I'm about to begin construction on my projector, so I thought I should start a PLOG and list my general design plans for critique before I mess something up.

Parts:
-CMV CT-520D (I was trying to use a Planar PT1503N LCD (I got a few of these with various problems, hopefully I can get the parts I need out of the batch, otherwise I'll be in the market for a good LCD for this project) but couldn't get the parts to work, and they were old and the specs weren't great)
-Lens Kit from Lumenlab
-Ultimate Lighting kit from Lumenlab
-Ikea napkin ring holder as a reflector
-Lexan XL10 and Optix (to replace tempered glass and for mounting front fresnel) also, somehow I managed to order Lexan that is 1/16" too small, but I will try to make due, if not I'll have to buy another piece
-105x80 blackout drapery liner from Walmart
-One PCAC from Lumenlab for cooling, might get 2x 120mm fans to get better cooling

Everything should be arriving sometime next week, I can't wait. This weekend I will strip the LCDs and verify that I have enough functional components. Then I will start the enclosure. This time I plan to use 3/4" plywood that I have laying around. If this turns out well, I will most likely make a better enclosure (possibly based of off Haas' design) but I want to stick to a simple box this time around.

After looking over the many designs I have seen here, I think I will make mounts for each component (Lexan, fresnel, LCD, etc) that will fit the inside demensions of the box so that I can move everything around until I'm happy with where it is.

The only part of the project that I am uneasy/have no plans for is the cooling. I bought one of the PCAC fans from Lumenlab, but I am not sure if I want to use that or another 120mm fan, or possibly both. I am looking at the Kingwin F-012BB (30dBA, 79.14CFM). Maybe I will get 2 of them. No idea. Any help here would be appreciated.

As I have nothing built yet, I have nothing to take pictures of. I will take plenty of pics of the LCD stripping and post them as soon as I have the LCDs and am ready to start stripping (hopefully this weekend). I really have a fair amount of time free in the coming weeks, so hopefully this project can be completed quickly.

Please post any comments that you may have about my basic design or anything I have done along the way. Especially if I do something really stupid and don't notice.

The best suggestion that I have for you is to take your time. Make sure that you have everything perfectly lined up or that it is going to be before you permanently mount stuff. This will help you get the best results possibly.

Also, as you make your sleds and mounts for things, make sure that the center of you lcd runs right down the centerline of your box. In mine I made the lcd sled a little wider on one side than on the other and had to try to slide everthing else over. That was a very bad plan. I don't know that you would have made that mistake, but make sure you avoid it.

I just have the one fan at the back of my case on the bottom and that has worked out great for me. It is fairly noisy though. It is 102mm and I got it from RadioShack. One 120mm fan should work for you for cooling, but you might be able to make it quieter with two.

I hope everything goes well.

EDIT:
Apparently I will be getting a few (3) LCDs that have various problems from work to test and see if I can get the parts I need for the projector. Dissasembling them will begin in the next few days after a re-read of the guides here. I will post a few pics along the way.

Just stripped one of the bad LCDs (this one won't turn on, I decided it would be good practice). It went very quickly and the panel has no FFC issues (the only FFCs are the ones coming directly off the LCD panel itself) all of the control boards connect to to each other without FFCs. Also, all of the boards appear to be seperate (one for power and LCD control, another for sound, and another for the backlight. I need to find a small screwdriver to remove the remaining screws before I can free the LCD itself from the backlight. Tomorrow I will find/buy one of these and take apart another monitor to see if the control board will work in this one. I took quite a few detailed pictures of the stripping process and I will post a few later. It seems that I have a very uncommon model LCD so I don't think I will post a detailed quide with all the pictures but I would be happy to send the pictures along to anyone who is interested. Interestingly, Samsung's logo is on a few of the boards and on a sticker on part of the mounting frame.

One question: When I resassemble this for testing or for final mounting in the projector, do I need to connect all of the grounds together? There are tons of them throughout the LCD. Where should they all be connected to? There is only + and - 12v coming into the LCD so I would assume that should only be connected together, including the - 12v on the power in on the power connector.

As always, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I will post a few pictures later tonight or tomorrow.

Here's a pic of the various boards on the back of my LCD

Showing the FFC connected directly to the LCD and the board on the side that is connected to nothing other than the LCD (kinda weird)

One more showing the FFCs on the LCD. I have more, but I don't think I will need to post them as no one else has this model LCD. If you think they would be useful, let me know I will post a few more or send them to you. They are all much larger (8 megapixels) than these if anyone is interested in some more detail anywhere along the way.

I took apart the other 2 LCDs I got from work and found that all of them have a bad controller board (the "main board" in the picture above). On one of them, as soon as the correct (1024x768) signal is applied, the LCD begins to turn white (slowly) and some parts on the board begin to overheat. The LCDs are apparently reaching the end of their lifespan, as quite a few at work have broken recently (it's all making me question whether or not I want to use this model). A co-worker took home some of the other broken LCDs and he has agreed to give me 1 or 2 to see if I can find a good board. Either way, I think I'll make my box a bit bigger than I need to allow for an upgrade to a new LCD.

Been busy lately. Decided that with the failure rate of the LCDs from work and their poor specs, that I should do this semi-right the first time around. I ordered a CMV 520D and it should be here before the weekend. Hopefully I will be able to put a lot of time into it this weekend. I have everything else I need, but I ordered my piece of XL10 a bit on the small side. Should work anyway though.

Got my 520D yesterday. Hopefully, I will begin construction of the enclosure tomorrow.

Built the box yesterday with the help of my father (and his workshop and free wood). My box is made of 1/2" cabinet grade plywood. I will take pictures later. I have begun stripping the LCD and will begin work on the sled for the LCD (similar to GadgetSmith's, see his PLOG for more info). So far, my LCD still works (hopefully it will stay that way). I still haven't decided if I want to disconnect the FFCs or not. I will post my progress and a few pictures later today.

I've considered mounting my bulb vertically. More on this here. I designed my box with a 4" false bottom for wiring and mounting the ballast and the power supplies, etc. The inside dimensions were made a bit larger than they needed to be for flexability. The inside is 12x14. My bulb in the socket (as far as I can get it easily) is a tad under 7" meaning that I would need to mount it almost directly to the side of the box with very little room for a mounting system that would let me adjust the size in the future. This seems a bit larger than the other bulbs I have seen here. Anyway here are some pictures that should explain my box design.

A view of the bottom and mounts for the false bottom. Hopefully my father will have some time soon to work on the sleds (I really have no idea what I'm doing and he does lots of woodworking, so I will have to wait for his help). As always, please point out any glaring mistakes I may have made or anything else I should do differently.

Looking good. Like the (birch?) plywood you used. Looks like you're off to a great start - nice square box and LCD stripped without incident . That false bottom will provide a great space to keep your electronics - as large as they are, space is still at a premium in these projectors.

BTW - will 12" be enough for your width? Mounting the LCD and fresnels might be a bit tricky with this little room?

It's 12 high by 14 wide, and then 4 more inches for the false bottom. I know I could have made it a bit smaller all around, but I wanted ot have plenty of room to work with. Shouldn't have a problem mounting stuff in that space. My father had the cabinet grade plywood left over from another project and it looked good for this. It's also only 1/2" so the box should be lighter than some of the other ones around here (not that I plan on moving it around a lot, but it can't hurt). I haven't finished stripping the LCD because I'm not quite ready to make the sled to mount it, but it looks like all will go well. I will be working on the LCD and fesnel sleds sometime this weekend.

I finished all of the required parts of the projector on friday and built a screen. It's awesome. (I'm using it now, a screen of about 72x99) I haven't even installed the reflector or tweaked it (currently the corners are out of focus, I'm not sure what causes this but I really didn't spent too much time aligning anything. I also need to build a top and clean the fresnels and lexan. My major concern was with cooling, and everything seems to be fine. I've run the projector for about 3 hours max and only had the temperature rise to about 9-10F above the room temperature. I have 2 fans with an ouput of a little less than 160 CFM total. I have the probe almost directly under the LCD. Another thing that needs to be done is fix some of the major light leaks. the 2 120mm fans aren't helping this too much. I also need to seal under the LCD a bit better. I will take some pics and post them sometime in the next few days.