after lots of researching & reading i'm at point where i can get a plog going with some pics and all. Currently the most interesting part of my diy methods (to me) is the lcd circuit board housing and though i believe others have done this, i dont think its been appreciated enough. I also went with a dont-disconnect-the-FFC approach for stripping the LCD which Gadgetsmith mentioned as an alternative to the usual approach. This was after i had HOSED my first CMV-520D. i had used the regular approach going by Forkev's good 520D stripdown and i had a lot of trouble reconnecting the 2 main FFC's and i believe this was the demise of my lcd overall. some more on that is HERE.

will get pics posted asap, starting out with the LCD stuff.

For starters, if you looked at the url in the previous post then you know that I @#$@$ my first LCD (pick yer explitive of choice). I went w/ the CMV-520D the first time and out of sheer obstinence went for it again for a 2nd try. This increase my project total considerably, but for the $ the CMV does seem to be a good buy with its good specs and VGA AND DVI inputs. yummy.

i'm sure its most offensive to start out w/ a sidenote rather than letting it come up as sidenotes do but i took notice of this difference between the 2 CMV 520D monitors i received.
This image shows my original CMV-520D on the left with the latter one that i received on the right. Both were purchased @ Mwave.com, both were in the same packaging. Mainly notice the difference in FFC's (one on the right has hinge doors at BOTH ends andthey are more narrow) plus you'll notice that on the right the circuitboard processor doesn't have Pixelworks labeled on top. I apologize as i forgot to get a close up of the newer circuitboard processor.



more to come...

This pic shows my first CMV-520D purchased and promptly DESTROYed. and after getting up out of my fetal crying position and moving on i later purchased another CMV-520D to try an alternate method suggested by Gadgetsmith for the stripdown. Still following Forkev's stripdown, the main difference is that you don't disconnect the main FFC's. here's a pic of what it looks like up to this point (around step 12-14 in Forkev's guide). though not shown here, there is a thin Aluminium (current lumenlab spelling of that metal) Circuit Board housing which comes off via one screw and sliding it gently out of little clippies. this piece is then set aside for later use.

The hard part will come next and in my case i actually had one or 2 other people helping, i think 2 suffices but three is just in case. You should get some LCD save materials like towels, cardboard or the like ready because these materials will serve as a layer between the circuit board metal and the lcd. We need to unmount the Circuit Board from the metal but wish to do this w/o removing the FFC's.. if you think about i think you'll begin to visualize what needs to take place. and yes, it almost is as cumbersome as you'd imagine, but you can do it, and do it safely, just need some steady hands, and having some help will make it go smoother and quicker.

One pair of hands lifts up the circuit board from its now unscrewed state and must hold it while another pair of hands goes about removing the underlying metal from the LCD plastic frame. This can seem a little rough but just try to do it carefully, holding everything nice and steady and you'll do fine. Once removed, you'll now have just the lcd in the plastic with the circuit board still floating above it via your other hands. Now get some of your LCD safe buffer materials (i might also recommend laying down seran wrap over the lcd for cleanliness) and then you can lay the CircuitBoard back down. Whew.

fetal crying position?? I believe it. hmmm, I wonder if you're still posting...more comments when you have other things up there. looking forward!

yes, i will be thruout the day... heading off for lunch now, be back afterwards.

Sorry to hear about the LCD. The stripping of the LCD is my biggest concern and I'm having a friend (more of a computer guy than I) help me strip it. I bought the 522, so I'm sure its pretty similar to yours. Hopefully I'll have better luck...

p.s. Luv the Big Lebowski icon. Turturro steals all the scenes he's in.

Now that you have the LCD tin backplate emancipated from the rest you can now take a pair of Tin Snips or a dremmel or your own teeth if you're that stout and go to cutting off excess. take notice though of this next image. Notice that theres an edge taht goes straight up on the side and a piece thats bent towards and upwards to the LCD ... these look to be in potential light path or lens placement issues so i've decided to snip them off as well. but again, do as you like.

A good way to do it is to take the aluminum circuit board housing and place it back on the tin metal backplate and you'll easily see the area of the metal backplate that you can cut off. i'd recommend basically cutting just beyond where the clips that join to the aluminum housing are. the next pic shows where i basically cut (the yellow line, please refrain from cutting THRU your hand):

In that pic you'll notice the blue tape, this pic is from a "redo" from not cutting away enough previously, the tape is good for covering those sharp edges or you can take the extra time to sand em down properly but i've got the ITCH and want to check out the projector splendor ASAP.
you can also trim up the aluminum housing as well as you see fit which i did on the side that angles down (same side as the single mounting screw for the alum housing). you can then get something like this (though you'll prolly do much better) :

these pics though taken before i went back and streamlined it some more (see above) are sortof representative of what you get.

So did it work?
You bet yer patooey it did!! theres nothing so beautiful than a stripped LCD framed in your homebrew framing of choice up and running ... and no, i repeat, no dead pixels. (sure that extra pixel costed me 170 bux :angry: )
there are 2 different desktops pictured, and if the lcd image looks goofed, dont worry its just wrapped up in seran wrap to help keep it clean.

After you have the monitor stripdown you need to mount it in a frame right?
I opted for using the original lcd frame .. the aluminum front and plastic back for mine and it seems to work well. On this project i didnt really modify the aluminum part though in retrospect i would have which i'll get to below. You take the white plastic backing and simply cut away the angle parts that would get in the light path using a dremmel or whatever you can think of to use. below is a pic of me doing this but becuz i'm such an ugly 'tard i opted to manifest this in honor of star wars fans everywhere, yes its none other than Obi-Wanker-Nobi applying his dremelSaber of choice. (in this case a cheap dremel ripoff which died on me after a couple of days of use).

I then mounted the metal part in some 3/4" wood and later carefully and with help, installed the stripped lcd and put the plastic back on. it takes a lil finessing and "encouraging" but afterwhich needed no silicone or anthing.

this


plus this


equals


Those hands are not mine but my art instructor wife helping me not screw up my measurements for DVI and VGA input holes that i've got to carefully jigsaw while having those other components installed already. yes it would have been better to have done this step when i did the other steps but thats hindsight.

the first pic is a Craftman's version of the Workmate and is quite handy and recommended becuz of its clamping ability and just to give you a nice easily portable workspace, especially when space is a luxury. the pic of the wood (1/2" birchwood) which i had precut to specs and at that point was stained with a natural Minwax and later poly'd with semi-gloss.
The pic of the partially done insides is pretty much where i am now, the boxes a** (posterior) came loose while jigsawing those extra holes so i had to fix that with some 3/4" wood and "L" brackets. I did get a sidewall clamped in but ran into an issue with screws.

I've discovered that becuz of the way my LCD is framed in the 1" wide wood (lcd is position "back" in the frame rather than more forward in the frame) i only have 3/16" of front fresnel keystoning swing room. You pros out there tell me how detrimental this is. At this point, i'm trying to complete it well enough so a friend of mine who is a Marine and heading to Iraq soon can see it (he's visiting this weekend so i need to get it done "good enough"). Otherwise, tonite the plan is to get the lexan cut at Home Depot and find some appropriate screws to help with the sidewall securage. Hopefully get the lexan and lenses framed and in place so i can work at finding the light center on the front end of the box. still havent cut the focusing box hole. speaking of...

Just curious, what exactly did you break on your 520d?

Here's what will encase my triplet .. it is a box from Hobby Lobby that i ripped the lid off of. It looked square but alas was not, but i believe it'll work anyway. Yes, i contemplated leaving the $2.99 sticker on there.


Noodle, I'm not totally for sure what happend to the first LCD. After the stripdown, i had alot of trouble getting the FFC's to reconnect which has been conversed about in some other threads (search for CMV 520d in the HELP section). Being inexperienced i didn't know that it can take some serious finessing to find the right spot for those hinge doors to not only close but close so that they hold the FFC. I would either not be able to close it, or it would close but not in such away as to hold the connector. I ended up snapping one of the hingedoors which at the time seemed HORRIFIC! With some help we could get the connectors to stay by holdign them, but when we tried to power it up, nothing happened which we ASSumed was the FFC's not connecting right. at which time i decided to chat w/ some lumenlabbers and see what they thought.
guess what? the powering up issue wasn't that afterall but rather was the Control Panel FFC being connected upside down thus power not going thru correctly.
a technique for securing the FFC's was suggested involving matchbook cardbood, glue or tape so we had hope. After MUCH trying i could never get a display to come thru the FFC's, i could tell that the lcd was getting power and i'd get lines every now and then but no actual image of ANY kind was coming up. total bummer.

i had the new monitor ordered before work the next morning (yes, another 170 bux just waiting to be FLUSHED)... but as you can see the 2nd one went much better. those who're new to the stripdown look thru the instructions given here at LL for your monitor (if there are any) and really take it slow and easy. haha, i thought i WAS going slow and easy, but with Forkev's stripdown i think it seemed "too easy" and i eventually screwed something up. i believe i must have tore up the FFC's in desperately trying to get them to connect properly. but maybe it was something else?

all i have for now, may be a few days before i get further progress up, wanting to "focus" on getting it completed enough to show my Marines chum.

Man, sorry to hear about the botched lcd strip! I am dreading this part because of all the horror stories I have read here. I am getting everything else ready before I strip my Benq. Otherwise your build looks great - can't wait to see pics!

thx, yea, i'd like to say (and most here at LL prolly would say) "dont worry about it" .. try to be careful (though i did) take it slow (which i also tried to) and go for it.
i think there are some pretty decent stripdown instructions for the benq. u might do some searches in the Help section to see what problems if any, anyone else has had w/ the benq's... i've not heard of any (though i've not researched the benq's too much cuz they always seemed expensive though good).
hope it goes well for you! make sure and let us know how you fare.

Having some setbacks with my fresnel framing, calculations for frame width as incorporated into the Guide's lens placement measurements was off. so now i've got to rip my front fresnel frame apart, strip down one side in an effort to make it work.
moral of the story?

if using seperate frames for the various elements (rather than one whole peice.. like the "sled" method) make sure the frames will fit within the calculated measurements given by the guide including the keystone swing for the front fresnel. My LCD frame is too thick but at this point i dont want to tear it apart to "skinnify it all" which would include dremmeling/snipping down the alum/plastic LCD frame underneath the wood.

got a sidewall installed using these little "L" brackets from walmart but had to get "real" 1/2" screws from Home Depot becuz the "1/2" inch" screws included with the brackets are actually 5/8" and were poking thru the skinny 1/2" birchwood i'm using.

Its been a rough journey but i feel like i'm at around the 75 - 80% mark or so, but DO have an image up on the wall!!! woohoo! seeing that desktop displayed at 6'x7' is just sweet.

continuing from before- Instead of narrowing part of the front fresnel frame i opted to go w/ a different frame method altogether. This idea came from Sepulserus' project in which he used a strip of alum "c" or "u" channel and 2 screws to "pinch" the fresnel which would hang freely. He had told me via chat that he actually changed up that method by drilling holes thru the lens and putting the screws thru the holes becuz his fresnel slipped out w/ just the pinch method.
i went for the pinch method becuz i felt since i was using a machine screw (flat end rather than pointy) that it would work plus i added some spongy weather striping stuff w/ adhesive on both sides to the 'back' inside of the channeling, so the adhesive would also help hold the lens too.
This seemed to go pretty well with the first screw but the 2nd screw got a few too many turns by me and caused a small split in the fresnel OUCH! plus, the spongy stripping behind it is kinda squishing down a lil out of the channeling, i'm hoping with the amount of vertical "play" there is w/ the fresnel compared to the lcd that i can have it set high enough not to hurt the image. here's a poorly mspainted diagram of this setup:

and a pic of the stripping and channeling


UPDATE: on retrospect and from Supraguy's method of hanging his front fresnel, i'm planning on getting some window screen channeling to hang mine as well, making a full frame around. will post on this when i can get to building it.

Fresnels are FUN!


the what should be obligatory FresFace pic.... i dare you to post YOURS! maybe we need a FresFace thread?

HAHAHA.... BAH HAHAHAHA

"Fres Face"... hehe, cool.

Early, very OFF-tweaked image (basically everything just sitting in the box needing serious alignment, and with seran wrap still ON the LCD.

was significantly brighter in person, but i thought the image appropriate and representative of the feeling you get when you first see a display up on the wall.



from the game "Painkiller"- the streaks are the seran wrap

well had a party for the marine pal of mine, bunch of folks gathered together and i decided that even though it was only like 80% done i'd secure the elements enough for transport from my friends shop to home so i could show it off. undoubtly even though not completed they were quite impressed that it could be done, probably moreso that *I* did it lol. and even with the lens' not quite in the right alignment and with lots of light seepage from all over (nothing filtered, caulked or covered, even had the top of the box cracked open for air intake for goodness sakes... we watched a movie (show below) and everyone really enjoyed it! noone seemed to notice much that it was only in focus in the center lol (i guess we really do "center" our sight on the middle of the screen most of all). just some images- remember, its only like 75- 80% completed - actually less than that cuz i plan to go in and basically redo the lens framing, probably the lcd frame as well, prolly get some glass to flatten the fres'
thx for lookin-


who knew i looked just like Jeff Bridges?

That is just the greatest feeling,isn't it?
Looks great to me!

haha, yea my camera isnt set to the right settings to really capture a the brightness .. it was considerably brighter.
as for the box, stained 1/2 " birch (would prolly go w/ 3/4" in retrospect due to wood thickness making short screws such a necessity and are hard to scrounge up).
still gonna install the triplet into a focusing box, cut the air intake and all that so i can close the dang lid.
OH. check this out- i had the lid cracked but then put a thin blanket over the top to block the forward shooting light. and taped a paper plate over the fan (at an angle) to kind of block some of that light for those getting blasted from the back light pouring out.
well even with is mediocre at best cooling scenario i was checking the temps every now and then via a candy thermo stuck in side near the bulb .. well like a 1/2 hour into the movie i notice something... THE HEATSHIELD ISNT IN THERE! ARGH! apparently forgot to grab it (wasnt mounted yet, was just gonna set it in)... well i took a chance (since everyone was enjoying the movie so) and just watched the temps closely from then on out. at one point it go to around 100 and i started gettin worried for my precious elements in there but then strangely it dropped back down around 90 and below. i can only attribute this to possibly being that it was a fairly cool spring night, as a cold front had moved thru and i had most of the windows open .. so perhaps the cool ambient air was helping things.

well where i was at 70-80% done... i'm now regressed to a meager and frustrating 50-60%. I am trying to rework my frame design (or lack thereof) for the LCD and fres' and would like to go w/ a more sled-like route similar to FLY's or Joe2kchevy's neato design. but neither, like most LLers, layed out the steps for building them i guess figuring that anyone w/ 1/2 a brain can figure it out... but i say NOT SO! (unless i'm only a 1/3 brainer) :angry:

so heres the deal- due to some over-compensation, or really rather due to design changes made on the fly to the internals w/o changing the external box- i'm left w/ a box that gives me 1.5" or so space on either side of my unframed LCD & lens' so i'm kinda trying to figure out if making a sled and then simply blocking off the excess space afterwards OR making a sled with really thick sides is the way to go an would like some input into making the sled itself.
here is FLY's sled and joe2kchevy's sled ... it looks like Joe's sled was CNC'd? so i guess that accounts for its nice cuts and angles. but Fly's looks not so CNC'd but theres only a couple or so pics.. wish there were step by step guide to piecing it together.

anyway share your input or advice i'm wallerin' within my own ideas and having trouble making them all fit together feasibly w/o ghetto-rigging it too much. .

FatScreen,

Since I built a vertical, my solution is not quite the same but a modification of it might work. (You can see my Optics Tray here.) Both of our enclosures are wider than standard which allows room to put a guide rail on both sides of the enclosure that the optics tray can slide in on. This worked out to be an advangage when I needed to adjust the distance between the LCD and the Triplet because all I had to do was move the guide rails down 1" and everything slid right back in. You can see one of the guide rails in this picture.

The slotted wood piece for the LCD and Fresnel can be sandwiched between two pieces of masonite and needs to be just slightly wider than the guard rail, enough to give room for a snug but not tight fit. The pivoting front fresnel mount should work just as well in a horizontal as in a vertical, but it could just as easily be hung from one side as in Joe2000Chevy's design. I attached the LCD to one of the pieces of masonite rather than slide it in a groove.

A couple of benefits of this design is that it separates the heat shield from the rear fresnel and gives a good air flow path. One piece of masonite butts against the back (bottom in your case) with a gap in the front and the other butts against the front (top in your case) with a gap in the back.

Here is a quick sketch of a top-down view showing the orientation of the pieces.
Click to view attachment

Sorry, I am not a CAD person, and this was quite a ramble, but I hope it at least gives you some ideas.

interesting idea, thx. now if i canjust get time to get into the shop! :angry:

hey dude, i have 2 of those CMV-520D lcds....well actually ACER al506 but they are exactly the same lcd/boards.....the boards are faulty (the AC inverter board actually) so i was wondering if you could send me the boards from the first lcd.....the one with the orange FFCs +the corresponding smaller AC inverter board......im in New Zealand but will pay for postage .....send it by really slow /cheep means.

Very Very much appreciated if you could

Thanks, Sean

Dingle- sorry, i've been busy w/ some web design projects and generaly summer busy-ness. Someone has been inquiring bout the boards already so i'm kinda waiting to see what they say.

Well i've had a couple of chances to get to the "shop" to work at redoing my internals. basically i wanted to go to the lcd/fresnel sled design which i think is a good idea for anyone. there are some good ones out there by okflyboy and joe2kchevy and others that i hope get detailed more. actually it appears that maybe joe2kchevy might be selling some prebuilt ones.

no pics yet as i've spent long hours notching and sanding away (very time consuming stuff). Last nite i got my crappy version of a lcd/fresnel sled assembled and is basically ready to go except for a top of screen light blocker which i can add whenever (goes between the top non-pixel border of the LCD and the lid of the box.

top two power tools for easier projector building : TABLE SAW (probably MOST important IMO) and JIG SAW. A motorized sander would also be handy. If you're good w/ a circular saw (as in good at making STRAIGHT, and i mean STRAIGHT, cuts then you would prolly opt for that).

i wish i woulda bought a table saw at the beginning of the project... i'd have been done months ago. w/o one i kept having to figure out various ways to rig parts together straight... no viable way to make nice grooves to hold lenses/lcd... JUST GET ONE- you can get it for <100 at lowes-depot. Straight cuts and grooves make PJ building so much easier, its really worth it.

i fired it up w/ just the lenses last nite and its looking ok though i think i have some aligning to do. I 've got to cut out a air intake, do some caulking and that kinda thing. gotta clean up the lenses and lcd (oh and i've been pretty hard on them too, very dusty, been lying about, hopefully they'll still work ok ESPECIALLY the LCD which is the 2nd one i had to buy due to FFC problems).

well after several months of working on and off and having almost every portion of the project go to H at some point or another, i had gotten the fresnel/lcd sled worked out, had gotten out of my buddy's shop and back home, was setting it up for a viewing that evening when all of the sudden as it was happily firing photons at our living room wall there was some flickering and then darkness.. After much cursing and almost throwing it out the backdoor to face the elements; i went to HD and got a bulb that may or may not work w/ the ballast: a 400w HPS bulb (should i have gotten their 400w metal halide instead?)
in any case it didnt fire up either.

Shouldnt the eballast get like, WARM at all when its getting current to it? cuz mine is currently colder than a dead horse in the middle of winter alaska. after some looking i noticed that QUITE A FEW people have had problems with the ebal, not very encouraging.
I actualy have a magnetic ballast i had purchase before getting the ebal, that'd i'd like to wire up - what all do i need for wiring it up- capacitor etc - can i get that at some local store (w/o ordering)?
thanks... again, its been a pretty sucky journey in my attempts at movie nirvana- sucks to have a part go out as everything was looking perky.

The eballast probably wouldn't get very hot unless it is running a lamp, but I can't say for certain because I do not have one. Before you give up on it though, I would go through the normal things we tell people to check such as making sure connections are good and that the mogul center contact is seating well against the lamp base contact.

Yes you should not have bought the HPS lamp but it still probably should have fired with the eballast.
The first thing you need to check on the magnetic ballast is the ANSI rating. It's most likely an M59 but it could be an M135/M155 or even an S51. If it is an M59 you need the ballast and a matching capacitor. If it is M135/M155 or S51 it will also need an ignitor. Really if you bought it in the US these items are usually included when you buy it. If you don't have them you can post the manufacturer name and model # and we should be able to help you find the appropriate parts.

Just purchase a lamp with the same ANSI rating as the ballast and it will run. You probably want to look for the smallest bulb shape and best color temp and most lumens also but any matching lamp should get you running as long as you can fit it in the PJ.

bought it from Atlanta lighting (what they recommend for Ushio) but i dont think a cap came w/ it- i'll check again in the box, maybe i just didnt notice. I'm fairly sure its the ebal ... i mean, i hadnt moved it or touched it or anything, was on then flickered off and never came back on.
i tried pulling the mogul connector up like suggested in some other posts, i tried stickin alum foil in the bottom of it, i tried scratcing the end of the bulb mogul to make sure a contact should be had, making sure to screw it in good.... just a whole lot of nothing and a cold cold ballast. I cant hear anything from it either, i remember it being pretty quiet anyway, but should it make any noise? also, can i test the circuit by sticking a circuit testing probe into the mogul to see if it picks up the juice therefore determing that maybe its not the ballast?
thanks for the advice.

Congratulations on your progress. I made I mistake making a cable and now I'm hunting for a new controller board, meanwhile I've accepted your challenge, here is my zoomed vicious look. Now I dare you to hold its eyesight for more than 10 secs!

hahaha nice fres-face!

well my 2nd ebal appears to be toast and is probably my fault. i wired up the coil core though and figured out why it wasnt working before and now it works like a champ! Fires up the bulb instantly! The added weight and bulk is a bummer but at least its running.

would appreciate any tips or inspirations for mounting/housing the
coil/core ballasts in an aesthetically pleasing way.

Watched National Treasure the other night and it was sweet action. i need to put in a reflector and could use some extra tweaking for better light output, but in a dark room the brightness level seem quite nice considering it was being projected on a plain white wall and not an actual screen.

i'm bummed because i also have some monitor woes. Using the CMV520d which apparently is hard to come by these days; i've got a green column of pixels on one side of the screen along the border edge. it doesnt necessarily take away too much from whatever you're watching but it is obviously annoying to not have that showing up after all the other trials i've had to fight thru getting this all working. Also, the monitor is very "sensitive" to vibration. If you tap the box, or table that its on, often the lcd will go a lil buggy and you have tap it again to get it back to normal.
just as frame of reference does anyone else experience that, their monitors being hypersensitive to vibration (obviously the connectors being the culprit as usual) or is it just the 520d's that perhaps arent as sturdy as some other monitors. Also with my 520d, the DVI isnt working. VGA works fine, but plugging to the DVI generates a No Signal. Disappointing since thats why i purchased the 520d in the first place, but at this point i'm glad to have been able to watch a movie on it!
i'd also like to see how people layout their various AV sources (htpc, components, etc) in relation to their PJ. I'm forseeing the need for a lot of really long audio chords! I believe there is a thread on the subject, if not or if so, please post how you have your AV sources and outputs arranged in relation to your PJ. Thanks

I couldn't get the DVI to work on mine with ATI radeon drivers I'd get a signal lock until windows finished booting then when it changes resolution it would go black. The stock driver that came with MCE 2005 seems to work ok but then there are other issues. Do you have an ATI card or an Nvidia?

I have ATI
thanks for the reply- maybe that was the issue. dunno; i'm selling the lcd as i prepare for a new build- hopefully the dvi will work fine for someone else.

The CMV panels are very sensitive it was my first panel and the ffc connections broke I went through trying two more controller boards before I gave up on it. It's a scary monitor to work wit because of how fragile those connections are and there really isn't a sensible way to fix them. Just try to secure it asap.

Roger that, DarkMeat. Its a good LCD and popular. Currently mine is bubblewrapped and packaged as seen on the
Trading Post awaiting an offer. Now time to look at some ideas for a vertical PJ.

hey, I see you just stripped the viewera 17" 172 monitor...can you tell me what model the lcd panel is(its usually on the backlight) as opposed to the monitor model(172hd or whatever)... going to strip the AG?