I'm making the final designs for my projector before I put it together. I'm going to be drawing it up on cad.

Its taken me FOREVER to finally get going but I had a bit of a financial crisis halfway and lost all of my saved money, I had a lot of trouble finding a job. After I finally had substantial income again it still took some time to save for all the parts. Fortunatly I was able to hang out at the forums and do research and try to come up with new idea's in the meantime.

So anyway down to buisiness.

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Heres some pics of my stripped lcd. Sorry for the poor quality, its just a webcam and I couldn't hold it still in mid air.

Heres my fully stripped lcd.

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever" - mary poppens

Black label, what exactly is that white strip? Where did you get? Looks like a very easy way of mounting and doing keystone correction.

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Where have I seen that before?? <scratches head> Is it something for flooring?

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Pulling this thing apart was without doubt the scariest thing I ever did in my life. This thing was not as easy to strip as I thought thanks to many snap in pieces (I would have prefered screws) it was a somewhat rough process but the lcd survived it and still works flawlessly. The pic below shows my lcd turned on with a lamp behind it, running Halo.

At first I didn't think this would work, but I was assuming that you would be cutting two slots (in a cross pattern) in one piece. In looking at your picture I now think that you are suggesting a vertical slot in the box and a horizontal slot in the lamp mount. This I think will work and should work well. I think this is necessay as the bulb is not a single piece it is a glass envelope with a metal screw base and there is no guarentee that the bulb you get will be straight with respect to the base or go into the socket straight. Many PJ builders have reported "Leaning Tower of Piza" effects after screeing in the bulb and have ended up putting multiple screws to allow for an tllt adjustment. I think X-Y adjestment is adequate as we are trying to use a point source but it might make a significant difference due to the inch plus arc length.

Heres a few pics of the fan I'm using for my projector. Its a 4 inch AC fan. Got it at home depot for about 20 dollars. Pluged it in to test it. Very sweet. Nice and quiete.

Size comparison next to the lumenlab evercool fan.

Side comparison. As you can see its much deeper, because this is a duct fan.

Almost done my projector, just need to mount the lcd and second fresnel, then do the wiring.

A pic of the worlds largest breadwarmer and the evil mikau!

This projector is slightly larger then a normal lumenlab projector. Its inside dimensions are about the standard outside dimensions listed in the quide. The good thing is if I ever upgrade to a 17 inch I won't need to increase my box size.

This shows the fan, sticking out the back. Not exactly pretty but its a great fan. Might attach a flex duct to it.

My focusing mechanism is the simple box within a box system. I have small bolts on the sides I can tighten to lock it in place. Also eye hooks for hanging the projector from the ceiling with chains. Just hope my sister doesn't use it as a porch swing when I'm not around!

Oh yeah. And you can see the small frame I put around the front of the triplet. This is a bumper rail to protect the triplet. If the focus box fell on the ground face down the triplet wouldn't be touched.

Heres the bulb adjustment system I thought of. The first picture shows the bulb mount. The bulb is mounted on a board with a vertical slot in it and bolted to the inside of the box.

The box itelf has a vertical slot in it and a butterfly nut for adjustment. The bulb mount pictured above is bolted through this slot. This allows me to adjust my halides position about an inch or so in all directions.

Don't say it. I already know. This is without doubt the ugliest projector in the community. I'm on a budget and couldn't afford high quality wood or a table saw. I actually had to make my own table saw for this. Simple and primitive but its better then nothing.

A little paint and nobody has to know.
Looks good, I'll look forward to seeing project pictures on the wall any day now.

How loud is the fan???

50 decibles according to the specs. But it gets quiter inside the box.

That duct isn't needed, I would cut it down as much as possible.
Then as a precaution install some screen on both sides of the fan to keep fingers from getting hurt!

But the fan looks like a good idea!

Wasn't an idea. Couldn't find an ac-dc adapter at home depot so I just bought a new fan.

Saddly between the motor and the fan blades their isn't much to come off without exposing them. Besides, because those things are design to fit inside a pipe, cutting out the hole for it, I didn't even have to screw it in. It fit snugly and tightly inside it.

How long is the enclosure for the fan?
The fan isn't as long as the tube is it?

I might have to waddle down to Home Depot and take a look at one!

Couldnt find an DC adaptor? Dear god...

Obviously they are not as common in the States as over here, but over here all good hardware shops and electrical shops normally sell small little DC power supplies. And you can use computer power supplies too, although they are somewhat overpowered for the job (you would only be using a fraction of their capacity).

My god... How can you say that. Have you seen mine? (points at plog link below). Mine has been called everything from a polaroid camera to an emperial spacewalker look-a-like.

PJ's just don't get any uglier than mine.

lol. Well at least you have nice wood and clean cuts.

Well as I said in the help forum, my projector brightness was pretty lousy and I lost almost all faith in the project. But I suspected maybe the bulb wasn't working properly. So I bought a cheap home depot halide which seems to be very similar to the old mh400 bulbs. Its bloody huge! The bulb only outputs 22,000 lumens but worked 10 times better then my ushio. So clearly something was wrong with it. The image is now very watchable though it could be a bit brighter.

Today I mailed my ushio back to lumenlab so I guess I'll probably get it in about two weeks. Oh well at least I have this bulb for now.

Considering that the ushio is 50% brighter then the bulb I have now (when its working properly) and once I get a reflector, the image should be twice as bright as it is now.

I'll take some pics of my completed projector and projection shots once I find some film for my camera. Its getting hard to find these days.