you I am doing everything I can to fix the problem. On a positive note, the pro lens triplet works quite well when the correct FL fresnel is used. I still have the original sample they sent for testing which is the correct focal length. I am going to see if I can get that lens in a larger size (doubtful).

I also tested the S400DD in a 15" enclosure for fitment. Good news is that the lamp can be mounted horizontally and be on center, making it an excellent choice for 15" builders. Always make careful measurements before you build the box, as the tolerence is very tight with this lamp.

New pro lens sample shipping tomorrow from China.

Today we tested the 1022 S400DD Ultimate Light Kit setup with a 240V ballast in Australia with success!

We're also working on upgrading the forums, which will hopefully fix some bugs and improve some features.

The new pro field lens samples arrived and seem to work well. I'm going to get the replacements ordered now. I'll post more info soon once we have the logistics worked out.

The new Pro fresnels are done and have shipped from China. When they land we will organize the replacement scheme.

Cheers..

The Lumenlab server will go offline for approximately 20 mins, sometime between 8am-4pm EST Friday. Our service provider is upgrading their system.

The new Pro field lenses have arrived. Please give us a few days to get the replacement ordering system worked out.

Replacement Pro Field Fresnels are being shipped

An email containing instructions for ordering replacement Pro Fresnels has been sent to everyone who ordered the original Pro fresnels.

If you ordered and did not receive an email write to sales(at)lumenlab.com

We are not taking new orders for Pro Lenses at this time.

Hey everyone. Today's announcement is regarding the pro lens triplets. We are going back to the maufacturer to correct some issues with the triplets. We want the lenses to work perfectly. All of those who have triplets will be receiveing an email from us today, describing the situation and the solutions.

For those waiting to purchase the pro lenses, we suggest you build a 15" for now, and perhaps sell it at a profit when we have the advanced lenses for sale. We are very close to having a perfectly working lens arrangement for the HDTV panels.

Hey folks, we're having an issue with the site code right now, please bear with us while we get to the bottom of it. The store is also down.

Site issues resolved

As you may have noticed, the forums were hacked last night. We have taken this opportunity to upgrade the boards. We suppose that there may be some lingering issues that we are trying to resolve as they crop up. Please bear with us.

Forums are back and better than before. If anyone has any major problems, contact me. If you're having caching issues with images, reload the page.

The Pro lens has been revised but is not complete yet. The orientation has been corrected and I will be testing the lens further this week.

2 out of three issues with the pro triplet have been resolved.

Hi folks, Just to let you know, Kellie (sales@lumenlab.com) and I (help@lumenlab.com) will be out of town from Sunday June 12 to Weds June 22. Terminal (sales@lumenlab.com.au) will be helping with all of the sales issues that arise, and Lux (shipping@lumenlab.com) will be helping with all of the help issues as best he can. We will still be taking orders and shipping products during this time. If you do not get a response via email from us in that time, please be patient and we will take care of you on the 22nd.

Thanks guys and keep on building!

BC

Big progress on the Pro Lens over the last week. All of the problems with the triplet have been identified and the lens has been reengineered. Negotiations with a new manufacturer are coming to a close, at which time we will begin production. We are going with a 500mm fixed focal length triplet (100mm clear diameter). The cost of this lens a slightly higher than the previous pro triplet because the materials and engineering are of a higher standard. (This lens is going to rock!) We also expect to have the new Pro IR pass reflectors at roughly the same time as the new lenses. These reflectors have been engineered to work specifically with the S400 lamps and rear fresnel that we use. The improvement should be awesome.

Many thanks go to forum member "Rox" for his engineering assistance.

We had a site outage today due to excessive usage. Hopefully all issues are resolved now.

Pro lens update:

For all of you that have been waiting for news this is it. We will replace the defective pro lenses for the cost of shipping it to you. (We just can't afford to cover the shipping on this guys, we're already out the cost of replacements). The status of the pro lens redesign is good. We have worked very hard to redesign this lens and we are confident that barring any manufacturer errors, the lens will perform excellently. We've worked with two different optics companies to assure performance. The samples for testing are being manufactured now. The ETA for the samples is 'when they are finished', don't ask because I just don't know but they are being made now. Once I have those samples they will be rigorously tested by myself and two other very competent designers to make absolutely sure there are no errors. At that point we will go into production, and I should at that time have a fairly solid ETA. Because the varifocus feature was part of the error in making an operating lens, it has been eliminated. The new lenses will have the exact same mounts but no varifocus. They will have a fixed 500mm focal length. For those of you that are growing impatient understand this: I have worked on this problem non-stop since the errors were discovered, there is simply nothing that can be done to this process go any faster. For all of you that have waited patiently, my warmest regards.

BC

I just received news from the manufacturer that the pro triplet samples will be ready by the end of September. There is a shortage of one of the lens materials (LF5) that is delaying progress.

Pro Lens:

Just received word that the new pro lens samples will not be completed until roughly Oct 15.

The Pro Lens samples have arrived. They look great on the surface, testing forthcoming.

My preliminary testing of the new Pro Lens with a reference transparency shows a very good picture and a very bright lens. Now we are going to have the lens independently tested and reference the results to confirm proper operation of the lenses. At this point, it appears that we are back in the HDTV business...

Here's a quick pic of the Pro Lens next to the regular triplet. Quite a difference. These lenses have machined aluminum cases that have been anodized black. The clear aperture is 100mm (4"). The focal length is 500mm. We will also have the huge fresnels to match this lens. Aside from being much brighter lenses, these will give us the ability to resolve the larger LCDs and give us a throw which places the projector behind the seating arrangement. We will be starting a reservation on these lenses within a week upon completion of testing.

Head's up. The LL forums will go offline tonight (Sunday) at 10pm EDT. We are upgrading to IPB version 2.1 and installing a couple of mods to make the forums better. If nothing breaks we expect to have the boards back up by 10:30pm EDT.

Forum upgrades are delayed by 2 hours as we continue to work on the code. Expect the forums to go down at roughly 12am EDT.

The boards are back. PM Brainchild with any **real** bugs.

Several upgrades made to the site, everybody clear those browser caches! And for those who watch the News section, there will now be a green + when there is news added, and a red x for no new news.

eBallast update here:

http://blog.lumenlab.com/?p=34

Well folks, I'm proud to say that we are making the basic projector guide open source, i.e. free. This is the same version of the guide that you all downloaded when you joined up, except it contains many links back to this site. As most of you know, the forums are the real gold mine, and of course the Pro Guide and forums will still be for premium members only. Why are we doing this? Because we can basically. The guide will now be in many more hands, which will bode well for this community and for the art of projector building. So if you see copies of the guide flying around the web you'll know why. And of course you are free to distribute the guide freely, as long as you don't attempt to sell it or share your forum accounts. I will post a link to the new PDF version of the guide for download in the next couple of days. If you submit the guide to any sites, please wait for the new download link as that guide has links back to this site.

The testing for the pro lenses is finished. Testing was a collaboration between myself and Global Mod 'Supraguy' (we all know what a great builder Supra is). We have established that the lenses work to our satisfaction..

To quote Supraguy:

"I want to make sure you know this: It's not my style to give anything an absolute 100% score. I was raised with the philosophy that the biggest room in the world is room for improvement.

This lens is freaking AWESOME!

My image is very evenly lit, with little to no tweaking done for brightness/eveness. I've literally got the lens in an MDF box tacked to the front of my projector. Focus means moving the stand. There's tons of light spillage around the triplet...

With a "proper" build, instead of this makeshift adaptation, I expect that image quality could be nothing short of asounding. -- you can quote me on that.

I'll e-mail you the screen photos so far. The brightness on the one of me writing this message is jaw-dropping."

End quote.

The lens was tested with the equivalent of a 19" panel size, but we'd like to ascertain the true limits of the lens before we can recommend any panel size bigger than 19". I strongly suggest using a 17" or 17" WS for now. I believe this will give you a nearly perfect picture and throw.

The pictures below were provided by Supra to demonstrate the edge focus of the lens. He should see a big improvement in corner brightness once he adjusts for the new lenses. Here you can see focus all the way to the corners:



Same shot cropped to show focus at the edge:



And one parting shot of our favorite girl:



A reserve order will begin by Monday. For those that want to insure they get a lens from the first order you will have the option to buy it now and receive it when they land. I will make an announcement when the system is set up. All people waiting on replacement lenses do NOT have to sign up, your lenses are already covered.

We've just updated the webmail client used for the free @lumenlab.com mail boxes - it now has a complete address book & lots more options.

I was just informed by the manufacturer that the Pro Lenses are going to take 2 weeks longer than they originally told me, making the delivery time roughly 7-8 weeks. I was not happy about this and asked that they expedite the process if they can. My apologies for the delay.

A reflector specifically designed for use with the S400 lamp is now being manufactured. The molds are going to be made in the next few days. I am posting the specs for the community to review.

Click to view attachment

It should look a little something like this when done:

Click to view attachment

I'd like to thank LL member 'Rox' for his help with the Pro lens and reflector designs.

Ushio has changed the length specification of the S400DD. They did this without informing their suppliers, or even updating the specification on their website. The lamp is now an inch longer than the previous lamp. The old LCL (lamp center length) was 5.75" whereas the new LCL is 6.75". We have sold a few of the new lamps before we realized this problem. For those who are using premade boxes (ala slusher, haas) the new lamp will be too long. The Pulse Strike Ushio we sell is currently the correct size for these boxes. I have contacted Ushio about this problem and I am waiting for their response. In the meantime, those who are planning on using a premade box should go with the Pulse Strike lamp. If you are going to use the S400DD be sure to take note of the new LCL.

Pro lens being manufactured

Delivery for the Pro Lenses should occur around the first week of January.