Well, i think is time to start a plog, at least a brief one.
Here is my list of items:

- Haas box (cool design, buddy)
- LL Lenses kit
- Osram HQI-T 400w 33k lumens
- Coil ballast (cased)
- Policarbonate 4mm with UV (not Lexan, other brand)
- LG 1530s (coming soon, I hope) (Red-24 excellent stripping guide got me)
- 120 mm fan
- Wires and more wires
- Tons of patience

And now some pics


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I know, is dirty but nothing too terrible

Lets fire it up (no flames so far!)

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Wow, this is getting brighter, my crappy camera cant get it properly (the pic looks VERY green, but is not like that at all in real life, I think is a lcd camera related problem, as I saw many times)

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Nice box. Did you build that yourself?

Yep, with a little help from a friend.
No cnc here! But Im seriously thinking about building one of those anytime soon (first things first).

Another one from the back.
Below (over the case base) you can see the cased coil ballast with a fan attached to it. I left it outside the box because is damn heavy and hot.

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Nice work, so far.

I´ve noticed two shadows here (one is fainter as you can see).
Is this related to the placement of the reflector? Or the aluminium flashing perhaps? Is this going to cause any trouble with the image quality?

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Nice PJ! Very professional looking. I wouldn't worry about the shadows - yet

Nice box. This proves that you don't need the high dollar tools to get a good result you just need to take you time and plan everything out.

I really like the 3 circles cut on the stand. Nice work. What size are those holes?

The big one is 3,5", the others are 2,5". My initial plan was to cut 3 triangles around the big one, but I think is just fine like it is.
Thanks to all for the compliments!

Today I have drilled the hole for the triplet, and now Im trying to build a focus mechanism a la punisher. More pics soon...

My monitor has not arrived yet, so Im testing the pj with some old slides I´ve found...

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The quality in real life is very good, very bright and vibrant colors

They look a bit soft, but is my fault

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One thing I have noted is that if I gently push the front fresnel a bit forward toward the triplet, the light gets whiter and brighter, the fresnel grooves dissappear (they were quite present), the image gets bigger of course, and everything looks more even.

Im quite sure the field fresnel is at 320 mm from the triplet, and the collimator is at 220 mm from the core of the lamp.... so?

If you're seeing the grooves of the fres then it's too close to your LCD, like you're focused on both the LCD and the fres. The fres in front isn't for focus as much as to collect all the light/ keystone and push it through the pj lens. The pj lens should be *at least* 320 mm from the LCD so that would bring the front fres ~25mm closer to the pj lens. Does that make sense?

I think the lcd is supposed to be at 340mm from the triplet, and the field fresnel at 320mm (as stated in the guide). I pushed the field fres a bit forward (about 10 mm, so now it is at 30mm from the lcd) and now it looks a bit better.

OK! Here is what I got so far.
First I want to thank to Red-24 for his excellent LG 1530 stripping guide, this thing was a bliss to strip
Praises goes to HaasMan too, for his nice box design!

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OK, my damn lcd camera keeps on taking green pics, is not like this in real life.

There are few things you can see here. First, some cables got loose so you can see their shadows here and there.
Secondly, I think my lcd is a bit misplaced (or my fresnel is). the right side is slightly out of focus.

(btw, those black boxes on each side are my surround speakers, this is (for now) the only white wall I have cleared!)

The pic looks somehow brighter than real life, I have not dark corners though.
I think Im going to put the bulb a little closer to the rear fresnel, and check out the field fresnel for focus.

What do you think?

More tweaks...

I´ve managed to put the bulb closer (about 1"), now the image is quite brighter! I think is as good as the pic in real life, and more sharp.

No dark corners at all. I forgot to secure those cables and the light leakage, though

Things to do: move the reflector nearer the bulb, secure the boards and try to dremel the plastic frame so I can mount the buttons outside the pj.

More soon....

nice work so far - seems to have good color!

More tweaking....
This thing gets better and better. I´ve figured out how to take more realistic pics with my cam.

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Still have to get rid of light leakings though. There are 2 faint "hot spots" on my screen (up and down, they are visible in real life only).

I think they might be the result of the light being reflected on the aluminium frame of the lcd.

And another one... this one is very popular around here....

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The image looks way better (contrast/brightness/sharpness) in real life (now I understand why everybody complains about lcd cameras).

Wow... I was gonna comment on how clean your box looks, but now I can add that he picture looks great, too!

Try various aperture and exposure settings on your camera. A higher F-stop with a longer shutter speed will probably make it look more like it does in real life... though even a slightly-muddy picture can't disguise the quality of your results. Congrats!

Have you tried ffdshow yet? At the stage you're at, a little bit of sharpening would really make your picture kick!

Thanks Dweezilkid (hard to type!)

Yes, I have tried ffdshow, Im using a bit of sharpening. My camera is to blame for softening the pics!

I had no results at all by resizing it to 1440, besides my computer starts to stutter a lot! I think is not possible to give it a resolution that is beyond the capabilities of the lcd, it has no sense to me. If the video has 704x480 of information, and your display is set at 1024x768 by default, thats all you are going to get, simply there are no more pixels left in your lcd to fill those 1440.

Finished PJ

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Awesome PJ kv29!
Very professional finish and results! Congrats. I gave up on ffdshow as well for the same reasons. If you keep tweaking, don't forget to post pics.

The pj is no longer mine
As soon as a friend of mine saw it, he put some $$$ on the table and took it away in a blink ..... Now I can build mine for free.

Cool kv29 - I bet you starting designing before you even counted the cash. Now you can take all that you've learned (and earned) and build the PJ of your dreams - without that stinkin' "budget" monkey on your back

Congrats and good luck!

dang! can you at least take some pictures of the $$ you got?

Donkeytech, you are absolutely right. Im after a Pun15her stryle pj this time (there is nothing wrong with the other, its only I want to try the best of both worlds)

SIMUL8TR, money burns in my hands (I couldn´t handle it any longer ), so I ´ve already bought the parts with it.

Expect new pics soon...