So im looking to decrease the height of my pj, what could i do to acheive this?
I would like to use a 15-17" panel. lenght and width arent too much a priority, but height is majorly as it has to pass wife approval. any designs out there to help with this? In a perfect world id like to fold it a couple times to reduce length and height, but im not sure if that is doable.

well no input...thats promising
anyway, here was my thought, but im not sure how much it would decrease the size, anyone good with this stuff want to do the math?

__________
_______ \
(-_______/

so here is the rough design, the lcd would lay flat the light would be in the bottom chamber, the lcd would be where the gap is and the / & \ designate mirrors, doing it this way will it decrease height at all? help with heat at all??

lol wow, so looks like crap trying to make it without a real program...ill draw something up later, but anyone understand what im thinking?

a sketch would help, just looks like you are trying to do a three tier which will prob. not work because of the angles and FOV of the fresnels.

here is a rough sketch....would this work?

yes

Certainly it can be made to work, however, in terms of it saving space... Difficult at best.

The height of the enclosure is pretty much fixed, as it needs to be tall enough to accomodate the LCD panel. A 15" panel is a bit more than 9" tall, and there needs to be some space for the electronics, so 10-12" is probably required. Similarly for the width, it has to accomodate the panel. This is a bit over 12" -- 14" internal width is pretty typical for a LL build.

Overall length is generally close to 30". You can reduce this, but only at the expense of one or both of the other two.

The smallest overall case size that I've seen is in the "folded panels" forum, I don't recall offhand whose it is. It has only a single fold, in between the panel and the projection lens. The panel is placed at an angle, so that a maximum volume is re-used in the light cone from the LCD to the triplet.

Here is a down and dirty one I just drew up real quick, should work.

Don't you use loose brightness everytime you fold it?

Maybe 5% but depends on your build capabilities, Have you seen images from my folded projectors?

Joe,

No I have not seen images from your vertical. Only seen your drawings. I have seen others though. As a matter of fact I am starting PJ version 2 which will be vertical. Which thread is it. I took a quick peek at some of your topics but didn't see any screenies.

The reason I was asking is because the LL PJ is already lumen challenged. Why fold it more than once if it doesn't get you much space for the lumens lost. Just thought that should be weighed before going with the design. Also I wasn't sure how much the dropoff was.

Is that 5% per fold or total for both?

Thanks,
Brian

5% perfold would be my guess or opinion and also depending on mirrors, must use FS mirrors if at all possible..