Hi Everyone!
well here goes, my first projector & DIY Experiment!

using:
ll lens kit
ll light kit
ll power adapter
18mm mdf wood for enclosure
currently have sony lcd, but im hoping to get the benq 567 v2

Tools:
drill
circular sander
holesaw kit for triplet.
flathead screwdriver
Lumenlab forum + guide. <--- v.important
saw

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the enclosure must start.
with this piece of 18mm mdf wood, size 4 foot by 8 foot...which left me with approx half left over, which im planning to use for the lens holders.

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process...

slowly but surely, im getting there

( i later found out that i cut the lid of the projector the same width as the base,
you must take into account the sides of the box which will be wider than the base you cut. so you will need a larger lid, if your are planning to sit the lid on top of course.)

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Up at 7am to start cutting the enclosure.
ive just finished cutting the wood.... thought i would post a pic up.


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these screws were not put in exactly straight. so had to be removed and re positioned.. after starting to split a section of the wood.

EDIT: I BOUGHT A DRILL AND RE DRILLED THE HOLES... MUCH MUCH BETTER NOW.
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Its looking promising : D I am just starting out as well. I look forward to watching your progress, and learning from your mistakes : D haha. : P jk. gl!!

one side attached

there not perfect... i am waiting on the electric sander to arrive so i can square everything up.. its nice to see some kind of shape happening with the box, all i have is a saw.. and self tapping screws.. so if you dont have many tools... all is not lost. not yet anyway.

it does appear to take alot longer of course.. a drill would have been really handy today.

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well it was a useful day, but have to pack it in.

you got some tight quarters, like the leaf inlay on the wood floor, You have a MDF storage unit on one complete wall, No closets? lol

Don't forget to predrill the MDF screw holes will prevent it from spliting, unless you use wood glue and nail gun.

Joe

Thanks Joe!
will keep posted.

hey, I just 'finished' my projector and i'm a DIY noob in the UK too.

good luck with it, keep us posted on how it goes

hi
how did yours go? did it work well.. and what size image did you get off a 15" lcd cant wait to finish this project... ill add more pics as i do the box.
im hoping tonight i can get the side panels at least cut into position... also, has anyone used a hinge for the lid, i would like to use one for easy opening and closing with a rubber seal on the edge to give complete coverage for light.

Hey, mine went along just fine. I did make sure I checked everything a few times which in the end helped massivly becuase I still made loads of mistakes, haha.

yes it works so well I can't belive my eyes whenever I turn it on. My image has been as big as >9ft x 6"6 I belive it could go bigger but I didn't have a proper surface to test it on, it spilled over my screen and onto the floor/walls around it. Once I moved it forward and focused it all in it fits very nicely onto a screen of 6"10 x 5"5 (rough height estimate). I used to have a commercial projector and this one throws a larger image and I am confident it's also much brighter!

the hinge will work fine as long as it doesn't let any air/light through then it'll work well. My top just sits on at the moment as I didn't want to add a hinge until my air flow was sorted

good luck with it mate, will be watching to see how it pans out

is there a reason why i dont want air to escape, it is for the cooling system?.. to keep pressure up etc..
thanks

well the downside of my PJ is that the air isn't flowing properly between the LCD and the rear fresnel so I can't get it cool enough for it to run for a long time (i.e. I have to fix the air flow or things will go bad.)

you wanna know about air flow, i didn't know a smuch as I shoudl've and it may be a pain to fix at a later date.

thanks for the info, im gonna read up now on cooling systems,
although the guide says that one 120mm should be fine, im thinking about installing two.. or more likely three. and running them off a pc power supply.

can someone please tell me if using metallic silver spray paint that is heat proof to 250 degrees celcius. is a good idea for the back end of the enclosure. under and around the bulb...ballast etc... will this reflect or change the image.

i have just had to pay £55 to customs to release my equipment
, im pretty dissapointed but what can you do. it works out to be around 20% of the total cost.
has anyone had this problem.
ryan

gutted! I had no customs, nor do I ever pay customs on anything I order. I think I am very lucky as I import regurly (not rubbing it in there honestly). I dont know why customs fee fit to charge so much, they really are cheaky.

as for three fans, that's really excessive, honestly two can easily be too many.

You might want to move air @ roughly 80-120CFM. I currently use a thermaltake quiet fan which is 120mm and only 52CFM and my temps are a bit too high, I have a replacement which I hope will do a better job.

I also use a PC power supply for my monitor and fan, it works wonders. I also plan to integrate my thermometer into it when i can get a voltage down to 1.5 somehow, it's easily possible. plus with a PC PSU it's easy to add a switch to power the mointor and the fans

good luck with it all.

aslong as it pays off with the projector result i dont mind...
wont be buying anything from america again thou.. unless its ll

however im happy i chose lumenlab to buy the lens from though plus lights.
i wanted there stuff for my first pj at least and probably use them again.

do i draw the lines on the actual wood.. or do i include the enclusure base plus walls when finding the centre of the front..

does anyone know the size of the circle i need to drill out instead of waiting for the triplet lens to arrive.


and im stuck how to make a focus point for the front.. i need to make one unfortunatly
thank you
ryan

ah i see, I just ordered the lenses and triplet, not the lighting gear I got that from other places....lampig.com - Mike's the best!

I made a focus box out of cardboard. Definatly not quality but definatly very easy. It does all I need it to do and I love it's simplicity.

real DIYers use wood though

thanks\do you know the triplet lens size i nee to drill out? thanks

the diameter of the hole in mine is 7cm, this allows the triplet to slide in pefectly (i am using the LL Triplet from the standards lense kit for 15" projectors...)

thanks shangrula!!

is there meant to be loose fragments of glass inside my bulb???
it looks as if the bulb has been turned on before, as there are "scorch" marks on the metal inside the bulb. i realise this may be due to testing,

Hi Ryaninlondon, I noticed you were looking for an Ikea to get your reflector. I'm sure there's one on the North Circular at brent park isn't there? There's also one at Croydon, Edmonton and Lakeside. www.ikea.co.uk

hope that helps.

I have small fragments of glass inside my bulb and it works as normal.

You have nothing to lose by wiring it all up and testing the bulb out. from my limited knowledge on the subject it should all be fine.

take photo's if you are unsure.

Ryan, I just saw on shangrula's plog you're after a reflector of some kind. Well I'm just trying to get my components together to get my PJ up and running and a lot of people seem to be recommending these Soare napkin holders. I just checked Ikea's website and they definitely have some of them in stock at my nearest Ikea (Edmonton). They're £2.49 for a pair by the looks of things so when I buy mine sometime this week I'd be happy to send you one of them - I don't see any need to have a two of them. Have a quick look on their website and if you fancy one of them, send me a PM with your address and I'll stick one in the post for you

BTW I got stung by Customs aswell - £9 something for the VAT and £13.50 for the Parcelforce release fee. That was for the lens kit - the two fresnels and the front lens - so in total it's cost me just under £80, which is way more than I'd budgeted for but now they've turned up I'm happy enough with them. Because of that though I'm definitely sourcing the lighting system from the UK (I think I'll try lampig.com)

Cheers

Mark

today i made some good progress...
the equipment arrived, and i had a day off... so you know what that meant... hours of messing around with it and getting the enclosure continued.
so here goes, ill attach some pics..


im also thinking of using liquid nails to completely seal the box internally..
and using some sort of rubber seal for the top panel/lid which will be mounted by a hinch which will lift from front to back.

does anyone recommend a certain heat paint that i can get a hold of in the uk??

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circular sander
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I was told that the loose pieces inside the bulb is normal (metal halide salt???). The high voltage inside the bulb travel thru this substance and causes it to luminess. Way beyond my material science and electrical engineering knowledge.

GateMan

the scientific explanation is "they get really freakin bright!"

haha! just to let everyone know about stopping air and light out on my box,
i am planning on putting fans in so dont panic :-)

"stop any possable leak or light and air"

That = bad! You want good airflow otherwise melt, fire, and death! D :

oh ok thanks
i have purchased 2 x 80mm cooler master fans, i hope this is enough to keep the box down. im not sure how much air it moves each but is 26db and runs at 2500 rpm.. does anyone know if this is enough.

well i powered up the bulb last night, my uncle has wired it up for me to test (im hopeless with electrics at the moment) and the bulb seems to be fine... that thing got bright.

now i have to start working out how im going to mount the fresnel lenses


can someone please tell me.. do i just order "tempered glass 12" x 15" "
is that the only isolator i need... plain old tempered glass??
i dont want to melt anything.
also what are people using uv filters for..
thanks
ryan

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Two 80mm Cooler Master fans, run at 2500rpm with 26db noise, i think i may need to get another???

Ikea soare napking holder, Courtesy of mgtsol, Thank You for sending me this!!!!!

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in construction
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The beast warming up for the first time. (fans not connected, just bulb to test )
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arg! escaping light! n:-)
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it is at this point, you really want to finish it!

i still have to make holders for the fresnel lens plus the triplet lens.

i also need to purchase a lcd, and tempered glass...... and then.. after its all put together i will be finished! (except for tweaking it to the max, and probably adding digi thermo etc)

comments would be appreciated on how to go about setting up the fresnels.
thanks
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your enclosure is looking really good, two 80mm fans should be fine for cooling. for the tempered glass you can use Lexan XL-10 this also has the UV filter built in.
as for mounting the fresnels, I hang the front fresnel on a 1/4" dowel rod, this way it can swing for keystone. for the rear you might try mounting it between some strips of wood and "sandwich" it, you can do this with your safety glass too. check out some of the ways other members have done this. keep up the good work.

thanks for the advice tescorp. for the Lexan XL-10

can i use this as a complete suppliment to the tempered glass??

Yes, people are using the XL-10 Lexan instead of the tempered safety glass.

thats what I am doing

great thank you, does anyone know a source in the uk for this material?
thanks.
r

When looking at fans, the most important thing to look at is the CFM. That is how much air the fan moves, the more then better.

Delta 120mm fans are the best at around 220 cfm. Most computer fans are only like 30-40 cfm. but also the db rading comes in to play if you care about that. I really dont care about fan noise, so I got for higher CFM fans.

http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/de12tfexhisp.html

This is the 120x38 fan. They have a much harder to find 120x76 fan, but its so powerful that if you dont have it mounted and you turn it on, it will literally take off and slide down the desk and you gotta chase it haha.

Nice job on the pj so far though, I am about to start mine this evening, It will take a bit longer then id hope to get all the parts and all, but I want to make it nice, and not just throw it together.

cool, thanks for the link metallica (nice nick btw)
yeah unfortunately i couldnt see the cfm on these fans, which was a bit bad, but i knew they were a good brand and duel bearing (£10 each!!!)

ive just thrown together my fresnel holders, and am doing some tests now, ill post some pics up in a minute.

just to let everyone know, the tacky looking aliminium shielding at the back is only temporary!

just finished the frame for the first fresnel. (not screwed in)
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both in, sticky taped together :-)
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here we go!
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