So near the end of summer, i was kinda upset that i would have to hang up the whole projector / HT habit (going off to college). But.... when i arrived at my dorm, i was shocked to find 10ft ceilings and drop ceiling tiles. SCORE! So i went ahead and ordered a batch of three dead eVo's. One used electronic ballast from ebay and a phillips cdm/150 is all the more care one of them needed to be resurrected. A cheap ($125) 5.1 dolby digital set up and a 96" pulldown from newegg top it all off. Ghetto ceiling mount is made from shelf brackets, decorator chain and some 30lb rated ceiling hooks.









(the anime stuff is my roomie's btw)



The new ballast did not quite fit where the old one was. Oh well



Elegance is not a huge priority lol.


I haven't bothered getting a good screenshot of it, because every time i turn it on people flock to my room for movies / rock band

If i remember i will post some later tonight.

When you get a chance, I'd like to know what e-ballast you used for the Philips CDM-150W ceramic metal halide lamp. Have you noticed any flickering of the lamp?

Also, for those eVo owners wanting to try a similar e-ballast/third-party lamp mod for the eVo, could you provide more detail on how you modded the eVo so your 150W lamp would fit?

The single ended 150w cdm bulbs fit in the single ended (1.1) holder without modification. I bought the CDM150-SA/T 942 (THE bulb to use according to research, has the color temp of the regular cdm-150 942 but has an even smaller arc) More info here. The Eballast is specifically made for ceramics (says on label "for 150w ceramic metal halide bulb") so no flickering there. The brand on it is Advance, but i cant remember the model number. Here is the ballast family info. I found it by searching ebay for "150w MH Ballast" or "150 MH Ballast". I got very lucky, as it only ran me $50.

Edit: Also about the ballast, i just followed the wiring diagram posted here for adding a coil and core ballast to find which leads i need, and the leads from the ballast were labeled. Electrically quite simple, all done with wire nuts, no problems so far, about 2.5 months. As far as making it fit... well... brute force was applied. Old ballast removed, some internal trimming, and major external drilling and cutting. I ditched the power receptical and just hardwired the power cord (thats where the ballast wanted to land). The only thing holding it in place is the snug fit from the two halves of the case and a hook fashioned from a paperclip to keep it from sliding out the rear.

More Pics!!





All of my AV and entertainment gear



Dust filters are a must on an acrylic computer case. Here is about 4 days worth of accumulation



A self made box that either acts as a hookup cable for the vcr (tv tuner) or can be switched to patch in an aux input. Very usefull when dealing with so many seperate components (pc tuner card, monitor, pj, and stereo on the input end, pc, games, and aux on the input end)



Another self made solution, a modded parallel switch that toggles 5.1 speakers or 5.1 headphones. I tried to find a commercial equivalent without success, so i just built it.


SCREENIES!!






I had trouble getting the transformers shot to photograph, it was much more vibrant IRL.

Awesome setup! Always great to see someone carry their hobby off to college .