I'm starting this thread to detail my projector, with pics and info, for anyone looking for information to help them build their own.
I started my projector after Christmas, as soon as I received my lcd monitor, fresnels, and MDF. I expected to pay about $400 total.
Here's a rough run-down of all the parts in it(
the items with "-" are exact amounts, while items with "~" are very close estimates):
Dell 1702fp 17" LCD monitor- $132.50 eBay
Two 15.5"x15.5" 330mm fl fresnel lenses-$46.54 Diyprojectorcompany.com
HPS Ballast, Capacitor, and Ignitor kit-$38.99 eBay
USHIO S400DD Metal Halide Retrofit lamp-$47.35 www.atlantalightbulbs.com
FFC Extender Cable and Terminal-$10.12 www.mouser.com
4-6 Big Sheets of 1/2 inch MDF, Multi-purpose screws, Angle Brackets, possibly more-$35.75 Menardss
Ceramic Mogul Base for USHIO lamp~$25.00 local electrician supply wholesaler (yes, I realize I payed way too much, I was in a hurry)
Lumenlab 320mm fl standard triplet-$29.99+S$H~$40.00
www.lumenlab.com
Fabric for screen~$30.00 (I had to buy a bigger set after I realized my smaller sheets were too small) Hobby Lobby
Lexan XL10 10 inch by 8 inch (guessing)~$1.80 Home Depot
4 1/2" wooden dowels for lens focusing mechanism~<$8.00 Menardss
120mm computer fan~$8.00 Best Buy
DPCO Switch for Power~$1.50 Menardss
Aluminum Food Trays for Jerry-rigged flashing~$1.50 Menard's
Distilled Water for purposes varied-$.89 Pick'n'Save
Various tools and other items from around the house-priceless (you know what I mean)
Total: less than $427.94 (check that for me)
NOTE!-If it seems I'm obviously forgetting something, someone please let me know for my sake, so I can tally up my total cost more accurately.
As you can see, I'm right around my budget, which wasn't really a budget, instead more of what I expected to pay. But still...
I started working on it right around the start of the New Year. Since then, I've worked on it sporadically (between school, homework, all those extracurriculars, friends, and Halo 2, there isn't much time for this). For the past two or so weeks, I've had it producing a very respectable, watchable image, with the major components "permanently" in place. I've got everything pretty much done with it, short of mounting the LCD power adapter in the PJ, making an input/lcd power and adjustment panel on the side, putting a permanent light muffler on the fan and lens adjustment module, and spray-painting black and laquering the enclosure. I also need to get a better screen, or somehow fix up the one I made.
I started my projector after Christmas, as soon as I received my lcd monitor, fresnels, and MDF. I expected to pay about $400 total.
Here's a rough run-down of all the parts in it(
the items with "-" are exact amounts, while items with "~" are very close estimates):
Dell 1702fp 17" LCD monitor- $132.50 eBay
Two 15.5"x15.5" 330mm fl fresnel lenses-$46.54 Diyprojectorcompany.com
HPS Ballast, Capacitor, and Ignitor kit-$38.99 eBay
USHIO S400DD Metal Halide Retrofit lamp-$47.35 www.atlantalightbulbs.com
FFC Extender Cable and Terminal-$10.12 www.mouser.com
4-6 Big Sheets of 1/2 inch MDF, Multi-purpose screws, Angle Brackets, possibly more-$35.75 Menardss
Ceramic Mogul Base for USHIO lamp~$25.00 local electrician supply wholesaler (yes, I realize I payed way too much, I was in a hurry)
Lumenlab 320mm fl standard triplet-$29.99+S$H~$40.00
www.lumenlab.com
Fabric for screen~$30.00 (I had to buy a bigger set after I realized my smaller sheets were too small) Hobby Lobby
Lexan XL10 10 inch by 8 inch (guessing)~$1.80 Home Depot
4 1/2" wooden dowels for lens focusing mechanism~<$8.00 Menardss
120mm computer fan~$8.00 Best Buy
DPCO Switch for Power~$1.50 Menardss
Aluminum Food Trays for Jerry-rigged flashing~$1.50 Menard's
Distilled Water for purposes varied-$.89 Pick'n'Save
Various tools and other items from around the house-priceless (you know what I mean)
Total: less than $427.94 (check that for me)
NOTE!-If it seems I'm obviously forgetting something, someone please let me know for my sake, so I can tally up my total cost more accurately.
As you can see, I'm right around my budget, which wasn't really a budget, instead more of what I expected to pay. But still...
I started working on it right around the start of the New Year. Since then, I've worked on it sporadically (between school, homework, all those extracurriculars, friends, and Halo 2, there isn't much time for this). For the past two or so weeks, I've had it producing a very respectable, watchable image, with the major components "permanently" in place. I've got everything pretty much done with it, short of mounting the LCD power adapter in the PJ, making an input/lcd power and adjustment panel on the side, putting a permanent light muffler on the fan and lens adjustment module, and spray-painting black and laquering the enclosure. I also need to get a better screen, or somehow fix up the one I made.
Anyways, onto the future of this thread: I'll try to update this thread as I progress, and as I take photographs. I plan on posting pictures of my PJ and its innards, as well as more photographs of it in action, later today (as I'm currently writing at 12:05 a.m.). Any detail you want answered, or any picture you want, just say the word. It might be better if you both post a request in this thread and PM me, as sometimes I don't check the forums often.
I'll keep from describing my box until I have pictures of it. Until then, I'll add what I have.
At this point, I'll tell you that I removed my antiglare layer. The reasons that I did were that since the ag layer was facing the lamp, it was diffusing (wrong term?) a lot of the light, making it go in off directions. The end result of this was that the arc image was not focused on the projection lens; the optimum shape I could get was a round blob of light about two inches in diameter larger than my projection lens. Thus, I was getting less light in than I wanted to. Here are four images that I took. Yes, they look ugly, but I promise you that that's my camera's fault...mostly. The sole reason I'm posting these images is for the exif data.
NOTE: please forgive me for the wrinkles in the image. Those are from my screen not being mounted well. I'm working on it, so don't fret.
Remember, those are boring. Their real use comes in later.
The second reason that I disembarked on the journey to remove the antiglare layer was that during certain scenes, especially those in which part of the screen would be dark and part would be light, a sort of "bloom affect" would occur, where a gradient of light flowed away from the bright area, and spilled onto the dark area. It was fairly annoying, as it decreased contrast, and just made my pj look cheap. Naturally, I attributed it to the ag layer diffusing (wrong term?) light too much, and giving out stray light. Here's a pic to show what I mean (click on it to make it larger):
You'll have to click on it, and follow the link to "View Original Size" to see what I mean. If you look at that control bar thing, you can see a glow to some of the sides of it. It's not quite as pronounced there as in real life, perhaps due to bad camera settings.
Anyways, I attributed that glow to the antiglare, and with that reason and the unfocused lamp arc image reason, I began the process of disassembling my lcd panel (note: don't use as much hot glue to hold your panel in its mount as much as I did...it's a pain to remove it if you ever need to disassemble the LCD). Once it was all disassembled, I used some purified (yes, purified by reverse osmosis, not distilled as I said in the first post) water to drench paper towels with, which I then laid on my LCD panel's ag side. I then proceeded to pour more water on, and then put a sheet of saran wrap over the top to hold in moisture. I finished all that at 8:30 pm Thursday, June 1st. At 11:30 pm, three hours later, I went down to check on the process. I peeled away a corner of the ag sheet with my thumb, made sure all the other corners were workable, and then began peeling away. The sheet peeled fairly easily, albeit a little harder than I would have liked. It was a lot like removing duct tape (if duct tape was fairly thick) from a clean, porous surface. At times, it felt scary, but it worked, and I didn't break the polarizer.
After assembling it all back up, and putting it back in my pj, I turned it all on. To my horror, that glowy bloom affect was still there. So I proceeded to put electrical tape around any areas on my LCD mount where light could enter in, thinking that could be it. Well, that didn't do the trick either, so I threw the bloom issue to the side. I fired up my camera, and with the same test screen, same contrast, brightness, and color adjustments, and same lamp warm-up time (about thirty minutes), I took some more pictures. Here they are (once again, ONLY for the exif data, the pictures are horrible for anything else):
Now I know this is far from an exact science, but now to compare some stuff. Unfortunately, I just realized that this upload site I'm using gets rid of exif data, which keeps my point from really pounding in. But I'll make it anyway:
In the first picture from before the ag removal, I set the ISO rating to 80, and got an exposure time of 1/1.6 seconds. In the fourth and fifth pictures AFTER AG removal, the ISO was 80 and the exposure time turned out as 1/2.5 seconds. That's 1.5 times as fast of an exposure. Now I don't know nearly enough about cameras or light as I should, but seeing as how all the other variables were the same, and the exposure time was 1.5 times as fast, one assumes that that means an increase in brightness. Is it 50% brighter? Knowing how light acts so strangely, there's probably some kind of inverse rule that means that no, it's not 50% brighter. But I have no idea. And if you think that all this stuff I'm spewing means nothing, please tell me. I'm just assuming that until then it does mean something.
On the second and third pics before ag removal, I set the ISO speed at 1000, and the exposure time ended up as 1/20 seconds. In the first, second, and third pics after ag, the ISO was 1000, and the exposure time was 1/30 seconds, 1.5 times as fast.
And in the fourth pic before ag, the ISO was 320 and the exposure was 1/8 seconds. In the sixth and seventh pictures after ag, the ISO was 320 and the exposure time was 1/10 seconds, 1.25 times as fast.
Now seeing as how that image hosting site gets rid of exif data, I can't really prove those values were true. If you want me to email you them, so you can verify the exif data is true and I'm not lying, just ask.
Also, please note that for all I know, the exposure time means nothing to this, and nothing can be deduced from it. But until I'm told otherwise, I'm assuming it is valuable.
Anyways, besides that, the image does look much brighter after ag removal. While before, it was hard for me to get both contrast AND brightness nicely set with a good picture, it is now incredibly easy to, with brightness and contrast just set at 50%. Also, when I have lights directly over my screen turned on now, I can still see somewhat of an image, whereas before, nothing was recognizable.
I'll go back to the bloom affect now. Once that was all settled, I went up to the screen to see if the bloom was coming from the different part of my pj. I tried blocking light from my pj with my hand, but I couldn't get the bloom to go away. I then stood up, frustrated, and pulled on the side of hte screen to get some wrinkles out. When I did this, a little light turned on in my head: When I moved the screen back a bit, the bloom radically changed shape, but the overall image did not. Thinking I now knew what the problem was, I put my hand behind the screen, and the bloom went away. This is why you want BLACKOUT CLOTH or some other high-quality screen, you guys: what was creating the bloom affect was the fact that the light from the pj was hitting the screen, but some of it got through, bounced off the wall three feet behind it, or a chest even nearer to it, and hit the screen, coming through to my eyes looking like a bloom of light. In other words, if I used a thick material that doesn't allow any passing of light from one side to the other, this wouldn't have been a problem
I am glad, however, that I did use a cheap fabric, as the wrong assumption that it was the ag layer that created the bloom is what caused me to remove the ag layer. Overall, I am extremely happy that I did remove it, as it gave me a MUCH brighter image, and I'm pretty sure better sharpness and detail as well.
I'll keep from describing my box until I have pictures of it. Until then, I'll add what I have.
At this point, I'll tell you that I removed my antiglare layer. The reasons that I did were that since the ag layer was facing the lamp, it was diffusing (wrong term?) a lot of the light, making it go in off directions. The end result of this was that the arc image was not focused on the projection lens; the optimum shape I could get was a round blob of light about two inches in diameter larger than my projection lens. Thus, I was getting less light in than I wanted to. Here are four images that I took. Yes, they look ugly, but I promise you that that's my camera's fault...mostly. The sole reason I'm posting these images is for the exif data.
NOTE: please forgive me for the wrinkles in the image. Those are from my screen not being mounted well. I'm working on it, so don't fret.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Remember, those are boring. Their real use comes in later.
The second reason that I disembarked on the journey to remove the antiglare layer was that during certain scenes, especially those in which part of the screen would be dark and part would be light, a sort of "bloom affect" would occur, where a gradient of light flowed away from the bright area, and spilled onto the dark area. It was fairly annoying, as it decreased contrast, and just made my pj look cheap. Naturally, I attributed it to the ag layer diffusing (wrong term?) light too much, and giving out stray light. Here's a pic to show what I mean (click on it to make it larger):
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
You'll have to click on it, and follow the link to "View Original Size" to see what I mean. If you look at that control bar thing, you can see a glow to some of the sides of it. It's not quite as pronounced there as in real life, perhaps due to bad camera settings.
Anyways, I attributed that glow to the antiglare, and with that reason and the unfocused lamp arc image reason, I began the process of disassembling my lcd panel (note: don't use as much hot glue to hold your panel in its mount as much as I did...it's a pain to remove it if you ever need to disassemble the LCD). Once it was all disassembled, I used some purified (yes, purified by reverse osmosis, not distilled as I said in the first post) water to drench paper towels with, which I then laid on my LCD panel's ag side. I then proceeded to pour more water on, and then put a sheet of saran wrap over the top to hold in moisture. I finished all that at 8:30 pm Thursday, June 1st. At 11:30 pm, three hours later, I went down to check on the process. I peeled away a corner of the ag sheet with my thumb, made sure all the other corners were workable, and then began peeling away. The sheet peeled fairly easily, albeit a little harder than I would have liked. It was a lot like removing duct tape (if duct tape was fairly thick) from a clean, porous surface. At times, it felt scary, but it worked, and I didn't break the polarizer.
After assembling it all back up, and putting it back in my pj, I turned it all on. To my horror, that glowy bloom affect was still there. So I proceeded to put electrical tape around any areas on my LCD mount where light could enter in, thinking that could be it. Well, that didn't do the trick either, so I threw the bloom issue to the side. I fired up my camera, and with the same test screen, same contrast, brightness, and color adjustments, and same lamp warm-up time (about thirty minutes), I took some more pictures. Here they are (once again, ONLY for the exif data, the pictures are horrible for anything else):
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Now I know this is far from an exact science, but now to compare some stuff. Unfortunately, I just realized that this upload site I'm using gets rid of exif data, which keeps my point from really pounding in. But I'll make it anyway:
In the first picture from before the ag removal, I set the ISO rating to 80, and got an exposure time of 1/1.6 seconds. In the fourth and fifth pictures AFTER AG removal, the ISO was 80 and the exposure time turned out as 1/2.5 seconds. That's 1.5 times as fast of an exposure. Now I don't know nearly enough about cameras or light as I should, but seeing as how all the other variables were the same, and the exposure time was 1.5 times as fast, one assumes that that means an increase in brightness. Is it 50% brighter? Knowing how light acts so strangely, there's probably some kind of inverse rule that means that no, it's not 50% brighter. But I have no idea. And if you think that all this stuff I'm spewing means nothing, please tell me. I'm just assuming that until then it does mean something.
On the second and third pics before ag removal, I set the ISO speed at 1000, and the exposure time ended up as 1/20 seconds. In the first, second, and third pics after ag, the ISO was 1000, and the exposure time was 1/30 seconds, 1.5 times as fast.
And in the fourth pic before ag, the ISO was 320 and the exposure was 1/8 seconds. In the sixth and seventh pictures after ag, the ISO was 320 and the exposure time was 1/10 seconds, 1.25 times as fast.
Now seeing as how that image hosting site gets rid of exif data, I can't really prove those values were true. If you want me to email you them, so you can verify the exif data is true and I'm not lying, just ask.
Also, please note that for all I know, the exposure time means nothing to this, and nothing can be deduced from it. But until I'm told otherwise, I'm assuming it is valuable.
Anyways, besides that, the image does look much brighter after ag removal. While before, it was hard for me to get both contrast AND brightness nicely set with a good picture, it is now incredibly easy to, with brightness and contrast just set at 50%. Also, when I have lights directly over my screen turned on now, I can still see somewhat of an image, whereas before, nothing was recognizable.
I'll go back to the bloom affect now. Once that was all settled, I went up to the screen to see if the bloom was coming from the different part of my pj. I tried blocking light from my pj with my hand, but I couldn't get the bloom to go away. I then stood up, frustrated, and pulled on the side of hte screen to get some wrinkles out. When I did this, a little light turned on in my head: When I moved the screen back a bit, the bloom radically changed shape, but the overall image did not. Thinking I now knew what the problem was, I put my hand behind the screen, and the bloom went away. This is why you want BLACKOUT CLOTH or some other high-quality screen, you guys: what was creating the bloom affect was the fact that the light from the pj was hitting the screen, but some of it got through, bounced off the wall three feet behind it, or a chest even nearer to it, and hit the screen, coming through to my eyes looking like a bloom of light. In other words, if I used a thick material that doesn't allow any passing of light from one side to the other, this wouldn't have been a problem
I am glad, however, that I did use a cheap fabric, as the wrong assumption that it was the ag layer that created the bloom is what caused me to remove the ag layer. Overall, I am extremely happy that I did remove it, as it gave me a MUCH brighter image, and I'm pretty sure better sharpness and detail as well.
This pic's just to show that my corners aren't as bad as they appear when they are...at the corners of my camera. Sure, they are darker than the center, but I really can't tell with just my eyes, especially if I didn't KNOW that they were darker due to what people on here have said about corners.
Here's a pic of the screen-door affect or whatever it's called. In real life, it looks even sharper...I can see sharp grey-black lines between each pixel, and I don't remember if I can see them between each subpixel.
Here's a few pics and a video of a REALLY weird effect. Ever since removing the ag filter, I've been able to see the arc image on a piece of paper placed right before the pj lens, but when I looked back at my lens while standing near the screen, I saw the arc image "fixed" within the lens. Very weird, I think it may even be a hologram. Anybody else seen this in their pj before? :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAoklB207HI
Neither the pictures nor the video represent how crisp the arc image on the lens is in real life. It's really kinda scary. I have a hologram picture of a microscope, and if you look into the viewfinder of the hologram, you can see a dragonfly. The arc image looks very similar to that hologram (not as in it looks like a microscope or a dragonfly, but in the way that it's got a definite, crisp shape, but is partially see-through, and bends light in odd ways.
And last but certainly not least, here is FINALLY a picture of my projector in action, courtesy of the greatest film I have yet seen, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." Sorry about the grainyness, I think I had my ISO speed too high.
More stuff to come today or later.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Here's a pic of the screen-door affect or whatever it's called. In real life, it looks even sharper...I can see sharp grey-black lines between each pixel, and I don't remember if I can see them between each subpixel.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Here's a few pics and a video of a REALLY weird effect. Ever since removing the ag filter, I've been able to see the arc image on a piece of paper placed right before the pj lens, but when I looked back at my lens while standing near the screen, I saw the arc image "fixed" within the lens. Very weird, I think it may even be a hologram. Anybody else seen this in their pj before? :
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAoklB207HI
Neither the pictures nor the video represent how crisp the arc image on the lens is in real life. It's really kinda scary. I have a hologram picture of a microscope, and if you look into the viewfinder of the hologram, you can see a dragonfly. The arc image looks very similar to that hologram (not as in it looks like a microscope or a dragonfly, but in the way that it's got a definite, crisp shape, but is partially see-through, and bends light in odd ways.
And last but certainly not least, here is FINALLY a picture of my projector in action, courtesy of the greatest film I have yet seen, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." Sorry about the grainyness, I think I had my ISO speed too high.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
More stuff to come today or later.
Very interesting on the AG removal. I know that it can't hurt to remove it for more light, but it does seem that some LCDs benfit more than others.
Nice detailed, proven facts.
Nice detailed, proven facts.
Here are some more pics of my projector. Please excuse the wrinkles in the image. Once again, those are from my projection screen being an unironed, not properly mounted piece of thin fabric.
Also, I'll try to get my camera more fine-tuned in the future to get more accurate, brighter pictures.
Halo 2-Zansibar
Halo 2-Ascension
Matrix Reloaded
Star Wars: Episode II
Also, I'll try to get my camera more fine-tuned in the future to get more accurate, brighter pictures.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Halo 2-Zansibar
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Halo 2-Ascension
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Matrix Reloaded
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Star Wars: Episode II
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