Well, I want to get started on logging stuff, even though I haven't actually DONE much yet.

To date, I have:

1. Purchased standard 1005 S15 lens kit from LumenLab
2. Purchased a CMV 529A from HuD (Thanks!)
3. Purchased a 400W Metal Halide overhead fixture from EECOL. The fixture itself is far too large, and has been disassembled to get the ballast and mogul socket from it.
4. Purchased a possible reflector from Ikea. This appears to be too small for the bulb that I have.
5. Purchased 2 120mm fans (120VAC) from Princess Auto. Cheap cheap.

The reflector is something of a delimma. I am not certain if it is a better idea to replace the reflector with a larger one, or start looking for a different lamp. The lamp that I have has an arc length of approx 25mm, which is longer than ideal. (Measured by eye with a ruler at the edge of the bulb)

I have a picture of the assembly at this link (The DVD+RW jewel case is for size reference.)

The disassembled fixture can be seen as follows:

The first step will be building a light engine. I don't have the lens kit or LCD screen yet. Gotta wait for shipping on those.

I am considering building the PC into the same case as the projector. This will serve to minimise the number of connections into the case, all it should need is 120VAC, Ethernet, and optionally cable TV/S-Video/Composite. I may use a KVM switch to be able to use an alternate PC for gaming. The PC that I plan to build in is only a P3/1GHz which is more than adequate for running a TV capture card and playing back DVD movies, but inadequate for any kind of gaming. This will of course add some bulk to the projector case, however, I think the "all in one unit" approach may be worthwhile, and somewhat different.

Maybe the next incarnation will be a 7" liliput with PC in a 21" PC case.

That's a lot to cram into a PC case... You would have a LOT of heat to deal with.

I do like the idea of building an all-in-one system like that, but the PC side of it definitely has to have adequate cooling, thus needs to be totally concealed of the PJ side of it.

About your bulb. You may be better off getting a smaller bulb and going with the reflector you already have, vs. trying to get a Larger reflector to use the large bulb.

Good luck with the project! Hope you have better luck than mine with the LCD (on my second one now. )

Cheers!

Yes, I plan on the PC side having a completely different air chamber to work in, and though the AC supply will be common, the PC need not be on in order to run the projector. A KVM switch will allow the pj to be used as display from a different PC. (And might as well use the wireless KB/mouse at the same time)

The thing that I'm working out is that the PC won't need to be mounted for access to the cards. The VGA port is obviously never going to leave the case. Ethernet/cable TV can be patched in from jacks. The power supply might be, though I'd like to avoid the extra power cable. Most likely I'll just vent the power supply fan with some 3" PVC tubing.

Anyway, that'll be more apparent when I have some pictures.

I've got nothing radical planned for the projector development, though I have an idea that I'd like to try out for testing.

All that this thing is missing is an audio amplifier, and though it occurs to me that I have some nice diy amps in the works, it might be just a bit too much for "one" project.

Wow. Another week gone by, and I've gotten not a lot done...

More than nothing, less than I'd hoped.

So far, my LCD is on its way (Should have been here, but it isn't.)

I've ordered a chunk of tempered glass. I decided not to use the Lucite (AKA Lexan) for the heat shield. I want something that won't melt. The tempered glass loses a bit more light than the Lexan would, but in terms of overall efficiency, I don't think it's a signifigant difference.

I've assembled most of the components for the HTPC which will be running the thing, and I've received my LumenLab 1005 S15 lens kit.

I've hand-drawn dimensions for a case. I'll post a drawing when I finalize the dimensions (IE: after the LCD gets here and I know for absolute certain what size it is.)

I've got a couple of ideas for reflectors, one is an 8" bowl if I stick with the huge BT37 bulb, and the other is a much smaller reflector that I think would work nicely with the smaller BT28 format bulb. At present I'm thinking that I'll use what I've got, rather than spend more money just yet. And it'll be a lot easier to install something smaller in a space arranged around something bigger than vice versa.

The next step will be to install the OS on the HTPC. I was going to wait until the LCD arrived, so I can see how well the video matches to the screen. But I want that taken care of this weekend. Oh well. They say the battle plan is the fist casualty...

Yet another week without much news.

I've got my LCD. Very nice, thanks HuD.

I've wired up my light, cut a semicircle from my Ikea bowl so that I can place the light in it, and gathered up tools and stuff. I've finished my recycled HTPC, installed Windows on it. Still waiting on my tempered glass, but that's not going to stop me now...

I've still got to finalize designs for the cabinet, focus mechanism and keystone correction. Also air intake and filtering for minimal light leakage.

Picked up a new piece of hardware... This is meant for a PC, but it has some things which I think may be useful for the projector. There are 3 temperature probes, a programmble temperature alarm, and outputs for up to 4 12V fans with a variable speed control.

My main projector fans are planned to be 120mm 120VAC units, however, with this, I may decide to install some additional 120mm 12V fans as well.

Got some work done... I've made a frame to hold the tempered glass, collimator fresnel, and LCD.

And with a test fit of the tempered glass...

The top is the "hot side" and the bottom will be the mount for hte LCD. There are openings top and bottom for airflow. There's a good sized gap between the isolation glass and the collimator fresnel.

This frame will sit raised above the "floor" of the pj, allowing air to pass to the back and out the exhaust. The inside dimensions of the frame is 12" wide by 10" high. 1/2" shims will be placed in the front to make the opening 9" by 12" (The viewable size of my LCD) and block incidental light from being projected.

Nice Engineering. This has potential to be copied..

It gets better.

This is a front shot of the frame with a coat of flat black paint on it. The top is just sitting on, though the bottom is glued and screwed. The front baffle shims are added, so the opeingin on the front is 9" high by 12" wide, and it's centered in the frame. The top will be held on my 4 #8 wood screws, so that it's removable.

And a shot from the side.

The "small" end is the hot side, closest to the lamp. The wide end is the cool side. The LCD should mount directly to the large flange, with brackets. The opening is the exact dimensions of the viewable area of the LCD, so there will be no light leaks around the LCD to the projection lens.

And one with the top off.

The baffles extend both above and below the frame. This is where the air chambers will be. The top one is 2" high, and the bottom one is 1" high. The top one is larger so that I can have an air filter in the top over the panel to keep dust out, and light in. The bottom one merely has to provide a route for air to run to the exhaust.

The frame is 13.5" wide and 14.5" high, including the baffles. This will make the total projector height 16", which is rather larger than it needs to be. I could make the projector width as low as 15", but it'll be wider, because of other equipment that I intend to have in the same case.

I have a box. Yay!

It's wide enough to accomodate the projector and have a PC alongside at the same time. There will be room for the DVD-ROM drive and the temp monitor above to be visible on the face of the projector. Obviously at this point, I've decided to abandon the idea of using maple plywood. I had the MDF, so I used it. If there's a next time, it'll be laquered hardwood, even if only veneer.

The box is 29" long by 23" wide by 16" tall exterior dimensions.

It's a beast! Good thing that it'll be out of the way!

Just a little more progress.

I've glued and screwed the bottom ont he box, and added the panel witch will separate the projector half from the PC half. It's embedded in the 3/4" MDF material byt 1/4" all the way around. It's only a 1/4" panel as well, but since there's no need for it to be structural, I didn't see any harm in using a thinner piece. (Besides, I'm almost out of 3/4" material. )

I'm starting to have second thoughts about the amplifiers, they're going to be kinda heavy, and I think I'll want to keep that part separate, anyhow. So for now, I'll just have the RCA jacks as outputs.

Anyhow...

For this picture, it shows the inside of the box. It's very black. I think you can see the panel inside, if you look close. That's 1 coat of dark grey primer and 2 coats of flat black latex paint in there. Stray light? What stray light?

Oh, and speaking of light, my project completion date mich be pushed back somewhat die to my ordering the LL lighting kit, instead of using the high bay fixture for lighting. I wonder if I can put that back in the original packaging and return it to EECOL...

Or... Does anyone want to buy a cap & coil ballast, mogul socket and BT37 bulb? I'll sell for 70% of original price. Only plugged in once, for about 3 minutes.

Well, one step forward, two steps back time...

My lens frame didn't fit. The temperd glass that I bought isn't square. I fit the frame to the glass, assuming that it was. Now it won't fit in the box.

So I re-made the lens frame, changed it slightly, so that the air intake is actually to the front of the LCD. I may just allow air to come around the focus box depending on how that works out light leak-wise.

I also ordered the S400DD and e-ballast. I did want to build with what I've got first, but now that I've ordered the upgraded parts...

And I have to get new tempered glass anyway.

I think I may strip the LCD, just to feel that I've accomplished something.

Still to do:

Strip and install LCD

Frame collector fresnel and arrange keystone adjustment.

Install lens frame

Install focus mechanism

Install light engine

Install heat shield glass (May use Lucite for this, even if it's only temporary.)

Install PC

...

Or I could say "Build a projector."

Frustrated...

Well at least the box looks good. Don't worry it'll all come together, i'm in the same boat waiting for parts. If you need any help just shoot me an email, just across the street ya know. By the way did you get my last email?

Clinton

Well, like I said... Feeling frustrated, and needed to feel that I was making progress..

Cut the hole for the lens to peek out of hte box. It'll go in its own little sled for focus.

Cut a hole in the back, one small one for the power socket, and a larger one for the DVD-ROM and temp display for the PC. The larger hole is the right size for 2 5.25" devices (Actually 5 7/8" wide.) I cut the 5.25" bays from an old PC case for the inside as a carriage for the parts.

And, of course, I stripped my LCD.

Here it is with the back off. It seemed unreasonable how much needed to be disassembled to get that middle screw on the bottom, but didn't take me long. Total LCD strip time was 20 minutes!

Popped off the cover for the edge connectors.

And removed the main back cover. This was probably the longest part of the whole proceedure. (Showing connections for the backlight...)

And of course the whole thing. (This is a somewhat better pic, though I realise that my camera sucks...)

And voila! The whole LCD stripped. This was done on little sleep, taking time to make sure that I stayed grounded, and taking a couple of snapshots along the way. Still took 20 minutes. I tested the panel, and with a flashlight, I can still see my desktop. It seems to be all good!

Looking good!! I am scared as hell to crack open my brand new BenQ when it arrives. Oh well it has to be done. Keep up the good work.

Progress stalled again.

I've cut a few more holes in the box, one for a switch, 2 for 120mm fans (The holes look HUGE!)

I've attatched drawer sliders for hte focus mechanism, but I can't INSTALL the focus mechansim until I finalize position for the LCD, which I can't do until I finalize my light engine

My design was pretty "seat of the pants" so this is what it's come down to. Nothing is final until something is final.

I've more or less finished the PC, now I need to start working on the amplifiers. once they're done, I'll make a final decision about including them or not in the case. I'll also have a better idea once the PC is actually mounted. I'm a bit concerned about air flow, as the e-ballast will be installed in the same air chamber as the PC is, which ought to be much cooler than the light chamber will be.

I think I have most of the holes cut in the box, but I may need to add one for the amplifier heat sink (Fins will be external to the box.) I'll also need air intake and exhaust for the PC chamber.

Well, A couple fo pics of "where it's at"

I have more holes in the cabinet.

Here, there are round holes for the 120mm fans, the small hole in the bottom left is for A/C power, the hole bottom center is for a light switch (Which will be the light switch. Go figure.) the large hole to the right is for the DVD-ROM drive and for the temp display.

The DVD-ROM and fan holes have a 45 degree chamfer on them, because those edges willstiff be visible when the box is finished. The switch and AC holes will be covered.

The Ikea reflector is just sitting on top of the box for me to check clearances and the like for the box compoents.

And the focus mechanism. Nothing too fancy here, just a box on drawer slides. There will be 1/2" clearance around the sides and about 1.25" along the top. This should not allow much light leakage (And if it does, I'll deal with that another way)but will allow air to pass through the large opening in the front of the box to cool the LCD and fresnels.

Here's a shot with the LCD/fresnel frame mocked up, and the focus mechanism in place.

You can see the hidden hinges that I've used in the box, though I'll be using a visible latch to hold the box shut. (Not installed yet.)

D'OH! I just realised that the LCD frame is in backwards In my defence, I did just sit it in there, and it's 1:40AM local time. This business of 4 hours sleep a night is starting to catch up to me....

And one more from the front. It doesn't show in this picture, but there is a threaded rod going through the front of the projector enclosure and into a threaded insert in the focus mechanism. There will be a small brass knob on the outside of the box to adjust focus with.

The insert in the focus box is a 1" section of angle aluminium 1" by 1" by 1/8" with a hole drilled and tapped into it. It's screwed down to the base of the focus box.

The focus box never goes quite to the front of the projector. This allows the opening in the front to also serve as the air intake. The top of the fresnel/LCD assembly has openings to allow the air to go past the lens and to the rear chamber, where the fans will exhaust it. With all that black paint, I don't expect there to be a problem with light leaks, especially since I plan to surround the focus box with dark coloured filter cloth.

In the background you can see some metal flashing that I've spraypainted balck, this will be the piece which protects the A/C inlet and the metal switch box you can see in the lower corner of this picture and the one above. There will also be another piece to shield the fans, to minimise light leaks.

Looking good, hope you get your light kit soon.

Clinton

I'd be real concerned about the strength above your fan cutouts. MDF isn't real strong when its that thin, if uou leaned on the top above the fan I'd be afraid that it would crack and break through, might want to reinforce before it becomes a problem.

I don't expect that it'll be a problem at all with the lid closed, which will be a vast majority of the time. (I've stood on it with the lid closed, and it's not a problem.)

My light kit arrived today. I'll be busy this weekend.

There was a small issue, but I can definitely solve it. Somewhere along the line there was a bit of rough handling, most likely at the post office. A bit of epoxy and it's all good again, though.

Nice. What year is your supra? I have wanted an mk3 for a while always liked their looks.

I don't think you should depend totally on the gap between the focus box and the front opening for your intake. As you described it , it sounds like air will pass through the front opening, over the focus box, and through holes at the top of the frame holing the lcd and lenses, through the back out the fans. However, I don't think this will be sufficient to cool the lcd. Usually, the air should flow across the front of the lcd, but in your case, most, if not all the air will just pass over the top of the lcd. What i suggest, is leaving the focus box intake idea, however, instead of having the holes at the top of the lcd/lense frame for the air to pass through, put holes in the bottom of the frame. That way, air will flow from the front of the PJ, over the focus box, down and ACROSS the LCD through the holes at the bottom, then out the fans at the back. THat would be an excellent cooling solution, and the fans you have would need to be solid in order to suck the air through.

Just my observation and suggestion....

The standard LL design does not force airflow over the front of the LCD, it leaves a gap between the LCD and fresnel/heat shield for airflow. The projection chamber in the front could be completely sealed in that design. This was found to be adequate.

For my design, I'll allow convection to bring the warmer air in the front to the top, where it will be drawn out and exhausted out the back. similarly convection will play a part in the back in keeping the box cool. IN both halves, I've got the hot air being drawn out the top, in order to make maximum use of convection to assist with the cooling process. This is free, and most importantly, silent help. I could probably have used a single fan or smaller fans, however, I'd rather have more than I need than less. I do not expect there to be cooling performance issues, although I will be monitoring to make sure.

Got my light kit mounted.

The distance from the base of the mogul to the center of the arc came out to 6 7/8" with the mogul that came with my light kit. The mogul base that I had was 1/8" shorter, so I used that to get a base to center length of 6 3/4" which is exactly half of the 13.5" width of my enclosure.

The Ikea SOARE napking holder was mounted to the back by cutting the handle to a short length, and drilling a hole in it for a screw. It was then attatched to a couple of small pieves of 3/4" MDF scrap which was in turn attatched to the back of my enclosure. It took a bit to center it under the bulb, but the end result is very good.

The reflector can be adjusted forwards of backwards a bit by bending t at the handle. Not the most desirable method, but it works. (Looks like I got the radius pretty darn close, though, so not much adjustment should be needed)

And another shot of the bulb assembly from the projection opening at the front.

Some careful work was done to ensure that this would be centered well.

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Let there be LIGHT!

Just about show time, can't wait to see the results.

Clinton

Shields UP!

Some more detail on the heat/light shields. They're made from 30 gauge sheet metal (Actually cut from heating duct) and spraypainted with black header paint on both sides. There's a small gap at the bottom and a larger gap at the top to allow air to pass by from the bottom of the lens frame and pass out the back. The bulb was removed (for obvious reasons) while I was working on this.

The sheet metal is held in with small pieces of angle aluminium drilled and tapped to accept #8-32 screws. The ones on the outside are held in place with #8 woodscrews, 3/4" long. The ones on the inside are held from the back by more of the same #8-32 machine screws. The sheet metal was cut with a slot to allow some room for heat expansion. I hope to keep light leaks to a minimum with this setup.

Quick diagram of the airflow idea.

Basically, the key to the whole thing is the lens frame, which forces air pulled from the front chamber to flow over the lens and LCD to get to the rear chamber.

Got the LCD installed.

And what's installing the LCD without a little test? Besides testing that the wiring is good for the LCD power supply, as well as making sure that I "didn't do nuthin' dumb" when handling the LCD, this is a little confidence booster.

No field fresnel mounted yet, and a few things still to do on the front half of the projector, but it's getting there!

Had a bit of fun with my test...

I noticed that the collimator fresnel was actually projecting an image. It wasn't inverted, or larger than the LCD, and was far from in focus, but I was able to make out the "Windows XP" flag logo during boot-up and could tell the task bar from the green field from the blue sky. This was "projected" onto a wall a few feet in front of the projector, and was very close to 1:1 size. That seems to indicate that I've got the lamp pretty well collimated.

Just for the heck of it, I held the projection lens in font of the lamp (no field fresnel) enough to get a clear projection. I just held the lens by hand, it was well in front of the projector box itself. I got a very clear image from it, that seemed fairly evenly lit, though it was small. This is presumably because the wall was unreasonably close to the projector.One of my fans is making a noise that I dont like... Kind of an intermittant knocking sound. I may have to exchange it.

I have PICTURE!

Unfortunately, I can't take a picture of it, because my camera SUCKS. There doesn't seem to be a low light setting at all.

I got sort of an image of a portion of the Windows desktop, but that's all.

It seems that it is brighter in the center than at the edges, although it's nearly impossible to tell by eye. I also have a bit of a focus issue, where part of the screen is in sharp focus, but the rest of it isn't I suspect that this is due to the fact that I haven't actually bolted in the field fresnel, it's just sitting in a frame in front of the LCD held in place by a couple of shims.

There's a bit of dust contamination inside the projector, I see a can of air in my near) future.

Also, my throw isn't 1:1, not even close. Something seems not quite right with the FL of the projection lens, it's considerably longer than I thought that it should be.

I need to do some deconstruction for painting, but I'll bask in the projected glow for a while, first. I also need to install the PC, which will involve the cutting of another hole in the box.

Temperatures with the 2 fans is excellent, only a couple of degrees above ambient. The air flow through the projector seems to be working as designed, keeping the box cool.

I really need to get a better digital camera...

I've got the image projecting onto the garage door at the moment. I need to adjust the field fresnel placement to get the throw a bit better than it is at the moment.

Some observations... Though to me, the lighting looks very even center to corner, the camera (When it can be persuaded to show men anything at all) sees something very different. Through the camera LCD, the center shows a dimmish blob of light fading to black about 1/2 way to the corners. All edges of the screen are indistinguishable from the unlit parts of the room.

Part of the problem is the fresnel adjustment, giving me a much larger image than I wanted. As we know, larger=dimmer. With the garage lights on, the screen is barely distinguishable.

Though this may change, I have the focus sharp enough that I can walk up to the screen and see the individual red, green and blue dots. I tried the fresnels unsplit, but this doesn't work with the lens frames. This may require a third re-build of the lens frame to correct, but if I can get the throw right, I'm certainly not dissapointed with teh focus at the moment. (It's somewhat less clear at the corners of the screen, and I note a slight blue ring bordering around the outside of the projection. (At a 168" image, the ring is about 1/8" thick) This is probably prism effect from the fresnel Even at this sharp a focus there is little notiocable "screen door" effect, the dots merge together closely without obvious black lines around them.

Let the tweaking begin...

It great you finally got an image on the wall. If you need to take some pics i can help you out if you want.

Clinton

Supra-
Do you have any pics of your lcd set up with normal room lighting on? I would love to see how the boards "hang" there and the whole set up together in the box. Let me know!!
Bluto

Bluto: Heh. Actually, the boards are beneath a false floor in the projection box. If you look at the "airflow" diagram that I drew up, the false floor is shown there. Using this allows me to have a large hole cut in the bottom front (for the CMV's control panel) without it being a light leak in the worst of places.

Clinton: I may take you up on that once I finish painting the box and taking it home. I actually need to disassemble some of hte box for painting, I rushed the last couple of steps. Actually, if you're not busy later tomorrow evening, (Say, 9:30PM or so) some preliminary screenshots would be nice to have... I was going to do some finish work on the outside of the projector before I brought it home. Let me know so that I can bring "Finding Nemo" for some common frame-of-reference shots.

With the regular garage lights on (a series of flourescent tubes) I can barely make out any image on the garage door at all. There is little to no light spillage, so I'll just chalk that up to a LOT of light pollution (It's brighter in the garage than it is in my living room at night with the 500W floor halogen light on! And forget about the basement with three measly 11W compact flourescents,)

Good to see some posts in here by other people once in a while, at least I know that other people are at least following my log, and I'm not talking to myself.

I'll get some more detailed pictures of the inside arrangements in the meantime.