and I dont mean a OHP

I wondered if anyone has any sucess or ideas towards getting a commercial projector which is faulty (cheaper ) and transforming it into a small form factor projector? I am wondering if you can literally take the guts of a commercial one and swap the lighting systme for a DIY one, which will save on money and bulb replacement costs...

things I know nothing about:
Would it need fresnels? maybe some of them already have them inside, they must have some way of getting the light to be parralell through the LCD

I few things bug me about it,
Fresnels might be impossible to buy for a small LCD inside it
The size of the LCD of a commercial projector. New ones would be probably just a few inches, maybe 3 or 4 at the most? Whereas older ones might be more like 5 or 6 inches? I dont know at all!

but a few things tell me it could be great.
Buy an old one and the case might be useable, if not modable for the new lighting system and fresnels
small factor high res LCD
many video inputs
faulty LCD projectors can be got from free to $50 or so


like i said I know very little on this, I am just so chuffed with my home cinema that I want to replicate it in another room, but the room is tiny so I need a v.small solution....which lead me to thinking about this (plus a little loving glare at a faulty projector on ebay )

any ideas?

oh and sorry if this has been covered before, I did look but I have a feeling this must've been discussed somewhere?

The difficulty with this is that it is hard to use a modded light source, because the pj needs to recognize that the original one is on before it will fire the LCD. If you can by pass this, then you will be ok. You will probably not be able to use the old case, as our bulbs will not fit inside. Good luck.

You would need to get your other light source focused in to the old bulb location and this with highly integrated unit this seems like more work than its worth. The commercial projectors use expensive lamps with are more than the bulbs we use here they include reflectors so that they can capture a very high percentage of a lower wattage bulb, control heat ect... I may be wrong but this doesn't sound like a good idea.

I think the idea is great. I have thought of doing it myself but I'm not sure how to trick the projector to fire the lcd. (partially because I dont have one to tinker with) If you could figure it out, I think you could small box with a different light source. It would be a bit of a challenge challenge, but I bet the results would be impressive and smaller than the typical LL projector. Anything is possible so if you get your hands on an inexpensive projector. Go for it! My $.02

Eric