It's been long enough and I'm ready for my third try at this. My first two attempts were hastily done, utilizing poor planning and poor tools. I have a habit of getting all worked up and cutting corners. Well not this time. While my first two builds (1 build and rebuild) were satisfactory, I found myself not using them as much as I'd like. Well I'm back for more and ready for high-def.

Significant parts I have:

S400DD, Eballast
Venture PS + M135 Ballast, norpro (for testing)
120mm and 80mm AC Fans
Frames

Waiting On:
-Sony Xbrite 17" WS HD LCD-TV MFM-HT75W, YPbPr, DVI w/ HDCP, VGA, Composite, Built in TV Tuner (on order from Amazon.com)
-Pro Lens Kit

My friend has this monitor and it is super nice. He let me open it up and I got most of the way into it before I stopped before the backlight/panel disassembly. Below are some pics of the strip. I plan on taking another set when I receive my LCD from amazon.

Removed 4 screws around edges (easy to find) and then removed the 4 holding the stand on.

Popped off the back cover.

Removed the screws holding the metal protector plate. (easy to find)

Removed heavy metal things that attach to the stand. (must take the two off before removing the "protector plate".

Took off any tape holding the protector plate down and moved any wires out of the way.

Protector plate off. Two boards exposed.

Dislodged any wires attaching speakers, panel or backlight from the boards.

...and backlight wires (4 sets).

Unscrewed panel/board combination (the guts) from the the plastic casing.

The speakers and subwoofer will not go to waste. More on that later.

Removed any tape and unscrewed anything holding the panel to the boards. Make sure to dislodge any wires! And here is where I stopped. I did not have the proper screwdriver to remove the tiny screws holding the metal protecting piece to the board attached to the panel itself. Porbably a good thing considering it's my friends! It doesn't look like there should be any ffc issues judging from how far I got. In fact there is a good 3 inches to the wire that attaches the panel to the controller. I will continue the strip (with my panel) later in the year when I have all of my parts. No reason to let a nice little tv like this sit there! Just for an example here is a pic with the flash on and the tv on a standard res. channel. Note the clarity due to the anti-reflcetion coating.

Last post for now. I plan on using an uncut and unsplit configuration for the best picture possible. Here is my solution for framing them. The frame is a flat black "U"frame" clip frame from framesusa.com 17 x 16 ". The spring clips should apply enough pressure to both fresnels to keep them flat. In the bottom picture you can see how the spring clips work. The plexiglass is cut to the specs of the pro fresnels.

I plan on matting the fresnels to let only the needed light through.

You won't be alone in this Miklopolis, I just picked up a used MFM-HT75W from eBay for 383$US! It's on the way now, can't wait to get it...

Awesome! 383$ is a great price. I just got an Oppo digital dvd player to go with it. Looks pretty sweet so far.

Miklopolis thats a great DVD player, it has so many function contrast and making the picture brighter is just two of them, have you hooked it up to your monitor yet using the DVI connection.

Yeha i hooked it up and it looks pretty sweet. It is a little "grainy" in solid patches of color but I believe it is a function of the LCD itself. I also noticed when there are two contrasting colors (black and white) next to eachother there seems to be a sort of "ghost" of the lighter color on the dark, not the regular type of ghosting. I haven't messed with the picture settings yet however so hopefully I just need to calibrate the monitor and player. I have it set at 1280x720 through the DVI out, which is close to the monitors native wxga and you can definitely see a difference.

I am in a dilemma....id like to get the same tv as yourself, but im also itching to remove the AG, are you planning to do this?

I think the xbrites don't have AG, but instead they have an anti-reflective coating, so no removing neccessary, right Miklopolis?

One of the reasons I purchased this was so I did not have to remove the anitglare. However, I have read somewhere that even the anti-reflective coating has anti-glare imbedded in it, looking at the picture I believe it is minimal if it is in fact there. I for one am defintely not going to try to remove anything from this monitor. It looks nice enough as it is. If I can score a camera to use tonight I plan on taking some screen shots with a borrowed xbox 360, the new Fight Night looks unreal. On a side not Xbox 360 with the vga cable looks great. You can even set the 360 to output at 1280x768, which is the native resolution of the monitor!

Superb...i guess ill be buying out of those beauties for my next project. I just have to keep my eye out for a bargin.

Hopefully the xbox (normal) with the x2vga will work well at 720p as i cant afford both at the moment.

You woldn't need the x2vga since the monitor has component in with 480i/p, 720p and 1080i compatibility. The way I plan on having mine hooked up is as follows.

Component in ---> HD Receiver (TV)
VGA ---> XBox 360
DVI ---> Oppo Digital DVD Player
Composite ---> I don't know, old school nintendo/playstation? Composite is crap
S-Video ---> Nothing

I might get a kvm switch for the vga so i can hook up my pc, but at the moment my pc is junk.

I have a couple more questions mik........

1) when you say you are going to mat the fresnels, what do you mean?

2) i dont suppose you know the dimensions of the screen, and the size of the lip around the edge, so i can design frames that wont cut out any image?

3) What bulb are you going to be used, im thinking of trying to get hold of a venture, but i have yet to find somewhere in the uk that will supply one.

I too will be walking down the path of the MFM-HT75W but first i await my lenses and horde as much cash as i can to buy the LCD.

Re: your VGA to XBOX 360 connection. I bought an XBOX 360 video cable with VGA connector to hook to my VGA input on my PJ. The image had a yellow-green hue. Composite output from the XBOX was fine.

From talking with TV folks at Fry's, apparently the VGA on television sets is different from the VGA for PC monitors. Maybe the Sony unit is different and will render correct color when connected to the XBOX via VGA. But you may have to use component input from the XBOX to the PJ. Have you tried the XBOX VGA connection to the LCD yet?

Good luck on your build!

I have hooked up the LCD to 360 with the VGA cable and it looked perfect. I set the xbox to display at 1280x768 and it scaled the games very nicely. No greenish /yellowish tint at all. I thought i read a post on here with someone saying they had a bad VGA cable that also gave them a greenish yellowish tint. Maybe you have a bad VGA cable?

That was me. I tried another cable and the same result. I'm sure the Sony electronics board is better than the CMV.

I already bought a ProView 15.4" but haven't started my build yet. I'll be watching this with interest, since the idea of having all those inputs has a LOT of appeal to me. I may still want to use an HTPC for DVD's and other media, but it would sure be nice to be able to get an HD receiver and actually use it with my PJ.

Good luck,

Hey congrats for doing a preliminary strip on your friends Sony. I'm very interested in this monitor now seeing as I broke my last LCD trying to remove the AG. And nothing against AG removal, I would do it again but maybe with these sonys it would save us the potential $$$ burn in the pocket if we mess up. (AG removal was a snap w/ stripper method, but those damned ribbon cables are very very fragile). Anyways, I was at circuit city today and they had a bunch of open box Sony MFM-HT75W LCD/Monitors for $519. The cool part is there is NO restocking fee on open box items. So if you do the strip right but the monitor isn't compatible then you can just return. I might pick one up and strip it fully if you don't beat me to it first.

I'm 90% committed to using this monitor, but OMG that's a lot of coin! Here's hoping that by taking my time and being ready on eBay or something I can score an OK deal.

Just got the monitor today, boy oh boy is this a nice item. Looks gorgeous at 720p with my HDTV set-top box, also played some WMV-HD trailers and played F.E.A.R, no ghosting whatsoever, looks absolutely great.

Monitor is well built also, so all in all I'm real happy with this. Recommended.

Cool, I was wondering about the 16ms refresh. Have you stripped it fully and found any fcc issues?

Excellent. I will be stripping mine in the next couple of weeks, finally got all my parts together! HD does look nice at 720p.

At first I was hesitant to get this monitor since it was a little pricey for the diy arena. But I talked myself into it since I wanted to build an HD projector and wanted to stay away from an HTPC if I could. I finally bought one off of ebay about a little over a month ago after scoping it out in stores for what seemed like forever. I’m hoping to start my build in Feb (trying to finish my basement first). Xbox with component looks really good. HD hockey looks freaking awesome. I’m glad more people are deciding to work with this panel. Also, the DVI is HDCP compliant.

Not just yet, got it yesterday so I'll enjoy it for a bit, that plus my Pro Lenses are in the mail!

It's been a while but I've finally gotten to it. I'll let the pics do most of the talking.

First the reflector/bulb mount:

The bolts have wingnuts so i can hand tighten them and "squeeze" the reflector to hold it into place. It's going to be a vertical so gravity will do most of the work.

With bulb and in pj:

Nothing is adjusted of course.

Shot of projector frame with fan, ballast and wiring. The black on top is a clip frame that i will use for the unsplit fresnels.

This is the temporary lcd (samsung 15" 153t) that I will use for testing to ensure the safety of my Sony.

In it's frame and in place in the projector, i will likely have an air gap between fresnels and lcd if needed. The Sony is the same dimensions, just 3" wider.

wow, i hope your not living a life a danger putting your eballast so close to the lamp. my old one got hot as hell and it was outside of the box!

Click to view attachmentAnd the last for now. I hope to have this finished by Monday (day off, yay!).

Ahh, forgot to mention. There will be a heatshield protecting the ballast (made from bent sheet metal). Something like this, sorry for the crummy mspaint. I have a 5.25" diameter piece of IR/UV glass from rosco, to stop most of the heat. There will also be active cooling on the eballast that will be in the same air circuit as the fresnel and lcd cooling. Thanks to Samuraijack for helping me design the lightgate/shield.

Here are a couple of pics with the lcd on and off. You can see how much light gets blocked by a black screen.

Here is the sheet metal I intend to bend tonight. Exciting huh?

Using my buddies sheet metal bender (i think he called it a brake?) I turned the piece of sheet metal into the heat shield.

Since then I cut a hole for the hot mirror and fan. At the moment the "hot" portion of the projector is outside drying. (Used heat resistent paint).

I noticed my older pictures are no longer there. I will try to upload them again.

Some pics of the triplet holder.