It really does look like a small boat. The first thing I thought of is the kids using it in the yard during irrigation (We still have that in phoenix it when we fill the whole yard with 12" of water like our own mini lake the kids love it when it’s hot.)

The box is 43"L x 17"w x 15"h

I left extra space for the pro lens if I decide to that later. I could also use a 19" LCD too.

I would like to say that a 19" LCD will look better than a 17" even though it has the same rez. Hears why.

The pixel size is larger with a 19" LCD than a 17" (.264 for the 17" and .294 for the 19") so it should look worse but the throw is shorter with the larger LCD, this places the triplet closer to the screen for the same size picture. This makes the magnification factor lower. You have the a larger pixel size with the 19" so that is about a wash but the black dividers between the cells in the 19" LCD ( the screen door effect) is the same in both a 17" and a 19" LCD. So by having a larger LCD placed closer to the screen it will have a lot less screen door than a 17"

This only makes any since if you plan on throwing an extra large screen like an outdoor screen. I have not done the throw calks yet to see if it look like the PJ can still be behind you.

I would have run a 19" but the focus with the 450mm triplet is already soft.

The MegawattII might get a 20.1" LCD and a 2000 watt lamp and two 600mm Fresnels!!

Maybe I could get one of those cute little 150 watts lamps for it

Thanks for the info....just trying to steal some ideas.

Well there is nothing like the smell of fresh cut MDF in the morning.

I almost finished the Fresnel mounts today and the LCD sled is mostly done too. I also installed the cooling system.

The cooling is just an air box built into the floor of the PJ. I did want to mount it to the top to avoid being close to the FFC on the bottom of the LCD but I moved the light box up about 3/4 of an inch and then the fan box would not fit on the top. The good new is the bottom gap is one inch larger so I can use my big 120mm x 36mm panflows.

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I have two and I though I ordered a third but I can't find it right now?

The air goes out the bottom of the box under the LCD then between the first Fresnel and the LCD then over the top and down again. I will be adding a glass shield to move the air past the first Fresnel.

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This setup need an air intake which might be the megawatt logo routed in the side of the box. My wife hates the name but then she came up with lumalux

The LCD sled has air holes in the bottom the let the air go under it. I had to cut away the bottom of the frame to allow for the that. I put the LCD on the inside of the frame to have a more even air flow and to have the air pressure from the fans not push it out of the frame but into it. If I did it again I would mount it on the top and just use a small strip of wood to go across the front of the LCD.

There is a 1/2" gap between the air box and the LCD sled and the LCD sled will be mounted by two bolts in sliding setup for fine adjustments of focus just like the Fresnels are.

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The Fresnel mounts are just a 1/8" grove cut all but the last 1" of a MDF slot. there is a piece of 1/4" hard board glued on the end with a slot cut in to allow it the me mounted to the side of the box.

The tracks will have one bolt to compress the grove to hold the Fresnels. I can move the Fresnels if I have too just loosened the track bolt and move them and re tighten them.

A better look at the fresnel tracks and adjustable mount.

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The fresnels fit nice and snug I had to use a thin blade for the table saw that I had around that was only 1/16" thick.

All the parts so far from the triplet whole.

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There is lots of little things but all the major parts should be done soon.

Thats coming along nice, its about the same size as my Pro Haas. come to think of it they do look like a small boat. I like the lightbox.

Thanks Tescorp: It does look like I copied your cooling system except on the other side of the LCD.

It was time for the focus slide to go in. I was going to just use the drawer sliders like a lot of people have done but then I go to looking at the focus adjuster on the Buhl projector and it looked like it would work fine too. The only thing I don't like about it is has a vary course adjustment 3/4 of a turn and that is full travel.

So I scraped the focus adjuster off the Buhl and made a new plate and mount in my pj. I had to make an extension for the activator arm and the coupler turned out a little large and then I needed some way to tighten the bolts so I had to enlarge the hole a second time.

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The triplet needed a different mount so I glued up two 3/4 pieces of oak and then trimmed then down to 1 1/4" so the fly cutter could still cut through the wood. I wanted to make a full circle from wood but the triplet is only 1/2" from the lid on the inside so I made a band out of aluminum and used four screws to tighten it.

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I had to rout a slot for the gear that moves the slider.

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After I was done I then though of the FOV from the back side of the triplet to the LCD. It looked like for sure the triplet slide was blocking the FOV of the bottom of the screen but a quick check with a charge card and I was OK for the entire travel of the slide by about 1/4" to a 1/16" that was close!!.

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The face plate is still removable so I may rout out a larger recess for the triplet so I can move the slide a little further out of the way and not loose any travel.

For some reason this took most of the day but it works great. I need to make a little adjustment because the bottom of the triplet is dragging slightly on the triplet cutout.

I also have to make a nice handle but that will be later.

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I now have all the hard parts done. I will round over all the edges and paint the insides black soon.

Things to do.

Make light box mounting bracket.
Finish LCD mount and LCD hold downs
Air intake.
Light box air duct.
Cut the fresnels.
Mount the LCD
Mount the ballast
wires
control panel.
Triplet safty stop.

The FS miror that came with the Buhl projector is a really nice part it is over 1/4" thick.

One last picture.

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nice very nice ..that focus slide looks great !

thats a neat focus mech, I have been thinking of making something like the rack and pinion set up like in a telescopes eyepiece.
for your focus knob, I have seen some nice knobs at the ace near me. they have a 1/4" hole and a set screw in the side to lock it down.
I knew those credit cards were good for something,LOL.

Hey AV, I don't suppose you have an area on the outside wall of your house painted white, do you?

AV,
Nice to see you working on your PJ ! It's looking real good. I certainly like the focus mechanism.... don't get too distracted when the 2000W HQI's show up !!

cheers,
gs

Sim: I do have a large wall but it is block and there is a tree right where you would want to be and the wall is not even 10" tall on the low end. I think I could get about 200" in 16/9 with it. Just have to sit in the tree!

The 2000 will be fun but for now it is image on the wall time.

I had to redo the Fresnel holder today I forgot to make air holes in one side so the sides got shaved off and redone.

I also finished the LCD sled. It now has mounting tabs on both sides and the frame for holding the LCD is done. All I need is paint.
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The heat glass frame is almost done I just need some bolts and to strip some paint off the glass.

The light box holder gave me trouble and I may go back to plan A which was to make a track in the bottom of the box. I got smart and was going to hang it from the top and I made a nice cross brace to use but it was too large to get the light box out with the Fresnel holder in place.

A took a few pictures of the new Fresnel holders. The sides are the same just the bottom is new

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I'm not giving every last detail because most of this stuff is fairly common.

The biggest pain has been the curved box. I don’t really use screws much any more with woodworking I just clamp and let it dry, some times I add a bisket, but the curve makes your clamps fall of just at the wrong time.

Everything inside on the bottom is curved to match the bottom and this takes extra time.

I’m glad I drew a nice straight and true line on the box before I cut the curve. Everything is measured off of the line.

I found that out too, curves dont like clamps. your cooling system is looking really good. I like the sled set up too. glad you mentioned the center line, its so important to do that before any cuts or you lose your reference point.

I see the most important tool in building a projector. Looking great, can't wait to see how it turns out, and those lux readings.

I have a LUX meter and I'm not afraid to use it.

I have goten around 500 ANSI with the MHI 1200 during a test setup. but the lamp was slightly under driven.

I still have the antiglare on too. I'm not going to peel it untill I have at least 20 or so movies under my belt.

I don't balme you, AV. I wouldn't have peeled the AG on my projector at all, had it not been scratched.

Try to stay focused.


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This is why I will have two setups.

A little moe progress today I found a know for the top and te adjusted the triplet so it does not rub. It fites really tight with less than an 1/16" of play. There is no good reason to fit that tight but I didn't want a large gap.

I also cut the fresnels down to size. A lot of people use a razer knif and snap them I don't realy like that idea. One that I dida long time ago cracked.

So I used a router an a 1/16 straight bit. This makes a nice clean cut but it takes a little longer.

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I found a nice 30 amp dual pole swtich for the ballast too.

I also got the test box running with a LCD. I went through three bad LCD trying to save money so I now have $150 in geting a cheep LCD for testing.

I am overdriving a 175 watt HMI lamp to 400 watts which is OK so far.

The plog in in extreame mods.

I LOVE that top lamp....

I did not like my lamp slide adjustment. In order to move the lamp I had to loosen the reflector mount too. So I re-did the adjuster by making a slide to move the lamp back and forward.

I started with a 3/8 piece of aluminum bar stock and used the router to try to cut a slot in it. I tried a lot of bits and some end mills in the router but it just goes too fast and the tool over heats.
After a long time I had this. I cut the bar in half.

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This worked but was not smooth enough. Time for plan B

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I mounted the guides on a 2x4 and changed back to my 1/16 wide panel saw blade( no kerf) for the table saw.

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After a few passes the guides looked good nice and straight. After a little sanding all was smooth.

I threaded #10 machine screw into the right hand track and then welded a rod onto the head so it will stick out of the box. I need to make another Knob. That is three so far.

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The lock works fine too and is easy to get too.

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Now I will be able to slide the lamp about 3" from the outside of the box and lock it in place with out opening the box.

I also painted everything inside the PJ black. I used flat black not high heat because most of the heat will be in the light box which I used high heat paint on.

The LCD tray and Fresnel tray are done and ready for there parts. I need to install the T -nuts to hold the trays them.

Slow going today still working on the light box. It almost done I needed to cut a slot in the slide for the reflector. I have been driling a hole and using the jig saw to cut out the middle but I have always wanted one of these.

They call it a cross slide vice It has feed handlels just like a mill so I chucked up a end mill bit and did some cutting.

The end mill did not cut smoth but the 1/4 carbite straight cut bit fron the router did OK on the thin stuff up to 3/16"
1/4 plate did not go vary well with lots of hopping and an uneven cut.

This will be nice for wood too. It was less than $50.00

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I was looking for a new belt sander because I DROPED mine and I think I broke it it wont go fast any more . I have used that 21" belt sander for years and years, it has been so good I can beleive I broke it. The china sanders looked like poop so I will see what I did the crastman sander first befor I deside to spend more on a good one.

Now I'm kinda of wondering about the electrical side of things. How do we squeeze all those watts out a standard 120V without tripping things?

According to one of my friends at work, according to the building code in Florida,
you get 2400 watts off each 120v circuit in the house (120v x 20amps). As long
as you load balance correct, can't see having a problem... unless you've just got
that much stuff to trip your circuit breaker.

Well you just add an outlet wire it with 10 gauge wire and hook it to a 40A breaker.

I had a hard time finding a 30A outlet but got one the other day.

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The main reason was the table saw draws 22A and kept triping the 20A every time the going got tuff.

I'm almost ready for final assembly!

The LCD tray is fully done.

The fresnel tray is almost done I just need to add a bolt to clamp the lexan too.

I used 4 T-nuts to hold both trays I found some air cleaner nuts that were perfect. With a slight twist everything is vary strong.

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The light box is finally done. I placed a mount inside for the heat glass between the condenser lens and the lamp.

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The heat glass will be cooled by the airflow from the air duct in the top. I made a scoop to direct air to the heat glass first. The air then goes out the back side and out the 3" flex duct to the outside.

I still need to add a second air outlet in the main box right now all the air will have to go through the air box.

For the air inlet, I reused the air vent from the Buhl PJ it a nice 6" slotted grate.
I still need to find a grill for the outlet.


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The inside of the 3" flex has a plastic lining. I don't think it will last too long.

I need to find the balance point so I can mount the pivot bolts that will hang the PJ on the base and I am going to rout hooks in the slot to set the pj in. So tomorrow I will do a full assembly with all the parts and make the last two holes in the main box.

The lat shot for tonight.


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I'm close. We have a birthday party saterday, I might be ready for a test fire.

Nice!

Well some one finally thought that was funny.

I started doing some testing of the cooling system. The air gap between the LCD and the Fresnel is not too large so I do expect at some point running the fans faster will just make more noise and not much more air flow.

The two outside fans are the 120mm x38mm panflows and the middle fan is a 120mm x 25mm Evercool

The two panflows are rated at 90 CFM and the smaller one is rated at 79CFM. I can't get a third panflows that is exactly the same so this makes things a little dicey.

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I have a 14v and a 12v transform and a Powerstat to change the voltage from 8v to 18v. At 18v you can hear the PJ in the next room.

The transformer has crappy filtering and was making the servos in the panflows make a racket so I hooked up a filter cap and they got quieter.

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The 12v setting made good air flow but the large motors in the panflows still make a fair amount of noise( they are really 24v 3600 rpm they sell as 12v 2200 rpm fans.) so I may try two more of the Evercools and run them at 14v

Man the suspense is killing me..... I have two 17" lcd's and a few 18"efl lenses so I'm really curious to see what your projection is going to look like. Especially focus/brightness of the corners.

"Man the suspense is killing me..... I have two 17" lcd's and a few 18"efl lenses so I'm really curious to see what your projection is going to look like. Especially focus/brightness of the corners."

Glappe: The focus is not that great with the 18"fl triplets and a 17" LCD this has been done before( I cant think of any one right now but it has) For short throw setups I have been happy but the outside PJ will be big screen long throw so that will place the triplet closer to the LCD for even softer focus.

I still can re stack the triplet and this may help some.

The brightness is good in the corners.


I should have an image in a few days. All the major big parts are done.

My Fresnels now fit, the tighten down bolts are in and I changed to lexan for the second heat shield. I can always remove it fast.

I need to trap a few bolts in the light box. I will show pictures of the final assembly when I put it together.

The LCD tray should be done I am looking for a harder foam for the peg mounts on the bottom of the frame for firmer support.

The focus mount is done.

The wiring will be really simple one on/off switch and a 30 amp fuse. I just don't see the need for more parts here. I only need to test the LCD temp once. If the fans stop I have about ten seconds before the LCD makes the big black spot. No thermal switch would trip fast enough any how.

I do need to install all the parts and find the balance point of the PJ then install the t-nuts for the hanger screws. So I can place it in the stand.

The stand is not really done. I thought the lid was scrap and cut a 2x5 hole in it. A have more wood so a will make a new one. For now it will be held by 4 screws. I didn’t like the wheel I scraped from old bed frame. They were strong enough but bouncy and hard I grabbed some hard rubber ones to use.

The stand has two wheels and a level foot which right now is a block of wood.
I have a threaded foot to attach to level the PJ in the yard. I will get to that later.

By this you mean to change the length of the spacers in the triplet? I have read the posts in the modification of the pro lens and ChrismasGT's PLOG about doing this. For a widescreen movie format the 18" efl and a 17lcd doesn't look that bad from what I've seen but I have not seen it in person.

It's the home stretch time.

I mounted the LCD in the sled and the controller board on the side of the box. Everything just fit. If you look to the left of the controller board you can see the bottom of the t-nut that the PJ will hang from. There is a good chance that the stud will go out the bottom of the t-nut so I had to leave an inch or so of room. It just fit.

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This is the finished light box. I used some fiberglass heat shield on the 12 gauge wire to keep the heat and UV off the rubber. The only good wire I can find any more is the stranded USA wire made from the inside of bundled cable. I can't stand all the China wire used in a lot of wire. Is oxidizes so bad it is almost useless and all of the stranded single wire has about 7 strands and is not flexible at all. This stuff was nice.

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Here is the light box from the top view with the heat glass and condenser lens installed.

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And with the air duct installed. The top of the light bos holds the flas so I can adjust it.

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I mounted the igniter on the side of the box along with a terminal strip from the ballast.

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I had routed a deep groove for the video cable and power to go to the front of the PJ but it is a little short for the fresnel mount to go over. I will have to make this longer some day. It was really hard to get the Fresnel tray in.

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I added a safety wire on the triplet so it can not go too far in and fall of the tracks or if the PJ was in its stand the triplet could shatter the LCD of the lens was up. I plan on storage to be with triplet down.

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My slot in the stand is a little tight in places so it needs to be widened.

I will leave the fans for now just to see the amount of air I really need to keep things cool.

I need to set up the ballast. I sold one of my 600 watt HPS so I now will be using a 400 S51 and a 600 watt S106 ballast. This should still be fine but I need to find the power level again.

The lamp installed for now is the HTI 1200 watt. There is a chance I may use them as my main lamp if they look better. They are 92 CRI V 85 CRI for the Philips MHI lamps. The MHI are brighter though.

I made a mistake in guessing how long a MHI/HMI /HTI lamp will last. I thought the life span test ran the lamp for 8 hours on and they gave a life of 1000 hours. The real test burn is 3.5 hours on and 1/2 hour off.

The lamps are really rated for heat cycles. After so many cycles they break. So for a 1000 hour lamp they should be good for 285 cycles. So if you used your PJ 5 days a week for, 2 to 5 hours, the lamp would last a year. And if you just used it for two nights at the drive in (the back yard) the lamp will last almost 3 years. (2.75)

There is now some one selling a cheep HMI 1200 watt for $50.00 shipped on eBay but it is a China so may have a shorter life.

I should have my first screens tomorrow.

Well it works!

I have lots of loose ends and the PJ is not up to full power but it is close. Lots of fine tuning still. but we did wach part of a movie. The color of he HTI lamp is vary good. More later.

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The blue hair girl. The contrast is vary good and so is the red.

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This was the first image I got with no adjustments. I have a ways to go before I get even light.

I have a tripod but the picture is fairly bright so I don't really need it. I will set it up for focus testing and just to make it easier.

The stand worked perfect and is fairly easy to move around. I will need help moving the PJ from the lowered spot to the higher spot. It looks like I can remove the last few inches from the struts.

All of the cooling fan power is still rigged. The light box has a 92mm cutout on the top. I did this on purpose so I could place a fan on it when testing because with the lid off there is no air flow. With the 92mm fan it blew more air than letting the three 120mm fans blow through. I might try to leave the 92mm fan on the light box or place it on the side of the lightbox.

I ran the fans at 12v and some make more noise than I like but I had no heat problems at all.


The PJ on the stand. The tilt works fine and it places the PJ at a good level to work on.

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The last two shots look in real life totally different. The first is at around 1000 watts and the second is about 650 watts. I have a switch hooked up to the second ballast and can disconnect it any time leaving only the 600 watt ballast running the lamp. I had to add the switch for the lamp to start.


At 1000 watts ( about)

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And at 650 watts(about)

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The 650 watt picture looked like it had more contrast and was a lot dimmer but the photos look exactly the same? The camera was on auto so it adjusted the exposure to make them look OK. My wife liked the brighter picture better and so did I but it needs some work.

My wife is glad that I'm almost done withe the PJ so she does not have to hear about one more lamp.

Hey did I tell you I won the second ballast for my 2000 watt HQI lamp

AZ great work, I think this is either going to make it to the Hall of Fame or turn off the electricty to your neighborhood.

I can't wait to see it when it is complete-

Awwwwwesssome dude. Happy you got it almost done.

Very nice. Congratulations !

Look forward to your "after tuning" pics for comparison.

cheers,
gs

Ditto, especially on a bigger screen.

do you have any more pics showing how you mounted the LCD?

Sweet. So are you going to move this baby outside and get some big mofo screen action?

oohhh yeah

Nice AV. Congrats!

Edit: Incidentally I preferred that 650W picture upon first glance as well.

Thanks all for the interest.

Right now the screen shots are only good for a starting point of the color of the lamp. It is still quite hard to adjust the lamp. The box gets so hot it burns and the adjustment tab on the back is touching the bottom of the box and need to be trimmed. I May pull the LCD to setup the lamp and reflector it is just so much easier if you have a clear arc image at the triplet.

I just don't know what to do first.

Finish the cooling

Move the 123' x 65' screen outside (then I will have to move another screen inside I have a 70 x 70 to use.

I really like the amount of air I get by just placing a 3000 rpm 92mm fan on the light box but the lid hits it, I could hack a hole in the lid and add a scoop in the top or cut a new hole in the side for a side draft setup. The HTI lamp needs forced air cooling but the MHI does not.

Set up the MHI lamp and start the burn in. This lamp will let me leave the cooling like it is.

Find out the real power levels of the two ballast.

I also want to try just two of the panflows 120mm x 38mm fans. They make a little more pressure than the 120mmx 25mm fans and it looks like I don’t get a lot more air flow because of restriction in the air flow. Two fans at a slightly higher speed may work better besides my 900ma wall transformer is already overdrawn. Yes the cooling takes more than 1A

I need to trim the spacers on the heat glass and add a stop in the light box. The lamp now stops by touching the heat glass, this is really bad.

I moved my screen outside today. It is 123" x65" in size. It is not really a screen but a large blind made for blocking the light coming in the window of the back room. It is made from a heavy duty BO clothe but with a heavy vinyl coating on it. It is also a bit more shinny than BO cloth.

I removed the heat glass from inside the light box to see if I could move the lamp a bit closer to the condenser to fill the screen.

The light box is just about as far back as it can go so I needed some room for adjustment.

I now have enough room but when I went to move the light box back and move the lamp forward the feed wires were a touch too short so I could not do both at the same time all I needed was an inch but no no no not today.

I can move the terminal strip and all will be OK but it was getting dark so it was movie time

I asked my wife if we had a good movie in 16/9 that the kids would like too and she said that Curious George was just released today and netflicks had it to our mail box today. If you like to rent movies netflicks is the best. It is 1.85 to 1 format almost perfect for the kinda small screen.

I would like to say that that the focus is fine on a 16/9 movie and I still love the color of the lamp.

I changed some of the fans around and the PJ was quieter but I now had the black spot of death in the middle of the screen. It was dim but I could see it. I could have turned the PJ off but the kids thought George was fun. So I turned the power down to the low setting.

All was fine at the low setting.

Some screen shots.


low power

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High power

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From far away with the flood lights on, each is a 300 watt lamp there is three of them on the yard is fully lit.
Low power.

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and high power

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Ther is a big diffrence between low and high but the camera on auto just adapts.

Even with the lamp not adjusted fully the picture is really nice. It looks a lot better than the old laptop screen does. The cheep speakers sounded fine and the popcorn was good

My wife id starting to talk to me again. She said, is it over?

Next I did some jumbo shots. I moved the pj back until I had a about a 250 diagonal picture.

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The picture was still fine as far as brightness on high. It looked great but the screen door was getting large.

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I took some shots. To the right is the chimney which is about 22' tall.

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I also took some LUX readings with the large screen. I had 20 LUX in the middle for low and 36 LUX on high.

Some one was saying that movie theaters had 100 LUX at the screen but I don’t know about that. The large screen on high was still fairly bright an only 36 LUX.

I would say any one getting over 40 LUX on the screen should be happy in a dark room

I forgot to do a LUX test with the smaller screen.

So far I love the whole setup but my wheels on the stand could be larger to make moving it out the door easier. I still need a handle.

I need to fix the heat problem too.

The LUX reading will be a little high because the reflector is now a bit too close. I would have dark corners too if I had a 4/3 screen.

The other pictures have a little too much comprestion this one is a little better.

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Congrats AV, would you say that the brightness is as exact as shown in your pics? Also, how are your corners in both your smaller and larger projection considering your using a 18" trip and a 17" panel?

BTW, you just started another itch to bring my box out for another test as well