ok, i'm giving my diy skills a try... not much experience in this deptartment but what better way to learn then to try out a project like this

basic parts list first i guess:

LCD
hyundai L72S, 1280x1024, 8ms, 700:1 contrast, 0.264 pitch
tigerdirect.com

bulb
venture 400W PS model #40124
bulbconnection.com

ballast
venture V90D7612K pulse start ballast
hidirect.com

reflector
had bought the ikea but it looks like the bulb may be too big for the ikea

triplet
LL standard

fresnels
395mm ( size not focal length )
3dlens.com

plan is to use 1/2" MDF for box


started with the LCD disassembly to get an idea of box and lcd frame sizes needed


LCD with front frame taken off


flipped over, electronics cover and frame


electronics frame detached


was worried about yanking on connection between control board and lcd so...


broke out some clippers and taught that frame a lesson.

more LCD stripping..


control board free from frame


LCD connectors exposed


metal cover removed


finally we see the LCD panel itself


LCD freed

next started assembling frames for LCD and fresnels. following method found in punisher's plog using L shaped wood stips to assemble the frames and threaded rods to hold everything together

mucked up a few pieced before i got the angles right... like i said, i'm new at this.

finally able to get something that resembled a frame


didn't have much in terms of clamps so went the bungie cord route while the gorilla glue dried..

other 2 frames "clamped" with glue drying




stacked up


glueing the pieces for the threaded rods

good start!!! im traveling down the same lines with the 17" hyundai ,good to see some one else having a go at this one,only down side i think is the box size ,good luck with your efforts .

yeah, i'm further along really than the pics provided.. but my other pics are still on my camera the box did end up pretty large... and HEAVY with the coil ballast in it.

ok now that the frames are assembled i figured its a good time to give the light a shot..

some pics of the wiring



mogul propped in place with a brick and a book on electric circuits.. so if this thing catches fire.. imagine the irony...

crossed my fingers and flipped the switch



success! the bulb works, no fires started one small step in the right direction

Great work so far! I can't wait to see what that lcd can do! 8ms response, 720p with 700:1 contrast ratio! Now thats the stuff dreams are made of!

Oh and if your using the venture part number 40124, the ikea reflector is more then big enough. Some said that the bulb should be placed right up against the venture for ideal reflector distance. I did that and got a bit of hotspotting in the middle. I then drew the reflector to scale and used a compass to the point equidistant from all points on the reflector. Ended up with the center being about 1.5 inches from the flat front of the reflector. It looks too far away but the light distribution was much more even, so I guess its correct.

hmm.. i'll have to give that a try.. i thought i remember somewhere that the focal point of the ikea was ~ 25mm from edge of reflector which at best puts the reflector right against the surface of the bulb to be effective.. i guess i'll have to experiment with it a bit before totally giving up. i have not gotten to installing the reflector just yet do we see what happens

now that the frames are assembled, time to figure out a way to align them up. my solution was to use strings at the midpoints of the open areas of the frames, use them to locate the midpoint of each of the frames and line the 3 frames up by thier midpoints.








frames set up in the threaded rods.. positioned vertical here but the proj. will not be a vertical setup.

wow, the downside of living in an apartment is projects like this consume your enitre living space.. what a mess this place has been become over the past few days....


1 cusion available for sitting.. the rest serve as a table


rest of living room.. parts, tools, etc.. everywhere


kitchen also taken over.. good thing there's plenty of take-out in the area


lastly the kitchen table doubling as a workbench...

will there ever be cleanliness in my life again?

now on to box assembly using 1/2" MDF. started with cutting a hole for switch and power socket from an old pc power supply, as well as cutting out a 92mm fan hole.




switch and powwer socket installed



box with lamp in place and wired up

now the box with the light running




an idea of how much light coming out of the box....

starting to put things together for the first test runs...

first the frames mounted in the threaded rods.



box with LCD boards installed.


and now the box with the LCD frames in place.


finally ready for a test run..

Looks great.. I am also using the exact same monitor in a Vertical design.. monitor stripping guide is pretty neat... waiting to c the results from this monitor.... Good luck...

You must not be married, my wife would file for divorce 2 secs after seeing this!

you guess correct, no spouse here.. the pj will be for my enjoyment only. though on occasion i may allow my girlfriend to watch with me.

Hehehee. This is neat compared to my house. 2 kids, 1 wife and laundry that seems to grow from the back of the couch. Sometimes I miss the bachelor life....

yeah.. definatly allows me to work on what i want when i want.. i'll enjoy it while it lasts

Nice parts, and setup so far.

Looking Good

ok had some time to post more pics..

first test run with frames in place ( though not fine tuned ), triplet in place but no focusing mech yet..

here's a view from the top with all the parts in place.. no reflector yet either.


bulb is also off center line, will line that up later

here's the box at this point, no air inlet yet and front piece is only temporary to see what kinda image i can get..



thought this was a neet pic... view with front off when i first turned the lamp on..


and finally.... ( drumroll please )... my first succesfully projected image!


notice something wrong? thats right... in the process of pouring over tons of forums i somehow got it in my head that the fresnel grooves need to point AWAY from the LCD... lo and behold the proper arrangment is clearly shown in the plans... when in doubt, CONSULT THE PLANS YOU PAID FOR!

anyway.. after flipping the fresnels around, i gave it another try and here is the result.



like everyone else, pic is brighter in person, though i still need to get my fresnels and bulb aligned and add the reflector for increased brightness. playing with the front piece with the triplet installed i was able to obtain a nice sharp focus over ~90% of screen but the corners have focus issues which i still need to work out. plenty of to-do's still just wanted to get my first good projected image up

May i suggest then when you add a shim to get the bulb centered in the box you also add adjustablity so that you can move the bulb forward/backwords. It will make for easy fine tuning.

Cheers

i believe i can get it centered horizonally easy enough by sliding it out along the bolts a bit. the vertical height is already pretty good ( though adjustability would be preferable ) the only variable then is the bulb to fresnel distance that i'd also have to adjust, which i guess can be lined up by moving the frame assembly itself closer to the bulb.

i do have an idea to make the bulb adjustable though if i want to make the effort.. i guess i'll have to see if it becomes necessary or not.

had some time tonight to play around with the camera so took a few more screenshots.

first the good ones..


"..this perpetual motion machine is a joke, i mean it just keeps going faster and faster!"


"hmmm.. they had that one when i was a student too.."

here is an updated desktop pic..

still having trouble getting all 4 corners in focus.. image right now is "only" 75" diagonal.. could be a result of the larger screen size with the standard triplet?

incredables pose..


and now, the problem i'm having....

ok onto the problem i'm having right now..

here's a few screenshot from Hero


closeup of jet-li's leg


and one more with problem areas highlighted..


as you can see, especially in the last pic, i'm having problems getting all the colors projected.. its almost as if the LCD is running in 16-bit color mode even when the input source is defiantly in 32-bit mode.. its not only in dvd's do i see this problem but also on my desktop, and when viewing images.. etc..

here's a test pattern pic i found on google images..

this is the original which i resized down to 640x480 for the post


now the same image when projected.


notice the banding of the colors in the upper spectrum bar and the sharp transistions between the white to grey to black in the lower graydiant compared to the original.

i have all the updated driver's and everything for my LCD but cant seem to shake this problem. i feel like i'm not getting all the colors i should be getting displayed... does everyone experiance this or have any suggestions?

I had a similar problem with my lcd. I found out that there was insufficient airflow across the lcd and it was slowly overheating. The colours looked terrible for about an hour and then the lcd got to the point where is started going black. Once I saw the screen start to blacken, I knew what it was and fixed the airflow. It may not be the cause of your problem, but it might be worth looking into.


Al

thanks, i'll look into the temperature issue. i think i have pretty good airflow onto the LCD, my air intake slot is nice and wide and the exhaust fan is blowing out pretty well, though i have yet to actually measure the temp near the LCD. also the problem manifests itself right from the start even when the box is not that hot inside.

I took a QUICK runthrough your PLOG again and I dont see any UV shielding in use. Although I dont think the guide calls for it, its pretty much a given that we should block UV to the LCD. Even if your LCD is cool, the UV might be effecting it. Just for the fun of it, you might want to slip a sheet of XL10 in there.

yeah, i probably did not mention it in my log but the rear frame has a sheet of lexan in front of the fresnel, green side facing bulb..

here's a pic of the frames before i peeled all the plastic off the lexan

Well that answers that. Have you tried a different computer to render the image? Another thing you might want to try is getting a magnetic compass and passing it around your components to see if you have any interference.

At this point I would start looking more closely at the heat issue. Could your LCD controller be overheating?

You might want to take pictures of the same still every 10 minutes for a bit. To see a sort of time lapse effect.

Check your video cable, it be your video cable is too close to your power cable
and is causing interference.



HTH

FS

i think my next step will be to drag my PC into the other room and hook it up to the pj.. the pics have all been taken using my laptop as the video input. i'm hoping that this is the issue. i'll also look into the control board getting too hot as well as checking all the connections to ensure they're nice and secure. thanks for the suggestions

oh.. just thought of one more thing.. the grounding cable from the LCD control board is also just dangling right now, i'll try hooking that to the grounding cable from the LCD power board.. its worth a shot.

I know this issue. Its a colour saturation issue easily fixed by lowering contrast and/or saturation untill resolved.

good idea.. i'll give that a try first. thanks!

ok i seem to have solved the problem. i think it may have been a loose connector between the LCD control board and the panel itself. i tighted all the connections up and it cleaned it right up.

before


after



before


after


also the bottom of my screen is dimmer than the top.. i'm guessing my bulb is not properly aligned vertically.. looks like i'll have to build in adjust another axis of adjustability after all..

prob on of the best screen caps i have so far..

Ssssscccchhhhwwwweeeeeetttttt!

ok i think i'm going to add bulb adjustability to my setup... the drawer track concept looks interesting but i'm unsure as to where i can get very short tracks... i've looked at places like hd and lowes and the shortest they sell are 12" i think and way to bulky imo for this kind of application and seem like they'd be a pain to cut

other suggestions for simple bulb adjustment ( height and distance to fresnel adjustability ) are more than welcome

some pics of my attempts to line up the bulb in the center of the box

i have lines drawn on the box bottom and sides with which the lcd and fresnel frames are lined up with. borrowed a laser level from my folks to help with the alignment.


looks like my vertical alignment was pretty good without adjustability




now lining up the bulb with the vertical centerline.. it was actually off by about 1-2mm before lining up with the laser.. hopefully this will result in move even lighting..


in the dark... ooooh!


so it looks like the bulb is lined up pretty good now. time for more testing...

freaking lazer beams.

dude, i want that lazer thing.

Hey, i have a question, is your front fresnel goign to be able to keystone? if not, using your design, how would u make it so it can?

also can u explain how ur lenses. cd. lexan is staying on the rod?

i'll be able to have a small degree of keystoning on the front fresnel by moving the bottom of the front fres frame out relative to the top... i plan on building a shelf on my wall ( the room is not very large ) to place the projector on so that it shoots straight at my wall so hopefully keystoning much will not be necessary...

the fresnels and lexan are held in place by wooden frames i built for them which were then mounted onto the threaded rods.

you can see in this pic, from the right to the left, the first frame with the lexan and rear fres. then the middle frame holds the LCD, and the leftmost frame holding the front fresnel. i can tweak the distances between each by adjusting the nuts on the frames.


from top, light coming from top of picture.


now from the front


here's the frames in the threaded rods stacked vertically.


the lexan and fresnels are glued into the frames.. the LCD frame was a tight fit and i was actually able to squeeze the lcd ( in its metal frame from the original monitor ) into the wooden frame i built without needing to glue it.

pic of the frames without the lenses installed.

later installed 4 mdf supports at the loose ends of the threaded rods which then attached into the projector case.. by removing 4 bolts and unplugging the cable from the lcd control board, i can remove the assembly from the projector case and it is nice and sturdy..

here u can see the 2 MDF supports attached to the ends of the threaded rods, and the bolts that attach them to the sides of the projector box.

yup.. fun stuff..

ok i've been working on my dim corners issue a bit with the help of my trusty laser level.... i believe i've come to the conclusion that despite my best efforts to align the bulb 220mm from the rear fresnel, the bulb is too far away.

i removed the bulb and placed the level at approx the same location where the bulb arc center is ( i guesstimated a bit )... and projected a vertical line from it through the fresnels and one to the triplet. when the beam is aligned with the center of the fresnels, i get the focused beam falling nicely on the triplet lenses... if i rotate the level a bit to sweep the vertial beam over to the fresnel edges, i notice a lot of spillage around the triplet which can be alieviated by moving the level closer to the rear fresnel. as i sweep the bean back to center, the spillage goes away and then re-appears as i approach the other fresnel edge..

though trial and error and judging the amount of spillage around the triplet i beleive i can achieve far less light spillage ( and hopefully brighter edges ) by moving my bulb forward ( or rear fresnel backwards ) a bit..

currently gorilla glueing some leftover L strips together to make rails to use to adjust the bulb distance to the rear fresnel so we'll see how that goes..

Can't wait to see the results!
I'm alittle confused about this last test procedure using the laser level.
I understand that you're starting with the laser level projecting a vertical eminating from when the bulb arc was. What I'm confused about is exactly how you rotated and moved it to determine optimal placement.
Did you tilt it until the beam went from fresnel corner 2 corner?

You see I'm about to start ordering parts and I want to make sure I have a good understanding of how get even lighting and focus corner 2 corner.

Please clarify for a total newbie about to dive in head first!
Thanks.

what i did was place the level so that the beam forms a vertical line right down the center of the rear fresnel and i could look between the rear fresnel and LCD panel and see the beam also on the LCD and making its way to the triplet, and onto my wall. i then rotated the level so that the vertical beam was right at the point where it was still passing through the fresnel and hitting the lcd ( which is the edge of where light from the bulb would be making it to the LCD ) the beam is still vertical at this point but at the edge of the LCD instead of through the center. with it positioned this way, i could see a significal amount of spillage and a lot of the light focused from the front fresnel missing the triplet.
when i rotate the level in the other driection, back through center, towards the other edge of the LCD, i again see more spillage, this time on the other side of the triplet.
by moving the entire level forward a bit and repeating the process, i see significatly less spillage around the triplet, which leads me to think my current bulb position is not optimal. i have not tried rotating the level to produce a diagonal corner to corner beam but its a good idea also and i'll give that a try tonight.

i'll try to get some pics of the process up shortly as well, problem is its pretty dark when i do this and its tough to get good pics of the beam and the light spillage.

Got it. Thanks for the clarification. I lust after that laser lever. One of the coolest tools ever!

just a few pics of latest work...

placed level @ arc center of bulb


and projected beam through fresnels onto triplet...



as the beam is moved over to the LCD edge, the spillage on the triplet becomes very apparent.

started working on rails to make bulb position adjustable.. used some leftover L strips from frames to make tracks.. i'll have two sets, one to adjust the bulb distance to the fresnels and another to adjust the bulb height..

glueing the tracks for horizontal adjustment.


here's how the bulb mount will slide horizontally in the rails.


attaching a second set of rails to the horizontal mdf to allow for vertical adjustment as well.


here's how it'll look once the everything is assembled


still need to come up with a mechanism to hold the bulb mount in place vertically as it'll prob side down once everything is attached... i'll come up with something

I have a stupid question...

Has anybody used mirrors anywhere near the light to reflect more light? Or will this refract the light to much causing spillage all over the place?