Please forgive the super-long first post, but I've been building up thoughts/comments for the past week I didn't PLOG this in real-time since, honestly, I had no idea if I was going to be able to complete it.

First of all, I would like to say thank you to everyone on this forum. So many people have contributed to my projector that probably don't even know it. I have scoured this place for ideas and I know there are plenty more great ones I have yet to encounter. Everyone here is so civil and willing to hop in with an idea or suggestion which is really great and is what kept me going through the rough spots.

Keep in mind that before this forum, I never had any previous experience with any of the following:

-Optics

-Woodworking other than making square shaped objects(well, I built a scratching post for my cat. He seems to like it)

-Wiring

-Soldering

And now i do

But the road has not been smooth..

So, the results you see are going to be a bit rough. Especially in the woodworking dept. I was initially inspired by Haas

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1918

and then Tmproff

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4925

and others I have checked for inspiration include:

Coreblog

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6066

Pulsareus

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4169

FLY CRJ

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=25&t=5522

Samaritano

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=25&t=5170

and

Okflyboy

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=5600

With special thanks to Deathray64 for assisting with wiring/electrical questions.

Not to mention countless others whose posts I have perused, scoured, copied and generally manhandled in my quest for knowledge regarding this project.

Unfortunately, my results thus far do not reflect well on all those I have credited above. Go check their PLOGs for inspiration. Mine is merely here for public record.

I officially started in earnest about a week ago(if i follow the trail of Home Depot receipts correctly).

So, without much further ado, here's some shots to prove I've been up to something..

-J

It all started out so innocently. Just me, my jig-saw and the blown-up Haas plans.. I even made myself a workbench out of an old kitchen stand and some extra planks from the cat tree i made.

By the by, my jig-saw has proved to be the one invaluable tool through all of this. It has done more than I ever thought possible..

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So yeah, the cuts were a bit rough, but i figured I could sand them down and as long as I was roughly in the dimensions, I'd be fine..

Those little squeeze clamps were invaluable, and at 99 cents a pop(on sale) were worth their weight in super-diamonds. Yeah, that's right super-diamonds. Like diamonds, except...more super.

Next step was the dowels. Using tmproffs suggestion, I clamped both panels together and drilled holes so they would match. I figured even if the panels weren't perfect, as long as I sanded them down while clamped together and drilled in those dowels, I would be fine.

Not sure why I thought I needed this special bit vs. the standard spade bit. I recall having some brain fart moment of worrying about the tip of the bit drilling a hole all the way through the enclosure, even though I had already done that to mark where I should drill the indentations for the dowels in the first place.

Anyhoo, it was 10 bucks at Home Depot. In one of the few moments of the DIY Projector gods smiling at me, somehow I wasn't charged for it when I checked out. It worked fine.


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Here's cutting the dowels.

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And here are the dowels in place. I had some issues with not cutting the holes for them deep enough so things were kinda wobbly for a while with both panels. The dowels themselves were cut the right length, I was just worried about drilling too far into the panels themselves.

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Looking good so far. Keep it up. Excellent job with a jig saw!

Around this time, I got my Liquidvideo 1512 LCD monitor from Justdeals. The last one I had received was faulty, and I had seen some other folks online who had the same problem, so I was quite anxious to see if it worked. I ran a pixel test and then left it on looping a video all day. The previous one had turned white, but this one was fine. Whee!! With that said and done, it was time to strip the son of a gun.

I won't bore you with too many details, Ookpic has an excellent tear down guide that I was able to follow quite easily

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?s...478&hl=teardown

That being said, there was one freak-out moment where my jeweler's screw-driver stripped one of the small screws holding down the plate that secured one of the control boards..


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Well, hell, if I know one thing, it's that the cheap razor sharp aluminum they use for computer casing is weak enough that if I pry it back and forth, it will eventually just snap off. So i attacked it one section at a time..

First the other half of the metal piece..


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Then I had to go for the section that was actually screwed on. It's hard to describe how little play I had, but I literally had about 3 or 4 millimeters to bend it up and then back down. I was pretty scared that I was going to damage the circuit board or something but, snap off it did.

Position 1..


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and bent up Position 2..


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Repeat 40-50 times and you have yourself a separated board

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Other than that, the strip-down was fairly uneventful. I wore those cool purple powder-free nitril gloves and they worked like a charm. Felt like a real surgeon.

I used silicone glue to secure the lcd to it's frame. I had some cheap thin mdf backing from one of those shelf-in-a-box kits you get from Office Depot or wherever so I decided to see if I could make a little support for the bottom board that had all of the delicate ffc's attached to them. They worked out ok. I was trying to get it to a 90 degree angle with the lcd and mostly succeeded.

Kind of a blurry shot..

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Hey cool, got my Dremel XPR! Time to make some spiffy routing channels for the top and bottom panels to slide oh so glidingly slidingly through!!

(cue Jaws music..)


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We'll see..

I lined up the panels to use each as the cutting guide for the other(Per Tmproff's suggestion)

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and then got to work on the routing..

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And wouldn't ya know it? What EVERYONE I talked to on this board about using a Dremel instead of a router came true! Notice the channel weaving in and out like a sailor during Fleet Week? And that's one of the better ones.. Oh yeah, it gets worse.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the XPR i bought was missing the collette to use the routing attachment, so I went back and just picked up the basic model that had the routing attachment as well..

So I hacked my way through both panels, spending a HUGE amount of time doing so. The wood channels were smoking and basically burnt. I even managed to miscut and basically break off a piece of small wood..

Oh well, I'd come this far, I figured I could figure out a solution later. At that point I figured maybe I could nail on the bottom panel and have that be fixed since I didn't figured I would need to remove the bottom panel for access all that much.

Here's a shot of them getting ready for spraypaint..


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This was after finding out spraypaint is not available in Chicago(city ordinance) and all of the surrounding Home Depot's closed at 8pm that Sunday..I'll make sure to write Mayor Daley a thank you note in black Krylon on his car..

I used the hi-temp stuff for BBQ grills that was suggest(forget who at the moment). I wasn't too thrilled with it at first. It smudges a fair amount even after being dry, but now I'm used to it.

Here's the shot of it sprayed. Not sure if i needed to spray the whole thing, honestly this was one of those steps I just did without asking why(something about keeping reflected light down, I believe..) I may have muffed something up by spraying the whole inside black.

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Bah, I'm too tired to finish the rest of the posts tonight.. I'll wrap this up tomorrow. So far, everything looks all nice, but it gets a lot uglier..

Stay tuned..

-J

EDIT: I see that my "rating" on this forum has changed to "obsessive compulsive". That's pretty funny/spot-on considering the amount of time and energy I have spent on this thing. My cat pretty much hates me now and my neighbors in the apartment are probably having nightmares from the constant soundtrack of drilling, grinding, pounding and general cursing coming from my place.

Hey maler,

Good job so far... i'm hoping to attack one of these designs next weekend with a friend. It's gonna be my first time actually making anything with power tools and workin with wood - so i'm being pretty cautious in my approach to it.

Besides the small cosmetic imperfections - i salute you dude. I can only hope mine turns out as good as yours. lol. Good luck, I'll be following your plog closely. =)

Adrian

Hey Adrian,

Thanks! It gets worse from here so don't follow too closely My main advice, GET THE RIGHT TOOLS. I can't tell you how much time i wasted with the wrong tools. It literally added an extra day to my project.

The dremel was nice for sanding but for routing get a rotozip or some kind of actual routing tool if you want those groovy smooth channels.

cheers,

-J

Once I put the box together, the front and back panels had some extra wood. I devised a way of drawing fancy lines to make sure they would line up with the rest of the panel before I realized my jig-saw had an adjustment to angle the plate so I could make 45 degree cuts.

If i had a brain, I'd be dangerous..

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Once that was done, I put the enclosure back together and made sure it all lined up.. It was rough, but close enough for some minor sanding to fix.

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The brackets in the above pic were a compromise. I could not for the life of me, find some basic l-shaped brackets. I searched the shelving section of Home Depot and even asked someone in the hardware isle. No one could answer it. Later on, I would see an entire bin of various l-shaped brackets :angry:

I didn't really have the right screws so I ended up screwing them in and then shaving off the heads of the screws with my dremel so i could fit the frame for the lcd and the fresnel.

I used a laser pointer just to see if I was on track. I marked an x on the rear fresnel and aimed the pointer from the back panel to the front through the cross. You can see the pencil markings showing the center of the front panel where the lens would go.


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Not too shabby..

Next up were the front and back panels. Fun is trying to cut a 1 inch square hole using only a power drill(for starter holes) and a jig-saw..

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I did sand it down with the dremel and also cut the holes for the fans which for some reason I had a much harder time with.

Don't look so bad on the outside..(there are some gaps that will need to be sealed with wood filler)

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The inside shows the cuts a bit better..

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With the enclosure basically done except for the channels on the front panels(I was totally burned out on woodworking at that point and needed a change of pace..) I turned my attention to the wiring.

First off, I had a bit of confusion regarding the integrated DPST switch and power module that Lumenlab sent.


Front and back shot. You can see here that there are brackets that are connecting the Live and Neutral to the posts of the two switches above.

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So, after consulting with Deathray64, I ripped the suckers off

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Here's a shot of my soldering. The wiring is incomplete in this shot, so pay no attention..

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Ok, so with my wiring on it's way, it was time to take the lcd panel out of it's 12 layers of cardboard box and anti-static wrapping and see if it could fly on it's own. I stood it up and hooked up all of the circuit boards and then powered her up.

I didn't have a lamp so i used a pen light to shine light onto it.

Success!

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OH yeah, forgot to mention the circle/hole saw set I bought on Ebay. This was originally for a cat toy/box I was going to build(don't ask) but there was a 5 inch hole saw included that I figured I could use to drill the hole

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Unfortunately, my little 9.6 cordless Ryobi didn't have enough oomph to cut all the way through. I only managed to trace a 5 inch hole about 1/16th of an inch into the wood.

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I ended up drilling a starter hole and then using the band saw. Even though the hole saw was 5 inches wide, I still had to sand a good bit off of the diameter just to make room for the 4 inch pvc pipe I used to house the lens and 3 inch pvc coupling. I then had to shave off even more to make room for the velcro. Ended up working out though.

So, I decided once I had the wiring figured out that I would finalize the grooves for the front and back panels to allow the 1/8 inch flexible panels to slide through on the top and bottom..

So, right away, because of the rough cuts of the dremel the panel did not slide in smoothly in the tracks. I think the panel was also a bit wide. Well, as I mentioned earlier, one piece of channel I miscut had already snapped off.

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Then number two happened on the other side.


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Needless to say, I was pretty crushed. I threw the panel against the wall, which was pretty funny, because it caught the air like a wind sail and fell harmlessly onto my bed. I took a deep breath and went to go eat. I then drank a bunch of wine and fell asleep to one of my favorite soundtracks: Passion(Peter Gabriel)

No pics of that

I woke up the next day refreshed and I made myself a promise. I would try *one* more option with this enclosure and if it didn't work junk it and build a "basic" enclosure.

So i patched up both grooves..

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And I looked over and there was the roll of extra velcro left from my lens assembly.. So i took the rough side of the velcro and lined one side and the front panel and then took the "fuzzy" side and applied it to the flexible wood panel I had intended to run through the grooves on the top and bottom..

Kinda like so

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Well, I was encouraged by the results but didn't have enough velcro to fully test it so I ran over to Home Depot for what I promised myself would be the LAST time and bought "industrial strenght" velcro, which, unfortunately, only means the adhesive is stronger, not the actual hook and loop assembly of the velcro..

Anyhoo, short story long, the velcro *almost* worked. It would not keep the very front ends of the panels attached. That is where the greatest about of flex is required. The rest stuck of the panel on fine. I even added a couple of extra layers of padding to see if I could reduce the amount of stress but it didn't work.

So, faced with what I promised myself would be my final try...and having failed..

I said DAMN THE TORPEDOES!! I'm getting this bastard up and running if it kills me!

I took the bottom pane and just screwed it into place. The top pane I will keep in place with those double sided screws that I can permanently screw in to the enclosure on one side and then keep the top panel down with washers which I can remove instead of having to screw and unscrew it.. That will happen this weekend. I am currently taking a break.

I did however, get a couple of initial shots up. The first is my very first test shot. It was literally pointed at the corner of my room with my armchair and my window. I simply wanted to get it up and running to see if it worked.


Probably the *worst* first shot ever, but it is what it is..

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I ended up getting it properly positioned and pointed at a wall. For some reason the shots came out really dim and kinda green.. I'm also projecting onto a shower curtain that is not big enough for the image..

Kinda hard to see, but the x's on my two fresnels are almost completely centered on eachother. Not sure how close they have to be, but the resolution with the box sealed is quite good.

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When I screw the top panel on, the image is nice and bright(don't have shots because that currently takes two hands). The velcro helps to form a nice light seal around the entire enclosure. It also makes up for my poor woodworking skills where panels meet.

The image is nice and sharp in that case. I'm getting that "screendoor" effect where I can see individual pixels. I'm assuming this is a good thing.

I am sad to say the first "movie" played on the projector was that "i'm a kitty cat" video that you may have been forwarded. This was my roommates request..

Sorry to say but it still makes me laugh..

(beware possible pop-up city on this link)

http://media.ebaumsworld.com/index.php?e=kittycatdance.wmv

I'll have images up this weekend. I'm taking a breather for a couple of days.

Things I have left to do:

-Create air channel for rear fresnel and lcd

-Create hole/mount for lcd controls(might leave them inside as I don't need them much)

-Screw in posts for washers to clamp top panel down

cheers,

-J

Phew! Well, took the week off to take a breather. This project was not any fun any more and I needed to circle the wagons to try and get it done today.

I did some fine tuning while I was in the mood to do so(adjusted the reflector, added aluminum heatshielding around lamp, sealed up the gaps around the fans with wood filler, etc.)

I also swapped out the old brackets I was using and used more standard l-channel ones like the ones in Tmproff's plog. This makes it a lot easier to add and remove various panels. I don't have them all locked together in a "sled" like some folks do.

The pack of weatherstripping I bought to help seal up the lens assembly has also come in handy for sealing gaps in enclosure for making sure my airflow is correct. I'll add some pics of that later.

I FINALLY got the projector running and am very, very happy with it. I have some minor keystoning and for some reason the right side of the screen in the lower corner is out of focus, but when I'm watching a movie in widescreen(my intended purpose), this doesn't matter. I do notice that the edges and corners are a bit dim(i've heard this is a common) issue. Frankly, I don't really notice it that much.

I bought some Poly-wall aka Plas-tex from Home Depot. It comes in 4x8 sheets. Cost about 20 bucks and I really like it. Provides a bright even image.

I took some shots. The resolution I'm getting is amazing, these shots don't do them justice. I'm currently using a Canon Powershot S410 ELPH. I tried the ISO 200 shots and they seem to work the best.

Incredibles. This came out a touch green


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It was hard to take straight on shots without blocking the screen

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Special points if you can guess which film this is from. One of my favorites. Too bad it didn't come out so hot

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Ah, Baxter, my special little friend. That dim strip at the bottom is because the widescreen format of Anchorman is a bit taller than the other movies. I guess standard widescreen vs. anamorphic? It's too late to even start thinking about it.


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Here's some shots of the final enclosure. It looks even uglier than necessary because I accidentally cracked the front corners of the top panel. Oh well.

I bought a "two-sided" screw that basically you could screw in on one side and then the other had a nice flat thread so I could use washers to tighten the corners of the panel. The velcro wasn't cutting it. It still helps to seal light gaps however.

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I ended up cutting down the "workbench" I had created to make a stand for the projector. I had a couple of fat pieces of wood leftover from the cat tree I made.

Speaking of the cat, those little panels on the side are an attempt to "cat-proof" the thing. Nothing fancy, just the brackets I was originally using in the projector to hold the panels. I feel pretty comfortable with it as it is.

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And one more shot of the inside. I originally attempted to cut out the aluminum shielding around the lamp, but i decided to just punch some holes in a panel and just tie it onto the dowels with zipties. Seems to work fine.


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That's it for now. I just watched the Incredibles with my roommate. He was pretty impressed. I think he would have been more impressed if I hadn't been cursing about this thing for the last 2 weeks.

The monitored temp between the lcd and rear fresnel is about 92-96 degrees. That's with 2 Evercools running at "medium" speed. They are noticeably loud if you are behind the projector but otherwise, they kind of drone on and you forget about them

cheers,

-J

I applaud you for your efforts ..... the curved peices and the hand routing is an especially difficult task .....

Dremel makes a router attachment thing so that you can guide the panel under it and keep it at a consistent height ..... they are sold everywhere that dremels are sold at, even walmart ....

secondly ... did you draw an X on your fresnels directly??? ..... you probably shouldnt have done that since they are difficult to clean ....

FACE OFF?
BTW I think it looks pretty good!
Its whats on the inside that counts at the end of the day!
That hand routing looked like a SOB,Kudos for even trying it!

I think it looks great! When the lights are off you can't see the projector anyway. But you have gained some skills in this area and learned from your mistakes. Now that you know that these things really do work and should you choose in the future to make another box, you will know how you want to improve the design and also know what not to do.
great job!

Hey Scuba, yeah, that's what I have:



The first panel cut OK, it was a fairly smooth even cut. However, on the second panel the wood started to smoke and bit burnt. After that is was hell on earth trying to get grooves into anything. I cannot tell you how much time and energy I spent trying to get grooves cut.

As far as drawing X's on the fresnels go, yeah, I used dry erase marker. I could have sworn I saw someone else do that and it seemed like a good idea. On one of the fresnels it dried or baked or something and was a real pain to get off. But it did help to see if everything was centered.

Precisely! Actually what's on the outside on the screen is what matters. The enclosure could look like a wooden sculpture of dog poo if the picture was good. And it is, so I win on both accounts Good catch on the Face/Off!! I imagined projecting that as my first real shot from the day I got into this project. A dream come true



Thanks moose! Yeah, I think I'll enjoy the fruits of my labor for now and then in the future, do it again. I'd like to focus more on the internals(lighting, focus, reflector assembly, etc..) rather than worrying about the external case.

You do yourself a disservice by calling it ugly - I think your projector looks great. The projections are also quite nice, and will, no doubt, get better when you are inclined to tweak some more .

When you are feeling inspired yet again, you can fix the crack with a bit of fiberglass tape and resin, sanded judiciously. For the resot of the box, a little bit of wood filler (or bodo) around the ugly areas, sanding, and painting, will do the trick. After that, you will never be able to tell it was even repaired! I built a wooden boat and I use this for repairs all the time - works like a charm - AND - it is actually stronger than the surrounding wood areas!

Congrats on the build - bask in having conquered the setbacks !

Is that screendoor on the first shot?! (On his forehead)

That's the first time I have seen it so clearly captured on camera - but it seems almost too prominent ... Are you sure the field fresnel isn't too close to the LCD and causing some wierd moire effect? I don't see it in any of your other screenshots.

hey maler .... you got the wrong thing ... that peice you pictured is for cutting tile or the like ....

here is what I meant that you should have used .... its a plunge attachment and you can set the depth so that all you have to do is do the glide ...





and here is how its used ....




so in case you redo your panels one day .... pick this up ... may help you ...

I'm with everyone else. Ugly this aint. Your images look pretty good for right out of the shoot too. You stuck with it through the inevitable setbacks and made it work. At least you have an image to work with at this point it seems as if the rest is all fixable. Congrats!

I agree with the guy's, it all came out pretty nice in the end and you learned a lot along the way. I applaud your persistance. The screenshots look really good also(that's what counts).

One thing about routing with a Dremel: Since it is a light duty high speed tool, you will get much better cuts and tool life by not trying to bite off too much at once. A few passes, going a little deeper every time is probably going to work better to cut the slot.

ugly nothing! very nice job adapting to the "oops" situations you found yourself in, and good looking images! Very nice job overall. you should be proud of the results.

Son of a gun!! I thought what I had was basically that attachment you linked without the little table guide attachment. Well, hell's bells. I may try it out. Thanks Scuba!

Hey Sonic. I was going to mention that weird moire pattern. That's something that my camera did, I believe. Screen door would be kind of if you took those vertical lines and then added lines horizontally. Basically, you are able to see each individual pixel. Personally, i find that to be the least of my worries at the moment. Usually I don't even notice it. I'd like to get screendoor on the whole screen and then "soften" it up from there, if necessary.

Just saw HERO. What an amazing film. A perfect blend of action and story. I was quite taken aback. It's starts out and seems so simple and then just pulls you in.

Here's a shot from it. I was about three feet away from the screen. I was trying to get a pic of the screendoor, but I don't think I succeeded. Again, looks more green than the shot should be. You can see those fine lines again around the bridge of Mr Li's nose. If you were to add horizontal lines there, I suppose that would give an approximation of the screendoor effect.

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I'll play around with this camera a bit to give an idea of the quality. I'm VERY happy with it thus far.

Oh, and thanks everyone for the positive feedback!

I may have to change the topic title as I'm not fishing for compliments. Most of my pessimism in my early notes came from wanting both a really nice projected image and case. The case is OK for now and I'm really happy with the image considering I haven't done much fine tuning.

However, I DO have some questions:

1. I have a focus issue around the edges. I find that when I am "perfectly" focused in the middle area, roughly where my eyes would naturally fall during a movie, that the edges are blurry on all four sides. If I move the lense assembly, back, the edges focus and then the middle becomes blurry. What would cause this?

2. I'm getting a temp of about 93-98 degrees in the area between the rear fresnel and lcd. I think this is ok. But how hot can the lamp/wiring area get? Thus far, I think it has gotten around 105 in the back. This is with my fans turned to "medium".

thanks folks, and I do appreciate the comments!

I have to agree as well. This is not an ugly case. The picture looks great and nobody is going to see the inside anyway....and if you want to redo it later, you can!
Believe me, If I wasnt having so much fun with designing mine, I would be rushing forward with duct tape and wood clamps and have the thing done in a few hours.

You did a good job!

that Dremel attachment works really well. I was almost done but I had used cheap 1/2" pine plywood. the entire first ply broke off of one of my channels which made me sad

when I do my permanent enclosure, I am going to go this route again with a channel for top and bottom.

Well Maller, compliments I also give, but I have to say that it's a shame that you are all but finished, as this has to be the most amusing Plog on the site.
Your comments have had me rolling on the floor, while sympathizing with the situations that you describe.
Congratulations for having the determination to finish it off, others would have quit.
I hope you continue to post, adding a comedic rendition of life as a LL projector maker and user.