Does the vertical center of the fresnals need to be the center of the lcd? I have my fresnals lined up with the bottom of the lcd. Is that OK?

Thanks,
Brian

It will project OK but your lamp and triplet will have to be higher also to be properly aligned. Plus you will lose the ability to keystone a full 4:3 image.

Doesn't the output image get affected if the fresnels aren't lined up with the lcd?
I thought it would, why is it it doesn't?

Well as you get to the outer extremes of the projection area, focus and brightness may be worse.

Yeah, I aligned the triplet based off of the center of the bulb which is aligned with the center of the lcd. I also aligned the triplet to the center of the lcd. When I fired it up for the first time the light did not hit the triplet. I am trying to figure out what is the best way to fix this. I could lower the fresnals I guess. Any suggestions would be great.

Thanks,
Brian

If you have room to lower the fresnels, you should do so.

Thanks for the quick response DeathRay. Watching Return of the Jedi with my son. I just got my PJ running tonight. I will adjust it after the movie is over. I have a ton of light leakage but I am still impressed with the quality. I can't wait to get it dialed in.

It's not CRITICAL that they be lined up to the center, but it helps tremendously with light output. You want to shoot for all optical elements to be as close to aligned to the center as possible.

The way I built was to align the internal optics up as closely as possible and then I installed my triplet in the exact place where the light was focused. That way I could be certain I had as much light as possible entering the triplet. I actually had to redo my triplet placement on a couple occasions, but that took a lot less time than re-aligning all the other stuff.