Home made projector!

[Chernobyl]

Originally Posted by dantheman

thanks for the fan info, think my fan only has red and black cable... will give it a go anyways. think i'll get the 2 12mm fans - sounds like a good idea. are they quite quite?


i'll post all my results as and when they happen, got hl2, doom3 so i'll maybe use them for some gaming screens!!

You can get noisy and quiet 120mm fans. If you get a quiet 120mm fan and run it at 7V, it will be very quiet.
This fan is ideal as it has a speed controller built in
http://www.tekheads.co.uk/s/product?product=600801
No need for the voltmod.

edit: forgot to say- yeah, cant wait to see your screenshots.

Its not worth trying to capture moving shots unless it has no blurring and your camera is fast enough. I havent been able to give a decent piccy of Quake3 or Need For Speed Underground 2, which is a real shame as they are both great. I paused the movie playback to find a decent screen on that last one.

[spanielgita]

Yae projector arrived yesterday!! got everything bulit!!

one quick question though - i cant seem to resize the display on my tft!!!
is there any software or anything else i can do to resize it?

dan

ps working on getting some more pics up!!

[Chernobyl]

Originally Posted by spanielgita

Yae projector arrived yesterday!! got everything bulit!!

one quick question though - i cant seem to resize the display on my tft!!!
is there any software or anything else i can do to resize it?

dan

ps working on getting some more pics up!!

Great stuff, I look forward to your piccies.
I didnt think my display would resize until fiddling with a setting on the LCD called 'Clock'.
Try all the things you dont know what they are, it may just work.

Software to resize the screen has quite a performance penalty.
Should you have no other options and assuming you have an Nvidia card...

Under Desktop Management, enable NView.
A new NView option will appear when you right click the desktop.
Under the Tools TAB make sure NV Keystone is enabled. You should now be able to use ALT K to switch between NView Off/On/setup modes. You can resize the screen in setup mode.
Your mouse will not be as smooth as before, it does work quite well for Windows use though. Movie and game playing is too jerky.


A couple of us have modded our OHPs by cutting away some of the plastic under the OHPs glass to free some more real estate. I managed to get back 1/2 of what was missing this way, easily enough to play games and see your Ammo etc. This mod has made the projector really nice to use.

From about 1/2 way down this page are the details of how I freed the space. Take care not to cut out the air guides.
Home made projector!
Search for text "It got the better of me!"

On page 8, I posted some pictures.
Home made projector!
I would advise using a cutting tool rather than the soldering iron technique I used, the fumes werent nice!

Good luck

[spanielgita]

here is some pics so far...

spent most of today trying to get a better picture - there was this funny blurring on one side of objects, but all i had to move was the projector head to sort this, shifted it to one side and it was sorted!!!

i am much more impressed by the picture now! only thing that it limiting it is the cotners on the projector(mine are made of metal) and the material i have used for a screen.

will post pics of the projector later because i'll have to move it first...

anyhoo - couple o pics from gladiator here. some nice shiny metal on the guys helmet. gonna setup my camera. this doesnt trully depict the quality but you get a good idea

[Daniel ~]

DAMN! Those look good!

[Chernobyl]

Originally Posted by spanielgita

here is some pics so far...

spent most of today trying to get a better picture - there was this funny blurring on one side of objects, but all i had to move was the projector head to sort this, shifted it to one side and it was sorted!!!

i am much more impressed by the picture now! only thing that it limiting it is the cotners on the projector(mine are made of metal) and the material i have used for a screen.

will post pics of the projector later because i'll have to move it first...

anyhoo - couple o pics from gladiator here. some nice shiny metal on the guys helmet. gonna setup my camera. this doesnt trully depict the quality but you get a good idea

As Daniel said, good pics, that screen seems to work!
Hehe, nice shiny metal

I forgot to mention a good test to see how bright your screen is.
If you have some white printer paper, that should give a Gain of about 1.0 which is the lower Gain for projector screens.
Tape the paper carefully to your screen and compare. If the paper is darker than the screen, your screen has a Gain >1.0 which is ideal. If not, you might enjoy a brighter screen.

It would be nice to know the result.
Can you photo it?

[spanielgita]

hello again,

Had a busy week at uni, sorry for the delay. here are some pics of the ancient projector i have.

--pic 1---

this shows the internal components of the projector, note the HUGE extracting fan at the back to remove heat from the bulb. there is also a glass filter above the bulb which seems to effectively block radiating heat!! I have two fans running on the lcd but i think there might not even be any need for this!!! the ohp seems to do a good enough job of cooling! there is also a medium sized vent on the front that allows air to be pulled through by the big fan.

--pic 2--

pic of the front showing my diy light blocking box which still allows air to be pulled through the system.
the focus adjuster knob and the power switch which can be set to off,fan, fan and bulb.

--pic 3--

this shows the back of the ohp with its huge air vent. alot of hot air comes out of here. heats up the room pretty quick lol

--pic 4--

made a small shelf on the back, made from sheet metal and 2 bolts, to hold the circuits on. makes the overall size a bit bigger but there isnt much room to put these boards anywhere esle. this is due to the short monitor cable(pcb).

--pic 5--

shows the dual fan assembley - which i dont think i even need but will keep as a safeguard for the lcd screen. powered seperately by a adapter.

for some reason steam isnt working so i cant get any hl2 or cs shots yet
but i'll format soon then get some up.

- watched black hawk down the other day, it was immense on big screen, will get some more film pics up soon (and do that white paper thingy!!)

dan

[spanielgita]

its me again,

found some more pics - forgot i took these lol

anyhow here they are, nfsu2, sorry for the blurryness - dont have a tripod.

dan

[Chernobyl]

Hi Dan
cheers for the piccys, its looking pretty neat!
Glad you got a better shot of Need For Speed, I really struggled
Out of interest, do you know what bulb is in your OHP?

Down to business
I've been a bit lax working on the projector of late as it works so well and doesnt need any maintenance apart from wiping dust off.
Heres a piccy of it in use, watching telly and typing this
(The camera does lie! I can't see any dark areas when using it)

The cardboard shroud that was fitted to stop the majority of light entering the room works extremely well. It will make a good template to cut a single piece unit from black plastic or card.
I'm eager to sort out the fan assembly too so it supplies filtered air to the LCD. This will be sorted once I find something to mount the LCD on the OHP. For now its mounted on foam strips which deform over time, so rubber strips would be nice. I havent found anything that is suitable yet, but havent looked that hard.

After fitting the last bulb, I noticed a quiet whining noise from one of the LCD cooling fans but ignored it for a couple of days. On inspection, one fan was the wrong way round! Just goes to show, you cant be too careful, I'm definitely glad I used 2 fans. Great peace of mind, so yeah Dan, glad you are keeping the 2 fans.

AT LAST !!!
After weeks of waiting, I ordered a Daylight (5100K) Metal Halide bulb kit when the cheapest place had stock at last! If all goes well I'll make a post here saying where I got it.
http://www.aoaforums.com/forum/72-links/
To be safe I also ordered a rear parabola reflector from them in case the one I have gives the wrong colour shift (edit: oops, its a round reflector). Total cost is 103 Euros (!!) and includes the bulb, ignitor, ballast, reflector and fittings to wire the bulb.

They have the 250W which is 20000 Lumens and has UV Stop built in which should be better than my current bulb for a number of reasons:

1) Much cheaper bulb cost as the bulb lasts somewhere between 6,000 and 20,000 hours! Replacements are £26, readily available, about 1/10th the cost of the cheaper projector bulbs and lasts 3+ times longer (my OHP bulbs are about £5 each and last approx 200 hours)
2) Cheaper to run as it is 250W vs 400W original bulb
3) Will render blue and white correctly as it is nearly a true daylight lamp
4) should be much brighter with 20,000 lumens vs my OHP's 13,000 lumens bulb
5) The bulb is going on 3 times as efficient and less power so will run much cooler

The bulb kit should be here in a week. I'll do a full photo set of how to make it fit. Cant wait

Edit: oops, sorry about this pic, I posted the wrong one by accident after I had tweaked it. Not that it matters much, the camera is crap at making it look like it does here

[Chernobyl]

Hi everyone
I have some good and some interesting news.

A few days ago I decided to make the LCD easier to assemble onto the OHP and lose the dodgy foam holding it up. In its place there is now the lids from wall wire trunking stuck on with double sided carpet tape. This provides a channel along which I have run a length of PC power lead at the front and back of the LCD to get the height I really want. See pic.

The lowering of the LCD panel nearer the OHP glass has done something special!
Less light escapes so the picture is brighter.
The colour balance is much better.
For the perfectionists: most blues look good, real bright blue has a cyan tint, faint blues slightly dark. White is a very mild creamy colour which you tune into it almost straight away.
Due to the angle of light going from the big fresnel lense to the small up/down adjustable lense:- putting the LCD closer to the OHP shines light on more of the LCD. Cool.

I took the time to make the ladies tights air filter which works well. It also seems to make the fans even quieter!

This projector is absolutely awesome, I'm blown away by it. Bright colours really can glow!
If the new bulb wasnt ordered I'd be happy with it as it is for a 5ft maybe 6ft screen.
It will be interesting to see just how the new bulb does compare (and how big it will go ).

Here are some piccies of the lowered LCD and the fan filter being built.

[Chernobyl]

and theres more!

[spanielgita]

wow chernobyl,

thats some nice work you've done there, looks much better!!!
i think i will follow suit and make a cardboard shroud thing.

- do you have any news concerning the metal halide bulbs?

regards,
dan

[Chernobyl]

Thanks Dan
But damn, you have me in a corner there. I was going to publish the news after I got it running...
Yes the MH bulb arrived and my OHP is really in pieces!
Really really!!

Progress has stopped as I need to get a drill (careful who you lend your kit to, some friends arent really friends).
I'm doing my best to mount the new kit on the same mechanism in the OHP which controls bulb height. The sizes and shapes of the bulb and reflector differ greatly. I did the first irreversible work last night flattening out the bed of the height control mechanism to take the new bulb.
Its looking very promising

Couldnt resist, the first picture 1) is the carnage in progress!
2) what my projector image looks like before changing the bulb (for reference), nicer colours now.
3) the new light kit
4) first test flight!
5) placement of the new bulb on the height control mechanism

I've hit on one snag so far, the fan in the OHP is a very good quiet design so want to keep it. The transformer used by the old light fed it 220V from the 240V mains and it used to run much quieter. I may just plonk a series resistor in there or have the 2 transformers running. We'll see.

[Chernobyl]

Well that was a lot easier than expected!
It was a matter of stripping the old bits out, drilling holes for the new light, fitting the reflector and bulb then putting the assembly back (and plonking the lense on top later). Incredibly it worked well first time.
I'll do some pictures soon, for now I'm resting and watching telly on it

I have previously researched how to find the focal point of the the rear reflector and found it was exactly right bolting the bulb above it in this frame.
(to find the focal point, look into the reflector and move the bulb up/down in front of it until the reflection of the bulb is the same size as the bulb. A little variance doesnt seem to affect it)

Installing the light on the OHPs height adjustable frame was a smart move as there is a nice sweet spot to get the colour balanced from the edges with the centre. The extra size/height of the bulb/reflector gives a larger picture for the distance. The projector has been moved closer to the screen to compensate.
Initially without the lense over the bulb, it worked very well, surprising. The screen edges were a little darker though, so the lense was replaced.
At the moment the lense is sat as close to the bulb as it can be without touching it, the height was adjusted to compensate.

There is very little heat coming out of the projectors fan now (shame as it kept my feet warm before )
After checking the temperature of the glass from one hours use and finding it was cold, I removed the LCD fans altogether and have sat the LCD on the glass with just the thin platic wall trunking lid separating it (3mm). The screen temperature is reaching 45C but there is NO fading at all.
I anticipate a slow small fan will suffice now.

The transformer (Ballast) for the new lamp is on the same mounting as the old transformer. There is a good air gap and then a vent hole below it. The transformer gets pretty hot so I fitted a fan over the vent blowing upwards onto the transformer.

Initially the picture looked a little washed out so some adjustment to the colour has been done. The result is truly phenomenal. White really is white, colours are superb.
If something is Cyan colour, thats because it really is cyan. Problem solved
I checked with my favourite cyan test from X-Men the movie. The early snow scene used to look a little creamy and cyan. It now looks like snow.

Adjustments made are:
+5% on contrast in windows
+5% red on LCD
+5% blue on LCD

At first I thought it was no brighter but after adjusting the colour, bright white can seem very bright. I dont think I would make the picture any bigger unless I get a real good screen, its about right at 5ft. Actually, its bang on and I have a huge grin
Another advantage to having the LCD almost sat on the OHP glass, there is even more of the screen displayed! And even more betterer () the angled corners are tiny now.

I would expect to pay a lot of money for something that looks this good.

[Chernobyl]

Aww you should see this.
I removed the glass again as suggested by jcw122 and wow a fair bit brighter and no UV pattern on the LCD!! (big cheers for that idea JCW ) I run the risk of the LCD colours fading over time, but as this is an exploration as much as anything it would be nice to know if it will happen at all. To this end I'm going to keep it this way(unless obviously bad) and replace the LCD with a lesson learnt if it does go awry.
I am very hopeful though as there is no sign of UV like before, no sign at all.

Without the glass, there is no need to have the LCD raised anymore so I shall remove the spacer soon. This should bring a tiny bit more screen estate into view and perhaps even more brightness?

The only issues that prevent it from being perfect are:

1) Adjusting the very top lense so focus is completely true from top to bottom. Its slightly out, but still sharp enough when balanced between the two.
2) A tiny amount of each corner is chopped off. This is no problem at all.
3) There is about 1/30th of the screen width missing after using the screen compression of the LCD, no real problem
4) The brightness across the screen isnt constant, the bottom half being brighter than the top half. I seek to fix this by angling the rear reflector and moving the bulb lense. Its rarely noticeable!
5) The bottom corners are a tiny bit darker than the rest of the screen. It isnt noticed unless you are looking for it.
6) I need a bigger screen


Here are a few screenshots of R4 and Counter Strike:Source.
Again bear in mind the camera makes the picture dark. There is more detail on screen than the photos show too!

[Gizmo]

And a Front Page once again, Chernobyl! www.aoaforums.com

[Chernobyl]

Originally Posted by gizmo

And a Front Page once again, Chernobyl! www.aoaforums.com

Cheers Gizmo

[danrok]

Today AOA, tomorrow Wembley Arena!

[Chernobyl]

Originally Posted by danrok

Today AOA, tomorrow Wembley Arena!

lol
with one of those bulbs fearless joe was going to use it might work
Theres some pics coming later today of the new bulb being fitted...

Hey Danrok, are you thinking of building one too?

[spanielgita]

chernobyl - what can i say!!! you are the man!!!
that is some trully amazing results you got there!


where did you get that lighting kit from?
also, you seem to get alot of your screen to be displayed.

i was wondering what size your frensal lens was ????- i measured mines to be 27mm,
and my screen is 31, this means that i am losing 2cm from each side!

i am thinking of buying a frensal bigger lense, a 31cm to accomadate the whole screen,
but i have a few queries;

- if i put a bigger lense in will this distort the image?
- will i have to move my light source?

regards

Dan