~~ Hello, welcome to my pLog! ~~

Actually I started building my pj a few months ago, but I haven't had time to finsih it untill now.
But I'll start from the beginning, so here we go:

The Parts:
- BenQ 567 v2
- S400DD + eBallast @ 230V
- S15 Lens Kit
- Evercool PCAC Fans
- Ikea reflector
- Beachwood for my Hass-style pj
- and other things...


The Progress:

No need to explain, I'll let the pictures talk.
Ask questions if you like.

I love to have access to my dad's workshop





imperial vs metric:


LCD and fresnel holders:


the edges turned out nice:

the mogulbase needed to go deeper:




backpanel and a plate for the contacts


some more parts added to the sides:


sled sliding system, grooves for the cabels:

making the heatshields from alu:






airflow holes:

nice pics...

very nice work, giving me a run for my money

since this bicture was taken I've removed the tube part in front of the triplet,
it was too long so it blocked some of the light:

removing the AG:





after 8 hours:


good method, prevents the AG from tearing if you free the edges first
by running a "creditcard" along the side:


glare!

When I first powered it on, I got this:



It's GREEEEEeeen! :angry:


But after about 12hours of on-time the lamp has turned quite bright and normal...

More pictures soon!

I still have a lot to do:

1. Make a screen. (from a MDF sheet, painted white)
2. Fix the cooling. Remove the fans and install a 120mm fan. It's too loud now and inefficient.
3. Add some protective alu flashing to the inside
5. Make propper connections at the back panel
4. and Tweak, Tweak and Tweak...

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

I'm a very visual person and these are some of the best pics I've seen

Could you post so more pics of your LCD sled?

Dave

thanks, glad you like them

sure thing, dave!
here you go:

Thanks again

couple of questions - no top and bottom support for the lcd and flesnals? I thought this could lead to warping

The "white sponges" - dampening, ensure tight fit?

Last question - on your case sides I noticed some grooves - what are those for?

Thanks again

Dave

1. No support for the fresnels, yet... maybe I need to add something later.
2. Yeah, they ensure a tight fit
3. The grooves where meade for the VGA cable and power cabel to the LCD, but they are not in use yet..

Nice choice of wood for case there.

I notice when you did the lamp testing you took the len cover off, was having it that long effect the outcome on the screen?

I asked because I like how you set up your len and might do it your way on mine.

Are you not going to keystone your front fresnel?

Also where are you planning on putting the ballast?


Bill

thank you

Yes the pipe (don't know what it's called) made the corners of the projection dimmer, it blocked some of the light from the lens. Did I answer your question?

The front fresnel IS adjustable

The ballast is outside the box for many reasons... (heat, weight, space.)

Yeah I was wondering about the pipe you had around the lens, are you going to try shorten the pipe and see the result I am curious myself and would like to know if that improves for you.

I didn't see the keystone so are you using the center keystone?


Awesome job on the case again!



Bill

I might try to shorten it, when I can access the tools I need.. right now the absense of the tube gives me freedom to move the triplet around, good for tweaking

Center keystone? the front fresnel rotates along it's center, yes.

I was planning on using a 6" PVC pipe - something that wide should not impact the light path

Dave

VERY nice and VERY clean! I'm working on the same type of bracket to mount my fresnels also

Very nice!

Great work. I couldn't figure out what style lens mount I was going to use on my box until I saw your great pictures.

heh, thanks

The method I use works well, imo.

Well, today I can report that my VGA signal happily travels 15m (=50ft) without any quality loss.
At least I didn't notice any today.

Here's a picture of my projection (on a white wall),
must say it looks better in real life (I've seen many write this,
now I understand what they mean, and that they truly mean it ).
the green tint is much more visible here than I see it...

[ I want a digital SLR!! ]

Well here you go:




Still a lot of tweaking to be done, have only played around with ffdshow so far.
As you may notice I have a lot of light leaking from above and under the LCD screen...


more pictures soon...

Nice job. I can only hope that mine turns out that well

Thie picture looks great!
Excellent work.

Nice pictures. Look excellent.

So what did you use for your lens cover? Shorten the PVC pipe?

Bill

nothing right now...

I'd say this is the nicest plog I've seen to date! Complete with antiglare removal! It helps to push antiglare removal as part of the building process. Which it should be. Absolutely necessary!

Not that I begrudge you your success but it just makes me so mad. Everyone else had an easy time with antiglare removal. With me, on my first lcd it simply wouldn't budge. The second lcd grain started to appear before I could get it all off. Two tries I fail, but everyone else gets it on the first try. :angry:

Thanks!
And I agree, AG removal should be a part of the normal build process,
at least if you have an LCD thats easy to work with (as my BenQ)

Sad to hear about your AG removal stories, guess some brands of LCDs are harder to strip

Great work man neat and clean, as far as being jealous I just wish I lived in the U.S sometimes just to have easy access to certain stores like Home Depot and of course Best Buy. You deffinately have great image quality and you are right about the ag removal it looks like it might become almost mandatory I was afraid but I did it anyway. What pc setup are you using to run your signal? Everytime I see these images I'm tempted to run video through my pc instead of my consoles I might just get a dvd drvie for the mac since it's pretty portable and use it for a htpc.

Well building a PJ outside the states certanly is possible
But it also have it's downsides like shipping costs, finding parts and higher priced parts.
Also, I would like to order the new reflector, but I don't think it's worth the shipping costs.


I use a amd xp 2500+ & gf4ti pc,
but I would like to update, since at this moment I can't playback HD quality video.
DVD is good, but it's not enough

Well I was all hyped about the fact that I had an hdtv but when I went into the cable company and they said $999 for the box I had to calculate to myself PS3 hmm possibly $400, and a smaller Hami about $600 so you can probaly guess that I won't be getting hd tv for a few.

Still alive!

Well, haven't made much progress on my PJ lately,
have so many other things I have to get done.

Hopefully I can finish it soon

great work, very nice craftsmanship on your enclosure. congrats!

Beautiful piece of furniture you made there . Did the beechwood make it heavier than a plywood with veneer. I guess it wouldnt be a problem for a table mount. are you going to mount on the ceiling and if yes how. NICE JOB!

Really? You cant play HD vids? I can play 720p with these specs:

AMD Athlon 2500+
512mb ddr (i recently upgraded to 1gig, but 720p plays fine with 512 for me)
gforce 4 440mx (horrible graphics card)

although i usually hook the pj up to my laptop now. i would like to use my mac mini for my pj (i hacked frontrow onto it ), but it chokes on any HD video (sept maybe 420p)

edit: and i guess i should mention, theres no need to play 1080p videos on our pjs anyway! 720p is good enough for us, because 1080p is bigger than the typical 1024x768 lcds we use for out pjs

I have a XP 2200+ and can play 720p fine

What video card are you using???

note: he said 720p. progressive scan looks kinda bad for anything with fast movemement.

Edit: this post was wrong....i had it backwards....i was thinking of interlaced....lol I wont change it, because then any replys wouldn't make sence

Umm you have that backwards. Interlace looks bad with movement.

Quote from projectorcentral.com

"Not only that, but the interlacing system creates weird "artifacts" when blown up to big-screen proportions. When there is motion in the picture, an object will have moved between the time the first half and the second half of the frame are painted. That makes straight lines break up and look like they've got jagged edges. And on a 60" TV or a genuine really big-screen image from a front projector, the visible scan lines and jaggies are enough to drive you nuts."

Whoops my bad! ha ha, i knew that too...i'm not sure what i was thinking...lol

yeah...i messed up in my earlier post too....i can play 720p on my computer

pagercam: I'm using a Geforce 4 TI card.
Hmm, nice lag on the answer


No updates on my PJ yet. Maybe soon...

oops, I still have my pj to finish... maybe some day

man..this thing looks awesome...I really believe the haas style by design gives better brightness/cooling..i have absolutely no hard facts to back this up but It's just a feeling I'm getting based on these results I'm seeing.

Nice!
How big is gap between fresnels and LCD?
What are dimensions of the projector?

Nice work, much less duct tape than I have



I'm planning to make an extreme make-over aka pimp my pj soon.
But it's still the image that matters.


Where did you get your lamp and ballast from ? Lumenlab ?? If so, how much you had to pay for it (inc.taxes)
At the local apuwatti lamps are too expensive and I have to get a 250W or 400W before motogp season starts.

And yes, my camera sucks.

[edit]


A lot of people are using Tikkurila Harmony X073 paint.
http://www.patenttinet.com/artikkelit/screen

Thank you for all the positive comments!

@tante: the dimensions are the same as in the Haas' plans.
The gaps are 20mm (closer to lamp) and 27mm. However, they might req. more tweaking.

@ArhPos: Yes, my parts are from Lumenlab. Don't remember exactly how much tax, but I guess it was the "regular" amount
I've seen that article before, the Tikkurila Harmony X073 paint might be good for bright PJs, but I'm not convinced that it's the right choice for these PJs. A whiter choice could be a better alternative. (?)

Hmmm.. guess I order ballast and lamp from Germany, so I don't have to pay for taxes.

I think plain white doesn't work well, image is bit washed out.
Here's couple of pics of my paint experiences.





My wall is white and I painted a piece of plywood with mix of white, gray and pearl. Result is light gray.

Contrast is much higher, black level raised and there's more fleshtones, and image seems to be sharper.
You can see bit effect from images, but my camera still sucks when taking pictures from pj.

I see. Yeah, it's a bit hard to tell from the pictures but I'm not doubting your judgement