Hi folks,

I'm new to the forums, bought the guide a few months ago, and finally made a little time to get my project off the ground...

I initially wanted to go low-cost, low-res, and small form factor, so I bought a 5" PS1 LCD off of eBay. The LCD itself looked terrible, and it soon went up in smoke... $40 down the tubes.

So I thought about it a bit, and read some more, and decided to build a big projector.

I don't use a computer to play DVD's, I just have a regular DVD player, and I had never seen the head-to head difference between a DVD played on a computer and one played via NTSC composite out... I knew the computers looked better, but not as much as they do. If I knew then what I know now, I'm not sure I would have spent the extra $$$ on the TV, I would have just bought a normal XGA monitor...

But a friend of a friend sent me an email that one of the internet vendors had a Samsung TV on sale and with a $60 rebate... I looked up the specs, and it seemed OK... I couldn't find some of the specs, but it had VGA in, S-Video in, NTSC RCA video in, and coaxial in... it even had a tuner built in... cool. So I ordered it.

The LCD (Samsung SyncMaster 510 MP) came a few days later, and it stripped easily... no FFC's. The hardest part of the stripping was splitting the case... but a Safeway card and a couple of other plastic cards helped a bit. I was super careful with this LCD after toasting my first little one, and reading some of the horror stories.









-N.

I then drew up some box plans on my Mac in Adobe Illustrator... we have a CNC router here at work, so for something like this, it's easier for me to draw up plans and route a sheet of plywood than it is to make a bunch of cuts on a table saw. I converted the Illustrator files to .dxf and sent them to the PC that does the tool paths for the router... then waited for it to route, and then snapped all the pieces together.





I made this first projector box extra large (about 18"x18"x34") for two reasons... first, because I thought I was going to use the entire light fixture that I had bought... metal housing, glass, and all... but the first time I fired it up, I realized it had a wide beam reflector that would make a wide hot spot in my projection... and then a Norpro reflector wouldn't fit inside this fixture, so I gutted the fixture and went the route that most people take with the socket, bulb, ballast, and reflector.

The Lumenlab fresnels are also on backorder, so I bought some "page magnifiers" at Staples for $7 each... they are not big enough for full screen coverage, but I'm trying to do this on a deadline (Thanksgiving vacation) so I went with them anyway. I didn't know their focal length, so I just guessed, and made the box extra long in case I needed the room.

As it turns out, I did need the room... the Staples fresnels dictated it. I mounted the LCD and the two fresnels in routed plywood partitions. I cut a section out of the rear fresnel support to allow airflow. I wired a cooling thermostat inline so the Evercool fan will run even after the lamp is turned off. Everything is put together with metal conduit for... well, safety, I guess!







-N.

So I fired the projector up for the first time today... and here is the result:




I also had a little fun shooting it across the parking lot here at work. It's not very bright, but will perhaps be better after I get my Norpro reflector, which is backordered.



All in all, some very encouraging results, especially since I know there is lots of room for improvements... reflector, real fresnels, etc... so it will get better, and I have lots of good thoughts for projector #2!!

Thanks to Brain and everyone here for supporting this site...

-N.

very nice! I really like the lumenlab logo routed into the box!

Excellent job all around! Those Samsung panels seem to strip really nice with the mostly real wires and all. Gotta love the logo.

Hysterical fun..

StorminN: Ever think of using that CNC machine for making and selling lumenlab enclosure kits? you cant beat the precision, and that lumenlab logo is awesome. Maybe make a deal with brain and sell them in the store. I mean after you have a design, its easy and quick to cut right? Sounds like cake to me. At least after you optimise the design for a smaller size.

man i wish i had access to those kinds of machines

very nice results, i'd buy a box from you (price being right) if you were to sell them

if i had access to a machine like that I'd open a little side business to take a person's autocad file (or drawing with measurements for an extra fee to convert to dxf) buy their choice of wood, let the machine go at it, slap on a little profit, and send out the results.

ah well, can keep dreaming

I love the Lumenlab routing!! Wonder how big that last projection was?

Such a nice box! Makes me wanna go home to my projector and beat my box with a bat and yell at it for being so inferior!

Loving the custom Lumenlab logo on the front! Great job, I'm sure it will be even more impressive once that reflector comes in. (as if projecting an image larger than a car isn't already impressive.)

Hey folks,

Thanks for the kind words... it's really encouraging!

To answer some of your questions, I haven't really given any thought to making projector boxes to sell... I'm busy enough as it is, and I don't own that CNC router, I just have access to it. It also takes some of the CNC operator's time, as I don't know how to run the machine 100%.

The Lumenlab logo was a last-minute addition... I thought it might look cool, and I wanted to try something a little more complex... and I think it turned out OK... but it would have been better if I had done it with a smaller bit.

As far as making boxes to sell, I don't know the practicality of shipping 3/4" plywood or MDF around the continent... then again, no one says you have to build your cabinet out of thick, heavy wood!

Is there a .dxf file somewhere of the "ideal" Lumenlab 15" LCD box? Perhaps that would be the best route (pun intended), as there are lots of these CNC routers out there, more all the time... if there was a .dxf file that members could download, and take to their local cabinet shop or whomever has a router, it might be more cost-effective. It would be limiting some of the DIY of the project, but that may be what some people are looking for...

Thanks again, and I'll post updates as I improve and finish the project!

P.S. I think the projection with the truck in it is about 30' wide... I will measure it once I get the reflector and if I ever do the drive-in thing...

-N.

Kind of surprised this hasn't been asked yet. What film is sitting on those reels behind the panel in your first picture?

Edit: And feel free to jump back on topic at will.

Hi there,

That film in the background is an old 16mm film called "High Powder"... some sort of high school drug awareness film from the 70's, I just found it at the local Goodwill...

Now back on topic:
Well, I fired up my projector and used it for about 20 hours this past week, and overall it worked OK. The Staples fresnels are too small, of course... and they need to be adjusted a bit to optimize the light.

Speaking of light... after over three weeks, I finally found out that my Norpro bowl is NOT coming from my local source that was supposed to take three days... so I'm going to order one online.

I also had some interesting results with insulating the entire space where the light is located... it seems my projector runs cooler at the LCD when I insulate only the baffle that the rear fresnel is mounted to... but I need to do some more tests to get more valid numbers. My first test with a fully insulated light chambered ended when the LCD temp climbed close to 105F and I shut the bulb off. I removed the bulk of the insulation and tried it again and if stayed near 90F...

More later.

-N.

How did you put more then one pic up for a post. You also wrote something and then put a pic then wrote more and another pic and so on. When i post something it only lets me put in one pic not two or three. Please let me know how to do this, It might sound stupid but untill i know how it's not. Thanks

He did this by not uploading pics to lumenlab, but instead just adding IMG links to an offsite server.

Click on the little BB Code link to learn how!

Daddyhotlips,

OKflyboy is correct, I hosted the pics on my own server and then just pasted a IMG link to them into my post...

-Norm.

Hey folks,

More projector news...

I received my real Lumenlab fresnels in the mail the other day... I had just been using Staples page magnifiers while the Lumenlab ones were on backorder. Once I got the Lumenlab ones, I used the CNC router here at work to route new plywood partitions to hold the new (bigger) fresnels...

The way I've been supporting the fresnels and the LCD is that each one has its own partition, which is a piece of 3/4" plywood with a rectangular hole routed out of it, and then a little stepped indentation about .080" deep routed into it to hold the lens or LCD in place. Then I put a screw and a large flat washer at each corner of the lens, and the washer presses against the lens and holds it in the indentation in the wood.

Here is what the three partitions look like, mounted in the bottom stand... I originally made them this way so I could slide the whole assembly back and forth inside the box, since I didn't know the focal length of the Staples fresnels and I wanted to be able to easily adjust everything. I know now that the fresnels are a bit too far away from the LCD... I plan on correcting this in my next design.





So the other night, I came home with the newly-routed lens partitions and mounted the new fresnels. I fired up the projector and watched about 30 minutes of a movie. I had changed the location of the tempered glass, and some of the exhaust air routing, so I was watching the temperature closely. My digital thermometer probe was located between the rear fresnel and the LCD, up towards the top. The temperature never got above 70F on the thermometer... so I was quite surprised when I opened up the top of the projector, and saw the rear fresnel was bowed out about 3/4" or so... I hurried and took everything apart, took the rear fresnel support out, and looked at it. I was afraid that the fresnel had melted... but it didn't... it actually wasn't even that warm!

I think the problem was that the lens had gotten a little larger as it got warmer, and because of the routed indentation, when it got bigger, it had nowhere to go but to bow out. So the lens was still warm, and I put it under my old unabridged dictionary and let it cool there overnight. The next morning, it was pretty flat, albeit dusty.

So the next night I came home and mounted the rear fresnel to the other side of its plywood partition (the side without an indentation), and I flipped the partition over. This time I used more screws and washers to hold the lens, but I mounted the screws in such a way that they're sort of loose, and if the lens gets warm and gets bigger, it can expand a little bit to either side and not want to bow out.

I then mounted the tempered glass to its own partition, and positioned this partition close to the bulb. I had also received a UV filter from Lumenlab, so mounted the UV filter on the other side of the tempered glass partition... the side away from the bulb.

Here is a picture of the bulb, reflector (chrome Crate & Barrel colander), and electrical stuff inside the box... this is taken from in front of the projector, with the projection lens board and the fresnel lens partitions and LCD partition removed.



... and here's an example of what the projection looks like right now. With the new Lumenlab lenses, the projection is brighter... and the projection ratio should be 1:1, which means the projection is bigger than it was before... and I even have the projector closer to the wall (screen) than it was before... hmm... time to do some thinking about rearranging the room to get the projector a little closer to the wall...



Anyway, it's fun to play with... next up:

- experiment with different types of screen material (blackout cloth vs. coated vinyl and coated polypropylene used with large-format inkjet printers)
- source a better reflector... I'm trying to find a hemispherical polished copper bowl that I will then silver plate
- build a stand for the projector

-N.

I have a couple questions about your projector.
Did the staples page magnifiers give you a decent picture? I know there must have been a huge improvement with the LL fresnels, but did it look ok, all be it dark around the edges? I have two of the page magnifiers right now and was thinking about working on my projector and waiting for the LL fresnels to get back in stock.

Also, is that colander working out well for you?

PS, I love the Lumen Lab routed into the box.

Wow if I had a cnc router at my disposal I'd be the happiest guy in the world. It takes me forever to setup all my cuts wit ha straight edge. I am definately jealous. You have a really nice clean build (the projector! ).

Can't wait to see more screen shots

CptPower,

The Staples fresnels looked OK, but the Lumenlab fresnels were a definite big improvement. The Staples fresnels are not big enough for full coverage, but they will do in a pinch... I was trying to get my projector working before Thanksgiving (US) holiday, and they worked for my purpose. I was driving the LCD with a Mac laptop, so I could resize the movie player screen to work at the size I wanted... with letterboxed movies, they worked fine.

The Staples fresnels are thicker and stiffer, than the Lumenlab one, and they seem to have a different cut to the grooves... the grooves were more noticeable in the on-screen image, but I've changed a lot of stuff (like the positioning of all the internals), so it's hard to say if the grooves would have been visible if I had my focal lengths dialed...

And that's the other thing! When I started, I didn't know how to figure out the focal length of an unknown fresnel... so I just guessed and did what looked good. The focal length of the Staples fresnels is about 318mm, so if you have two of them, your box ends up being extra long! Keep that in mind...

-N.

Hi folks,

Here's a current pic of my projector...



The partition closest to the bulb has tempered glass mounted on the rear side... the tempered glass is still in the metal frame it came in from the floodlight fixture I scavenged the bulb, ballast, and mogul socket from. I've mounted the Lumenlab plastic UV filter on the front side of this partition. This partition has a gap at the bottom that's maybe 50mm tall and 300mm wide.

The next partition to the right has the rear fresnel mounted to its front side, and at the bottom it has a gap that's about 50mm tall and 300mm wide.

The partition to the right of the rear fresnel has the LCD mounted to it. It has no gap at the bottom. The foam at the top of this partition and at the top of the rear fresnel partition seal them against the lid when it's closed, and bridge the gap in the lid. The white wire is for the temperature probe of a digital thermometer...

When I first saw the diagrams of these projectors, I didn't understand why people would mount the tempered glass close to LCD and far from the bulb... to me it seemed like this would just invite more heat to reach the LCD. That, combined with the size of glass that I had to work with, caused me to mount the glass close to the bulb and further from the LCD.

Watching two movies last night, with my one Evercool fan on max RPM's, the temperature between the rear fresnel and the LCD never got above 74F.

My next step is to install two more Evercools so I can run all three at lower RPM's, which will hopefully be quieter than one run at max RPM.

-N.

More news...

I ran my projector last night for most of Apocalypse Now Redux , and since the box was running at about 68F with the Evercool at max RPM's, I slowed the Evercool down and down until it was a minimum RPM's... and left it there for about an hour... the digital probe located between the rear fresnel and the LCD never got above 74F... cool!

-N.

Could you PM me where you got the monitor with rebate? or is that gone?

StorminN, great job! Now, about that colander....how's it holding up? I'm guessing the holes allow for more air to pass around the bulb which helps keep it cooler (but I could be wrong). The holes, man! Any noticeable loss of light? Have you (or are you planning) to compare the results with the colander to that of a solid bowl reflector?

I would think with that reflector he will not see much of a difference between that one and a solid reflector because the holes are spaced apart.

Did that reflector work fine?

Can you give me the mesures of the reflector, please

Thank you

Hi folks,

Sorry I haven't been on here in a while, I've been very busy at work and on the road for nearly a month...

So, to answer some of your questions...

I believe the monitor rebate thing was just for Xmas... it was from Buy.com, here is the link I used, the Samsung was $349 after the rebate, if I remember correctly. If I were to do it again, I would not get this unit, as 99% of the time, I drive my projector from a Mac laptop (VGA connector).
Samsung at Buy.com

The colander seems to be holding up just fine. I bought it at a Crate & Barrel store in Seattle. It's about 12" in diameter, maybe bigger... I'd have to measure it. I haven't noticed any dark spots or anything in my image, but I haven't owned a solid reflector yet (I have a lead on a Norpro), nor have I seen anyone else's LumenLab projectors in person, so it's hard for me to compare mine to anything.

One thing I will say is that my projector leaves something to be desired in terms of contrast and color. I'm not sure what it is... perhaps it's the Samsung LCD or the color temp of the bulb I'm using, or the fact that I haven't yet painted the inside of my projector... it's still all wood colored on the inside. I'd like to line the light chamber with reflective foil, and paint the inside of the front chamber with flat black paint, see if that makes a difference. My LCD controls are maxed, and I wish I had more control. It's just that after being away for nearly a month, and coming back and watching some films, I noticed that the picture wasn't up to my expectations... granted, I watched some DLP projectors while I was away, so maybe that's why I noticed it a bit more.

I'm still happy with my results, given the time and the money invested, and the DIY factor... last week, I watched someone buy a brand-new Dell 2300 DLP projector to use at a trade show, only to have the thing malfunction and die, and the lamp error light come on after maybe 2 hours of use... frantic calls and a new $300 bulb FedEx'd in the next day, installed the bulb, only to have the projector work for 30 seconds and then the lamp error light come on again... ugh!

I like my LumenLab!

-N.

Hi folks.

I've been gone to Mexico for a while, and just got back last week. When I got home, there was a package from Lumenlab waiting for me... my new screen material!! Yaay!

Until this point, I had been using two or three pieces of vinyl and just dealing with the wrinkles and seams... but I ordered the new screen material so it was big enough to make a huge one-piece screen. Cool.

So last week, I talked my friend into coming over and helping me stretch the new material over the screen frame we had built before I went to Mexico. I had never stretched a canvas before, and since this frame is over 12 feet wide and almost seven feet tall, it was a lot of work... and there was barely enough room in the living room to do it... but as far as difficulty, it was easier than I thought it would be. Little by little, we got it stretched without any wrinkles...

I've started doing movie night with friends... this past Friday was the first one since I've been back. We watched The Incredibles... then we watched the movie... fun!

Next up is an upgrade of the sound system. I bought a little USB box that decodes Dolby Surround Sound (up to 7.1) and has little audio out jacks on it. The next step is to get enough amplifiers to run at least five channels, plus one for the subwoofer. Unfortunately, the laptop I play the DVD's on is not fast enough to drive the USB box at Dolby 5.1... so I might need to upgrade the computer to get the full effect (can you say Mac Mini?). For the time being, I'm running just stereo audio, but bridged to two amplifiers and four speakers, so it's pseudo-surround... ha ha! It sounds pretty good, even now.

So here are some pics...

-N.

Really nice results, StorminN! That's a crisp picture, I'll tell you what!!

very nice.
and though the CNC routing is high on the "cool" factor.. whats really cool is that you get the great visuals not becuz of the CNC factor (which not everyone has access to easily) but rather to your attention to detail INSIDE the box using the same kinda tools that anyone can get.

i'm in the middle of my own pj build, and though i've hit a snag i'm still excited about completing it.

gj!

Are those the entire screen? Those are fantastic shots! Congratulations!

WOW, nice work, did I miss somewhere how big that is?

First off, my hats off to you for your excellent results. I did have a question however: your most recent pics seem like you are projecting a widescreen image, yet the monitor you are using is standard 4:3. I just wanted to know how you did this? Thanks!

yeah, really nice!! great picture quality, good sharpness, just excellent!

I loved the jackjack babysitting extra scene

Movie night eh? I can see it now... living room reworked with theatre seats an a popcorn machine going in the corner... minibar, candy counter. oh yeah! looks like you might have space in your room too.

Hi StorminN,

How big is the screen? and how much is it?

thanks

Hi folks, thanks for the kind words!

In answer to your questions:
The screen is about 144" wide and about 78" tall... I forget the exact height, I built the frame a couple of months ago. I just sized the screen for my room... how big my wall was, how far away I could put the projector, etc.

I used clear 1" thick cedar for the outside frame pieces (because it was the only straight wood I could find locally that was long enough)... and then used the best cheap fir I could find for the rest of the stiffeners. I mitered some long corner stiffeners, and used some metal corner brackets and stuff to keep it all square. I think the wood ended up costing me about $50, and I ordered the 150" x 110" screen fabric from Lumenlab... another $75, so the complete screen probably cost me $140 with the brackets and such... I haven't really kept track.

I plan on adding some black fabric around the edges (for looks) and also some black fabric on the ceiling in front of the screen. The top of the screen is so close to the ceiling, that I've noticed that when there's a bright image on the screen, it reflects off the screen and lights up the ceiling a little bit, and then it reflects back off the ceiling and washes out the image on the top of the screen a little bit... so I'm going to put a strip of black fabric on the ceiling a couple of feet deep for the width of the screen, to cut down on that reflection.

The pics I recently posted were of almost the entire screen... there's a little bit of the right side missing. My camera is not wide angle enough to capture quite the entire screen with the camera sitting on the top front edge of the projector... I'd have to put it on a tripod or something to get the entire screen... I will try to do this in the future.

Yes, the LCD I'm using is 4:3 ratio (1024 x 768), but pretty much everything I watch is widescreen... I don't have TV at my house, I don't do any gaming, I just watch DVD's. I drive the projector with an old Mac laptop and have it set up so when I run the Apple DVD Player software at "full screen" mode, the 1024 pixel image is almost the width of my 144" screen.

When I'm not playing a DVD, the full 4:3 image of the desktop bleeds off the top and bottom of the screen by a couple of feet... that's fine with me, the only time I see that is when I'm loading a DVD. When I do want to watch something that is 4:3 (like a Simpsons DVD), I switch the Apple DVD Player software to "normal size" mode, which puts the video image in a 640 x 480 floating window (that I can move around) on the overall 1024 x 768 desktop. I set the desktop background color to black. The 640 x 480 image is still about 90" wide, so that's big enough for me.

Movie night is pretty cool. I've got the room set up with a couple of couches and a couple of beds, and the projector is sitting on a metal audio equipment rack, which has the tube amps and stuff in it. We do a pot luck dinner and a movie once a week... fun stuff. Tonight, Mexican movies are the theme, since it's cinco de Mayo and all... (it's actually 05/05/05... wow!)

Thanks again,
-N.