Ok ... So I finally got a good start on my second PJ, ran into a few snags, but im nearing completion so I figured now was the time to start my plog ......

first off I went with a Haas Style enclosure purchased from Haasman himself .....

I have stained it a color called "Rich Mahogoney", and here is a shot of the box ....

The specs on the PJ are ...

Samsung 512N LCD
Standard lens Kit
PS Venture Bulb
Coil M135 Ballast
Joe's Ikea Reflector

After having completed one projector already, I learned that adjustability is an overlooked important factor. I wanted the Lamp, Reflector to be completly adjustable in their side to side, up and down, and forward and back ranges, so I developed a rail system that allows me to accomplish this .....

Below are some pics on how I did this ... but for a description ......

I mounted 2 of the brass rails (only color I could find at the Depot) on each side of the enclosure, The reflector mount has the same rail perpindicular to the side rails attached to each end of it with bolts and wingnuts to secure it in place.

I simply untighten the nuts and a can slide the reflector assembly forward/backward/up/down .... I also can tilt this panel in case my reflector itself isnt perfectly level .....

For the lamp mount, I did the same exact thing, and all I do is loosen the nuts for a full range of adjustments ......

Another shot

Another

last shot of the rails!!

I borrowed another members idea for the reflector mount ... I believe it was OKflyboy's plog I saw it in ..... I simply used a 120mm fan grill, trimmed the inner rings and JB welded that to the reflector ....

i asked him how sturdy the JB weld held, and he replied with sturdy but not unbreakable, So I decided to use a more than abundant amount of the two part epoxy .... the result is ... the reflector would have to be CUT in order to seperate from the grill ...... very easy and reliable mount ....

Even though I have a full range of adjustability, I still wanted some guidelines to keep me on track .... I found that the silver "Sharpies" work really well when marking on a black surface ....

Since I have a Haas Enclosure, and I added all of the rails and stuff, I was left with no place for the large Coil ballast .....

To solve this, I simply built an offboard power supply, which I think is kinda cool, cause it connects similar to a laptop power supply ..... I feed an AC cord into it, and coming out of the back is a hardwired cord that plugs into the projector itself ..... Simple to build, and makes the PJ easier to move around if the need arises ....

The PS enclosure has holes drilled into the sides for ventilation, however the holes arent large enough to keep fingers out of, so I will probably make another one for safety reasons ..... I mounted the ballast from the top and bottom so the Power supply can be thrown around anyway without fear of anything becoming disconnected on the inside ...

In this pic the enclosure is kinda dusty from the sawdust in the shop ....

Here is the Power supply together with the Pj ....

Here is my first firing of the bulb

and here is a shot through the front of the enclosure before the LCD/lenses were added!!

thats all I have right now ....

the LCD/Lenses have been added, as well as the LCD electronics ...... All I need to do is install my second fan,

My first fan I burnt up in a quite funny story .....

In my intial wiring plans, I wanted to use an AC fan, but they are difficult to source, so in mid design I switched to a DC fan ..... I had already finished the wiring for the AC fan. I did switch out the 120V positive, but I forgot to switch the common from Ac common to the DC common out of the AC/Converter .....

The result ...... a 12V fan that recieved a 120V AC signal riding a +12V DC signal ..... which means it had a peak voltage of 132Volts and a negative peak of -108V ...... The fan lasted about half a second before I literally saw sparks arc in the center of the fan and smoke come out ....

Moral of the story, Even an Electrical Engineer such as myself can be careless and make simply mistakes that can be costly ... both financially and healthwise .... CompUSA did however replace the fan for me .......

Once I install the fan, I can start my tweaking .......

Ill end this post with a shot of the woodshop Ive been doing the work in .... My fiances parents own a European style woodworking buisness, where they make custom cabinets and other goodies (recently a $60,000 deal with a local catholic church to make some of the furniture)

Here is a shot of one of the alters before all trim work was completed ....

you can see more of the families woodworking at www.woodbydesign.org ....

Hey Scuba,

BRAVO! I wracked my brain(albeit temporarily as I just wanted to get it done) trying to figure out how to get light/reflector adjustability with the Haas-style enclosure. (I think it was FLY CRJ who first posted that reflector/fan cover idea). I like the silver sharpie idea too. I got so fed up trying to see pencil lines that i just ended up carving lines in with an x-acto..

Well done on the finish as well, looks like an old captain's chest or something(albeit with a telescope sticking out of the side

Once my wallet catches up with my Home Depot receipts, I may crack open my enclosure and add that adjustability set-up based on your notes.

With that new set-up, have you been able to reduce your light spill-age? Do you have any pics of that?

cheers,

-J

thanks for the comments ....

I havnt done any testing at all yet, will be getting to it this weekend. I left my LCD power supply at home when I was working at the shop, plus the little problem with the fan left me at a dead point ......

The goal was to be able to completly adjust the lighting rig in any fashion I needed, plus I can add washers/spacers for the third side to side dimension on the bulb if needed .....

your Home depot wallat will need to be filled to do this .....

the rails, where actually lid supports from Home Depot that ran $2.60 each, and you will need 7 of them ..... plus several bolts/nuts ..... I prolly spent about $30 just for this adjustment mechanism ... not alot, but it does add to the total cost of the project ....

Ok ... Update on my progress

I intially installed the CMV 520D backwards. The left to right orientation was reversed, I never bothered to look at it because all our LCDs have mounted in this fashion. After discovering that I need to flip the screen, I realized that the control boards for the CMV would have to be mounted upside down. This meant that it would be quite a difficult and fragile process in order to connect the FFC cables.

At this point I realized that I will always want to tinker this PJ for the next few months and that it would eventually lead to me breaking one of those FFCs, so I decided to sale the monitor on Ebay and went with another 512N, since only wires connect the boards together. I wanted something that would withstand a little abuse.

I fired the PJ up and let it run for awhile. this was basically to see how the cooling went and to take a look at my preliminary quality. The follow results pictures are with absolutly no tweaking done at all to bulb placement/alignment nor to the settings on the monitor itself.

Lilu of course

Nemo

Again

Terminator 2

Troy

BlackHawk Down

Austin Full Screen

Golem

Gandolph

Gladiator

Ive noticed that this PJ appears to be a little sharper than my first ... not sure why cause its the exact same parts in both (with the exception of the bulb ... )

Now of course Since I had both PJs stacked on top of each other, I had to fire them both up just for the sake of doing it ....

New one on top, Old on bottom ...

My new PJ Has the venture PS lamp, whichI believe has a color temp of 4000, while the old PJ (bottom) has a color temp of 4200 ..... Which is really odd because the new PJ seems to have a cooler color temperature to it.

I have the camera set on a 1.3 second manual exposure so it lets more light in ....

In the following picture I have both PJ's on, I had to hold the camera by hand, so the picture is blurry, but thats not what im wanting to portray .....

On the top is the gladiator scene playing on my NEW PJ .... with the No input signal screen from my old PJ projecting on top of it .....

In the middle are both the No signal screens from both PJs ... the brighter one is my Old PJ while the dimmer one is my new PJ. The camera over exposed the brighter one, in real life it is brighter but NOT by as much as this picture portrays.

On the bottom is my old PJ showing the same gladiator scene. You can tell that the old PJ has been tweaked..

I thought having both PJs like this might be interesting to do, so I will probably have it like this for the next week or so, as I tweak the new PJ .....

lastly .... in order to check out all the different scenes from all of these movies quickly. I compiled a DVD that has all the popular scenes. I made a menu in DVDfab so that I can access each movie easily, and then I put a copy of this on my harddrive in my HTPC. So now I can instantly call up any scene without having to swap DVDs out and such ....

Here is a shot of my main menu .....

Thats all for now .... Once I get this new PJ tweaked, I will clean it up ... put all the buttons on the enclosure, Apply its clear coat, and take some really good pics with my fiances new Sony Cybershot .....

Steve,

Your pj is looking great! Beautiful finish - you should be proud. Your screenshots are quite enlightening; even though the output of the newer bulb seems hotter, the older pj has a brighter image . I'm sure this will change with a bit of tweaking!!

Looking forward to more shots.

PS: Great idea about the custom DVD scenes. That would be a GREAT thing for all lumenlab customers to standardize on so we can compare screenshots. Unfortunately, since most wouldn't own all the original DVD's, it would probably also be a serious breach of copyright law.

Hey man, great idea...

Love this forum... I can learn and build from others mistakes AND triumphs!!!

Hey those bolts coming outta the sides, are they right through? What kind of bolts are they? How are they attached into the sides of the case?

Ahh ...

I will have to show pictures of that one day soon .....

I drilled the holes for the bolts to come through, but I didnt want the ugliness of them on the outside of the enclosure ...

So I got a larger drill bit, and I drilled holes halfway through the sides, so that I can countersink the bolts enough to cover them up with wooden buttons that are stained to match the sides ...

Think I saw this same method, fan grill mount, used for mounting a condenser lense in front of the light source.

Think I saw this same method, fan grill mount, used for mounting a condenser lense in front of the light source.

here are some updated pictures I took tonight .... the PJ still isnt tweaked because even though I found the perfect spot once, I ended up with a faulty venture bulb, and swapped it out for a Ushio PS. sadly I had to slide the reflector adjustment out of the way to change the bulb, and I have to start all over with finding the sweet spot ...

the first shot is from "we were soldiers", a very good movie, and a good movie to watch on the PJ, because it is nice and bright .....

Shrek

Shrek ...

again

from LOTR

....

...

lilu again .... better tweaked, but still not perfect

frodo again

what I believe to be a lumenlab first ..... found it hard to believe no Freddy Krueger had been posted before, so I had to be the first .... LOL

some star wars

...

a little tribute to punisher, cause his craftsmenship is top notch ...

spidy

incredibles