Well first off I am surprised that I waited until now to start my plog but I guess that I wanted to have at least a little something to show before I started it up. Building and designing has been quite the trip so far. I can't believe how ignorant I am/was with power tools but now feel much more comfortable working with wood and stuff and have an idea of what I need to do or use. I think that the guys at Home Depot were probably not entertained when my buddy and I showed up to get some wood and had no clue what we were doing, but one dude helped us out and got the stuff cut.

This is basically how far I have come with the box so far. Now it is ready to have the Bulb and ballast along with the fans to be installed. I am still a little edgy on the spacing of the components within the box.


By the way that PVC in the front is not permanently installed, I still am going to cut it down quite a bit. The PVC has about a 4" diameter and I am hoping this will be enough. The plan is to mount the male connector in the hole in the front panel and then cut some of the threading on the fron female connection where the lense will be placed down inside of it. I worry though that my focusing could be a little jacked, becasue the lense won't be able to move inside of the box only extend away from the box.
Should I mount the fresnel and LCD closer to match the lense focusing mechanism or just go along with the standard measurements?

IMHO, best thing to do is to be able to test as you build. I still haven't made anything permanent yet and I'm almost done. I use lots of clamps, duct tape, spit, rubber bands, gum, etc to hold things in place while I make sure all the optics, lights, etc. are lined up.

Turned out my focusing mechanism had to go inside the box to get the close end.

Spit huh?

Pic of norpro cut with metal base on back.

Hey Mongals,

what did you use to cut the norpro ??
Looking good so far Keep the pics comming.

I'm sorry Krulke that I didn't respond sooner, my nieghbor was nice enough to help me cut that out. I believe he used a dremmel, basically he used a grinder disc that wears away when used. While holding the bowl he cut it out. I'm sorry that I don't know exactly what he used. I will have to ask him later and get back to you on that one. All I know is that without his help I don't know what I would have done to cut it, and if I had found something that actually cuts this metal it would have been ugly.

Hey mongals, I did it somewhat like that also.
You asked me what I used to make the hole in the fresnel's.
I think that it is the "105" in the pic.

Hey thanks krulk that helps.
Last night I was playing around with the PJ and although I still need to adjust the lcd/fresnels a bit I was able to get an image projected from elF:

Here is the light spillage that is not getting into the lense:

Here is the projector still need to get everything secured inside and then I am going to cut the slot in the roof and it should be golden. The images are pretty dark, and I am hoping once I get it centered that they will brighten to a more acceptable level.

Problems I am facing at this point is going to be lowering my lcd so that it is centered, and then affix the fresnels in something more secure. But I finally realized last night just how big of an image these PJ's project from but a few feet. I though before that it would be great the bigger image that I can get. But I didn't realize that this would require a huge room in order to place the pj in a position that it won't affect the viewing area. Now I have to figure out where to position everything including the screen so that an acceptable viewing will take place.

That is one good looking box!
How big of a screen/image are you going for?
What ratio of distance/image do you have now? 1.6/1?

Originally I was hoping for a 9' diagonal screen but now am questioning if that is feasible in my basement room. I am thinking that with widescreen I will be able to get some good results. But as far as I know the distance ratio is 1/1 with the normal lense kit. If this is wrong someone please correct me.
Once I have everything a little more permanent I will be able to do some measurements. While playing around with the lenses I realize that they need to be pretty centered in the box( in all of my hustle to build this I wasn't really sure on how those were supposed to be place) In the manual it tells you the distance but doesn't explain exactly how to postion them. And as I built my box a little bigger to allow for play I guess that I just had to figure this out on my own.

I am going through the same experience as you. I built the box big and figured I would have plenty of free space. Unfortunately, then you must come up with creative ways to affix everything inside with all that extra room.

What are the measurements on your box? Im planning to use a similar lens assembly and I want to avoid the light spillage.

The inside dimensions are 12" tall and 13" 3/4 wide. and the LCD is only 10" tall and 11" wide I believe. I basically have taken care of the problem now, I will post some good pictures later today of how I mounted everything inside the box.

Mongals,
The PJ looks great so far, a few quick questions though. Which bulb are you using? Have you had any problems/concerns with that EVC Ballast? I was trying to find the size of the ballast, as I was hoping to enclose it in mine, could I bother you for its external dimensions? I'm really looking forward to getting started, thanks for all of your help!

I have been so busy this week that I haven't taken the time to update my plog. Here is a picture for Shawpm in regards to the ballast: just so you know this thing is pretty big and heavy, but works great. I was able to take the measurements for you , they are about 10" wide, 3 1/4 " long, and 4 1/4" deep. I hope that helps if you have more questions on that ballast just let me know.

Here is the front fresnel attached for Keystone correction. My nieghbor and I spent the more part of saturday working out how to mount the fresnels and lcd's. I am glad that I had his know how and hands on experience because this would have taken me a lot longer without his help. We used a dremmel bit I believe to make the holes in the front fresnel and then ran a bent copper wiring through it and bent them accordingly. The metal that is holding it up is 2 metal rods that are hooked into that attachment in the middle of them, and then we drilled holes in the side of the box. This allowed us to lower the rods and then twist them out until they were firm in the holes.

Here is another glance of the lighting/wiring setup.

We wired the fans, ballas/light, and lcd all up to this 3button power switch. It works great and cleaned up any wiring mess that I might have had otherwise. Sorry the pictures is bad, I was in a rush and the lighting wasn't very good by my pj.

Here is the last picture that I am going to post for the morning. Basically I have everything attached with small screws like the lcd for example I marked where the holes were in its metal frame and drilled pre-holes and then slid it into place and now have it held in place with screws. I did the same with the circuit board that is attached to the ffc cables(those things still freak me out, I have had some crazy nightmares where someone broke them). And when I had the lcd in place I then mounted the circuit boards accordingly and used plastic spacers to keep them off the would(bought at home depot) these work great and also I used plastic washers to avoid any problems with the screws touching or scraping the circuit board.
Now what I have left is to decide exactly where I want to cut the slot in my lid and also make some kind of cover for the exhaust holes and block the light that comes out from them. But basically the PJ is awesome. The few movies that I watched looked pretty horrible, and I was like what did I do wrong? But after getting everything placed correctly and playing around with the settings on my N6 and monitor I was able to get a sweet image. My parents are very impressed with the project and we sat down and watched Episode 2 last night and it looked amazing! I should have taken some pictures but will do so later.

Looks sweet mongals
Love to see the results

I am going to be putting some pictures of my final results up. So far I have got my screen set up and built a HTPC, which looks so much better for dvd's than my n6 unit.