Use of CRT Projector Lens - check out my pic it's neat.

[gammamonk]

This is kinda a continuation of a previous thread, but from a totally new angle. So the story is, I got this dead CRT Projector. Didn't know what was wrong with it at first, but it turns out to have all three CRT's dead.

So I ripped the lenses, heatsinks, fans, anything useful out.

I had read that a CRT lens will only project a curved surface properly, but it's hard to tell in my experiment.

Here is a CRT lens + sheet of glass w/ a cross drawn in marker + a 20 watt floresent lamp.

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

Pretty neat huh? So I think if I get an LCD small enough, this could work!

Any good tips?

 

[diylabs]

Yes it could definitely work - there have been a few people to build projectors that way. If you take a look at the results page on my website, I believe that I have a picture or two of a man named David who built his projector with one of these lenses. There are also other sites out there of people's small-panel projectors.

The only problem that I see is that you need a high resolution panel that is smaller than about 4" diagonal, which are not terribly common. If you don't mind lower resolution, then no problems just using a mini-TV LCD panel. Also, you will almost certainly need a lamp that is stronger than what you are using. I believe a fresnel lens will increase your brightness as well, though some people using the small panels aren't using fresnel lenses and still get a decent image.