Ok, been dieing to make this thing for a wile. Had to convince someone else (the wood working expert) that now is time to build. this will be a test box for further box building, got a few to make atleast if this turns out.

This past week we collected peices

-sewer expansion joint (altho this one turned out to be slightly to small for the focusing mechanisum i highly recomend it if you get a larger size, they have a firm but smooth movement - we passed for money reasons the larger was probubly 30$+)
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above = expanshion together ||||| below = expanshion apart
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-a coupler for 3 inch (inner) and a peice of 4" (outer) plumbing peices ( this was much cheeper then the expansion for the focus - under 5$ - two slots in either side of the 4" where cut and screws placed into the coupler for movement, we are still trying to get a smooth motion its rather jerky now with vasiline in between them)
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- a benq fp531 ( actualy bought a year ago when we learnd about this projecter making stuff)

- 400w MH lamp and ballest ( second hand from uncle = free! )

- plywood ( for the box but not the frames)

- MDF ( for the frames because the plywood had a little warp in it)

- standerd LL lenses

- foam tape ( for cushioning the peices in there frames )

- reflector ( no ikea in Winnipeg (tho i think our bulb is to big for the napkin holder) so this was the best we could find, it was a buck at the mall and has a little bit of a flat bottem - we will change it out as soon as we can get something better)
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- some other stuff

So we started building yesterday, everything went together pritty quick thanks to the diagrams made.
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just testing a few things here

close up

The glass will be adheard to the current frame in the box, this frame is notched into the box.
The lcd frame is also notched into the box.
The fresnel in between will be moveible left/right up/down by bolts that pass through the outer box and tightend up agenst the lcd frame by bolts passing through the glasses frame. (taking are chances with regular cut glass)

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The fresnal and lcd frames are each 2 peices that get screwed together and clamp the lcd/fresnal between foam tape strips.
Air slots are routed out between the pannels. air comes in the bottem between the lcd and rear fresnel then down between the rear fresnel and glass and out a 100mm fan placed near the top of the back of the box. ( this fan is a bit noisy we are looking for something better)

The front fresnel is drop in center pivioted and bottem weighted for auto keystoning

The light socket is currently unmoveible, should have a fully moveible version in there soon

Ill be painting the inside fo the box with a high temp black paint today.

well we were placeing the lcd in its frame someone.... acidentily tried drilling a screw though a hole that now ... thanks to revisions in the plan.... lines up with a fcc.
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Yeah so the screw didint go though the fcc, but it poped half of it off the circut board and bent it a little. right now we dont really know what to think. tho we where thinking of smoothing it out, applying apoxy to the top (not between the fcc and board) to join the two edges and then clamping it with something. ( did i read someone used a paper clip/clamp for something like this?)

ive been looking for info on the forum to bad useing the search for fcc isint possible ( fcc = not enough characters)

Any ideas or insight into possibly fixing the fcc problem would be most appreciated....

Your right in that you saw someone use a paper clip to clip and FFC to another one. But that is a lot different then here, you can attempt to smooth it out like you said, im not sure about the epoxy though...I repaired a motherboard scratch by putting rear window defogger repair paint on it, and it worked! I'm not sure if it'd work for your case, but if you can't get anything to work then you could always try it.


Have you tried turning it on yet? Does it power up? Display a picture? Is the picture heavily artifacted? Any more info might help.

ok flatened the fcc out, used a foam tape on either side of the circut board and clamped it with a large paper clamp/clip. i dont think that did anything for it.
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- fcc 2 is the messed up fcc with area z being the riped up part

turned it on.

-area A is black
-area B is clear
-area C is black
-area D is working properly

You could try to patch the wiring but basicly you need a new LCD.

well we quickly slaped it all together to test it out. (still havint painted it, no reflector, few things just taped in, wires comming out the top seal of the box, none of the ajustible peices where ajusted at all)
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cleaned the focus peices, sanded and polished them, they slide great now, and no horible vasiline.

needed to be clamped as is wasint making a good seal with the cords runing out the top and that we needed a good seal for how are ventilation system works.

shut off the lights, pluged a few things in, waited a few min and we got something.

still with just a clamp on the fcc. we got slightly different resultes.
left to right
black bar - white bar - messed up bar - good picture. ( tho the lcd needs to be fliped so thats all backwards )

100 and some od inch screen - left half messed up right ok, stuff in the way of the bottem of the image.
kinda dirty off white wall.

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so the dark corners are barly notisible in person (this image was exposed for over 10seconds)

focusing variation was more notisible, focused on the center = blury on the sides and vice versa.
definatly watchible in person at this point ... if it wasint for that fcc mishap. think we might put the box on its side for now maybe, rotate the virtual screen with the graphics card software to make the most use of whats being projected.

tho we hope to find a replacement screen soon we havint yet been able to find a place in town that still sells 15" screens.

full'esk screen
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altho the fan was a wee bit noisy it sure worked well, nice suck on the intake. with the thermometer between the glass and the first fesnal we started at 23c and after over an hour of use we went upto 25c (then back down to 24 after a cushion being used to block light comming out the fan at the back was moved) at witch point i kinda sat on the power cord unpluging it and leaving us in some pritty dark darkness.

this be the messy room witch will house this projector atleast for a couple months.
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with thos there arms you need to keep an eye on round your fcc's

the room looks small in this here picture, tis much bigger in person

needs a slight rearangment of seating and projectoring

Ouch. That is rough. But you may not be totally gaffed yet. I took a close look at the picture and it looks like you only broke five traces. It could be worse. Now call a trusted JEWELER in your town and describe the situation to them and ask if the might be able to help. I had this done by a jeweler about 6 years ago. It was a hard drive in transition to a server and it got ( of all the bloody things...) a Dart dropped on it. It was a small drive that we had some really important information for and finding a replacement controller board was impossible. Give it a try. My jeweler did wonders for us.. If yours cant then they might be able to point you in the direction of someone who can. You just have to weigh the cost of repair against the cost of a new one. The repair he did was 50$.

Good Luck!
I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!

ok so the fcc in question is only adheared to the circut board on about a 5th of it.

streached and lined it up perfectly with a magnifieing glass (is rippled and even cracked in a spot)

scotch taped it

applyed even presure with a hard peice of plastic and a clamp

applyed more! presure ontop of that

screen now works perfectly!

working on a permanint clamping esembly now.




side note: in looking for a replacement it became very aparent how hard it is to get a good/cheep 15" monitor in this day and age. only ones i could find where high end expensive or a couple no names. got a ad in the buy and sell for another one (probubly going to make several projectors). so i need to find a good sorce for them.

exceeeeeeeeeeeeeelint
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theres allot of light comming out that fan, can really light up the room, this cushion helps allot for the moment.
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Now unto the tweeking, first up painting the inside and adding a reflector. try and get this tweeked out for the weekend.

Hot Damn! Nice job!
You are either incrdibly lucky or much more crafty than you let on!

Im really glad you could fix it. Torn FCC's are the heartbreak of many a PJ...

Nice picture too!

SJ

Thanks for the sujestions and crossed fingers jack.

But in the end, tape saves the day, as usual.
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Steal, bolts and tape on tape action.
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and here is that riped up fcc, looking good and taped.
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Should be mounting controls and switches, painting, ajusting and adding a reflector today. We got a lens cap now, 4inch pvc pipe cover.

It looks like a similar thing happened to my LCD. Applying pressure with a thumb makes the whole panel work perfectly, so hopefully I can replicate your success.

If not, well, the LCD is no longer the most expensive thing in my projector.

Ok so the dimness had been bugging us for a wile.

Droped $140 for a 1000w ballest and bulb (long arc tube was all they had)

Just a few min ajusting for the larger bulb (glad we never fully mounted the electronics)
and its in. (no reflector on the 1000w we did have a kinda crappy one on the 400w) (do have a giant ikea bowl readdy for the 1000w if need be tho)



-pictures taken before and after (new400watt to new1000watt) at various consistent settings will be shown next post-



Ive got to say that we are quite happy with the results, there was some strange ghosting that was killing a bit of the contrast but this was fixed by moving the bulbs posistion from past the first fresnals focal point to infront of its focal point.

With the 400w the video settings where constently having to be dicked with. Horibley dark sceenes where semi evoided with the trade off of bleached brightness or vice versa. With the 1000w it seems we can find the right settings for a movie that work almost perfectly throughout (Gladiator was always a test, bleached out sand stadium shots and horible night sceens)

The ambiant light this thing produces just from the rebounded light off the screen insain. (the walls in here are an off white) I wouldent really want the light in this room to be much brighter if I WASINT watching a movie in it. Its nice for when you want more of a layed back experiance but for the more dramatic theater experiance I am seriously looking into some black drapes for the walls or something.


All in all we are quite pleased, seems a good 150% brighter over the 400w to the nakid eye, runs about 4-5degrees celceous warmer (30c) and cost a few more cents to run.