Project: Hoobie7's DIY 1080p Projector

Hoobie7.com <-- Also, check out my website for more great and wondrous computer mods! (I love watching the Google analytics line go up!)

So I bought my first house, a town house actually, that just happens to have an unfinished basement. And being a guy, the first thing to pop in to my head is: HOME THEATER!

Of course the pivotal piece of equipment in any good HT is the projector, but I couldn't go with just any projector. No, I needed HD, 18080p, and nothing less would do, besides, standard def would prolly look really bad on a wide screen with a 140" diagonal (At least that's what I'm shooting for). Then I looked at HD PJ prices......and I was sad.
Then I remembered something I had seen months or even years ago, DIY PJ's, but technology had improved and so had the PJ's; they were hi def now and salvation was upon me and a light shown down, illuminating the path to HD PJ'ism! And so begins my long and tortuous journey to HD home theater greatness! Enjoy.

Hoobie7

DIY Projector Build

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-12 June 2008-

It just so happened to be that I had an LCD panel just laying around from a dead laptop that I tore apart. This thing had been laying around for nearly a year with no purpose since it's so hard to find lcd controllers. Well, I finally found it a new purpose in life: guinea pig. Here's the test subject now.

All dressed up, and no place to go.


Undressed and ready to tear apart.


Notice the high gloss reflection? Ya, I'll come back to that and why this could have saved me some trouble later on.


Here it is with the backlight removed. Don't worry the tear down of my WUXGA LCD will have even more detailed, boring, step-by-step pictures!


This is my attempt to get a shot of the different layers at the corner, ya not much to see but it kind of gives you an idea of how thin these layers are.


Next was to cut up some paper towel to fit the LCD. You want to cut these several millimeters short of the AG edge so that they end up within a millimeter or two of the AG edge once they have soaked. They are cut a little extra short because the paper towel will expand when wet and you really don't want it going over the edge.


Now here's where some of that precision craftsmanship comes into play. See, you want to get the paper towel right up to the edge of the anti glare coating, but not over it. You want to get the AG covered right up to the edge without going over, because the next step is to soak the paper towel in distilled water and lay them out over the panel. Water and electronics, yeah!!


-13 June 2008-

After a good 12 hour soak the AG coating lifted right off along with the paper towel. The plastic bag was placed over the paper towels to help cut down on evaporation. In retrospect I think this was a bad idea as it put weight on the water and, along with the wicking effect of the draped plastic, drew the water out and over the edge of the LCD and ended up causing me problems down the road.


Here's the layer lifting off with ease, but notice how the plastic layer looks shiny and smooth? Ya, come to find out after it was all said and done that wasn't the AG layer. In fact, this panel didn't even have an AG layer, instead it had a super smooth, high gloss layer. Something that didn't need to be removed at all. Oops! Oh well, live and learn.


Ok, so the next thing I learned was a bit more important of a lesson to learn, "What happens when the water spills over the edge and goes where it shouldn't?" Bad things start to happen. The main cause of this, I believe, was from that plastic bag causing the water to wick over the edge. I will not being using that technique for my WUXGA panel.


This tinted layer is what is underneath the AG layer and is known as the polarizer. This is what gives you a picture on the screen. Since it is tinted it would be nice if we could remove it, as it would give us great deal more light but from what I've been told that's about all you would get, a bright light but no picture. Not that I know from first hand experience, this is just what I've been told and I have no intention of finding out if it's true. So it's not a good thing that this started to come up but it's not too bad. You would probably have a slightly dimmer corner here, but in the end it doesn't really matter since this was practice anyway! Alright, that's all I got for now so get outta here!

In the next fun and action-packed episode I'll go into what my design plans are looking like, and then into the tear down of my WUXGA panel. Sounds like fun, huh, kids? You bet it does!

Hoobie7.com

DIY Projector Build

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- 26 July 2008 -

Ok, so I know I promised design ideas and I plan to give you just that, but first a little work I got started over the weekend. . . .

At the forefront of my mental list of issues needing attention was what I was going to use for a focusing mechanism. After spending several hours at Home Depot and Lowes I was able to come up with a plan that might just work. Basically I just took my Pro Triplet lens to Home Depot with me and found a piece that fit as closely around the lens as possible. The piece I ended up getting had a slightly larger diameter than the flange on the pro triplet which will work out perfectly. While I had the Home Depot guy trying to help me find something I asked if they get a lot of wierd ass requests for weird ass projects. Apparently they call the PVC aisle at Home Depot the "Macgyver Aisle". : ) Seems pretty accurate to me! Well, I couldn't quite find what I wanted at Home Depot so I went over to Lowe's and was able to find something that I think will workout well. Here's the part numbers of what I got in case any one else thinks this is a good idea.

4"x4" PVC SOILPIP -- 23323

4" DWV x S&D ADAP -- 171362

Knobs Clamping #1 -- 139655

T-Nuts, Three Hole #10-32x -- 137336

.085 8x10 Clear -- 72055

That last item is the UV coated Lexan. And above that is the knob and blind nut or T-nut, whatever you want to call it, that I will use for focus adjust. Ok, on with the Macgyvering! First up is what will become the inner ring that holds the triplet. I will actually be using the larger half o fthis adaptor. The Pro triplet is huge!

Cost of PVC and hardware: $25 - Lowe's



Let me just say here and now, cutting PVC sucks! When cutting perpendicular to the surface it's not bad, in fact, it's like butta. However, cut parralel to the surface sucks. Here's a few reasons why: First, your cutting area is ten times bigger, this slows down the cutting. Second, with this much surface area friction is increased, this increases heat meaning you have to stop periodically to let the piece cool. Third, increased heat means the PVC likes to get sticky, it doesn't exactly melt, just gets "tractioney" and likes to grab a hold of the blade. Fourth, cutting round pieces are extra sucky because once heated up and getting all "tractioney" they tend to just weeble and wobble back and forth with the blade. I ended up using some Windex to try and lubricate the blade to help keep it from binding. But, once it was all said and done this is waht I ended up with.



Not exactly a clean cut, I know. So, out with my brand new file set and a little cleaning up of the edge was done.



Once I had finished with the rough clean up I took it out to the garage for a finer sanding....on the floor. Hey when you need a large flat surface a table is good and a poured concrete floor ain't a bad second best.



Once I got that half way decent it was time to turn my attention to the other piece, the outside tube that the triplet would ride inside. Again, with more cutting parralel to the face, yay!



After finishing the cut it still took considerable amounts of filing to get the slot wide enough for the knob.



Once I had the filing done the knob was able to move the full distance without binding up.



Originally I planned on cutting out a section on the piece that wraps around the triplet but that would have left the flange on the triplet sticking out, so instead I decided to shim the excess keeping the triplet centered , like this.



I picked up a length of peel and stick Velcro today and that's what I'm planning on using to shim out the gap. Finally, I started the slow and tedious chore of removing material from the inside if the larger piece so that the triplet and it's new PVC sleeve will slide right in. Another slow and tedious process, but it's made a liitle easier with a bench drill press and a new drum sander kit. I found that if I just kept the piece flat against the table and pressed the side against the drum sander the drill press would sand and turn the piece with little effort from me, bonus! This is at about a third of the way done.



Ok, so that's it for now. I know, not much of an update but I am hoping to pick up the pace on this in the coming weeks. My plan was to have it up and throwing a picture by the end of July. July is gone now, I don't know where it went........ : (


Thanks,
Hoobie

Hoobie7.com

DIY Projector Build

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- 3 August 2008 -

Okay, so finally let me give you some idea of what this thing will look like when I have completed it, if that day ever comes.

The first shot is kind of just an overall shot of what it will look like once fully assembled and ready to go. It's based off of a Haas design, but with some re-engineering in the front end. Namely, it has been extended to allow for the longer focal length needed for the pro triplet lens that I plan on using. But, to keep it as small and tight as possible the front half will taper inward on the top and bottom like so.


To give you a little better idea of it's shape here is a shot of just the side panel head on.


At the back of the assembly I plan on using a trio of Vantech Stealth 120mm fans. These should do quite well at keeping things cool. As you may or may not have noticed in the first picture towards the back of the side panel there is a little box mounted in the projectors side panel. This is a digital fan controller meant for a floppy bay in a PC, it will be controlling my fans as it sees fit according to it's temperature readings. Covering the fans is a sort of light muffler that will hopefully stop most of the light from trying to pour out the back.


Finally, a shot of the internals, most of which, you'll notice are just kind of floating in mid air. The retention systems for some of the parts have not yet been completed. And they may not get rendered if I decide to just wing it instead. You may also notice that the front has some up and down adjustability for lens shifting. Originally I thought about motorizing this but since have dropped that idea in favor of a manual setup since it will probably get adjusted once and never moved again.


Alright that's it for tonight but I should have more for you shortly as I have started the woodworking phase of this project already. So, until next time, see ya!

Thanks,
Hoobie7

Hoobie7.com

DIY Projector Build

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-5 August 2008-

Here's just a quick update to keep the hungry masses at bay. The woodworking phase has begun! MDF hath been smited! As I'm sure you all know this will complete Preparations A-G and I shall soon dive head first in to Preparation H. (I wonder if I'll get Preparation H ads in my Google Ads now!?)

Anywho, I finally got started on the woodworking with the cutting of my two biggest pieces, the side panels. Wouldn't you know it, I was so excited to be fully immersed into Preparation H that I forgot to snap a pic of the first piece before I cut it all up. It wasn't too big of a deal though. The only issues I ran into were having to convert some of my larger metric numbers into fractional inches because I didn't have a metric ruler that went over 30cm. Plus, getting those two curves on top and bottom took some extra thinking on my part. Which, I'm not gonna lie, it hurt a little, doin' all that thinkin' stuff. But I was strong, strived on, got all my lines down, got it cut, and ended up with something like this:


From here on out it was smooth...er sailing, still not easy, just not so much thinkin'. I got to trace! I'm such a good tracer! You can kinda see on the top piece where my arcs helped to give the PJ some curves and hopefully a little aesthetic appeal.


So, once you get yourself all traced up, you take the top one off and rinse and repeat with the jigsaw. I was using what I believe is an 18 TPI (Tooth per Inch) blade. This I think was a bit too high. I would have preferred a lower TPI blade, something a bit more aggressive. Maybe a 14 or 12 tooth blade, 18 just kinda made the cutting a bit slow, and me a bit impatient. But, of course, it was the only blade I had and you know what they say, "Beggars can't be choosers, m'lord."


They prolly look pretty even in that picture but they were a good bit off. So, next was to clamp the two together and go to town on 'em both at the same time with the "super old school - carrot juice orange colored - random orbital sander" and the one and only piece of sand paper attached to it that I have. Luckily that piece was a pretty aggressive grit which was good since I had a good bit of material to remove from the edges to get them in alignment.


After it was all said and done I now have two side panels that are pretty close to identical, a new notch in my man belt for 1337 woodworking skillz, and a mild case of black lung from the saw dust. Ok, so that's it, that's all I got for this episode. It's a little short I know, but don't worry I have more pics waiting to be worklogged! More to come!

Hoobie7.com

DIY Projector Build

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-8 August 2008-

Progress on the PJ slowly marches on. After cutting out my two largest pieces and getting them pretty close to even I was fairly happy with that and moved on to the front and back pieces. For this session of creating massive amounts of sawdust I moved into the basement since it was hot as balls outside. First, the back panel; sketched out and ready to cut.



Cut out and ready for sanding!



Next up was the slightly smaller front panel. Done!



Third and final piece was the small sled piece that the triplet optics will sit in and allow them to slide up and down for lens shifting. Easy!



Now then, I have all three pieces cut but they need some sanding to even and smooth up the edges, but I don't have a proper workbench to clamp the pieces to for sanding. What's a guy to do? Well I decided to just hold the piece in my lap and sand away at it like that. It actually worked pretty well. Unfortunately the sawdust it created kind of coated me.



It's all good though because I ended up with three very good looking pieces of wood that should work well in my build.



That was it for the night, time to go clean up. More to come soon as I seem to actually be making progress faster than I can worklog it.

looking good. This should be a interesting build as ive never seen a projector build before.

How are you gonna get the laptop lcd working because last time i checked they dont use vga.

EDIT: Nvm I looked though the build again and you said its a test dummy. Anyway nice build.

Sweet.

subbed. if you get this shit working, I will be making one myself.

nice !! First time i see somebody build a projector .Sub'd.

Nice! I've not seen a DIY projector build either. I'll keep an eye out on this one.

Go Tyler! This project looks VERY good so far man! I know you're very smart when it comes to this stuff, so I have NO doubt this will be one for the records when you are finished!! By the way, my computer needs re-wiring ...i'm coming in soon and looking for you :P

Terrific, another lumenlab project. Consider using some Yates instead of the Vantecs but only by from Petra

he has more on his page that he hasn't posted on here yet go check that out.

Originally Posted by fluke420

Terrific, another lumenlab project. Consider using some Yates instead of the Vantecs but only by from Petra

Yes, Lumenlab.com is the Harforum of DIY PJ's!
Brainchild is a crazy, brilliant guy! (Forum owner)
Oh, and while your over there check out the new DIY CNC kits called micRo, freaking amazing!
I totally think I need one of those now too!

Hoobie

Hoobie7.com

DIY Projector Build

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-9 August 2008-

Like the slow steady, forward march of time, so too is the progress on my projector. . . . . uhhh, ya. So, once again I have spent a few more of my precious hours drilling, cutting, sanding, and generally making a mess all over my self, my tools, and my garage. Sometimes I wonder if my Jeep gets sad when I leave it outside. Hopefully one of these days I will reclaim my garage for it's intended use, protecting my baby.

Enough of the QQ, time for more pew pew! Ah yes, The List, oh how long and unending your demands are!


Great, lets see what can be done to widdle down The Mighty List a little bit. Let's drill some holes in something!


That was the pilot hole for a much larger hole that will become my "triplet focus mechanism holding sled". I made that name up all my own! Next! More drilling, this time pilot holes for the much larger holes that will become the three fan blow holes across the back of the PJ back panel.


The problem with drilling little, itty-bitty pilot holes? They don't make nearly enough of a mess!


Much better! Now this is what I call a mess, pile on the saw dust! Oh, and just in case you were wondering yes my workshop is the floor of my garage, and yes, I am sitting on the ground in white pants (sorry mom), I didn't learn nothing. Hey, I own a washing machine, I just make it work a little harder than most. Also, this next pic was taken by my roommate who is equally as much a nerd with equally nerdy projects. Just not as much 1337 skillz as me!


Ok, so at this point I run into my first problem. Ok, I screwed up, but only a little bit, and more importantly it can be fixed, mostly. See, here's the thing, for some of the larger measurements I had to convert my millimeters in to inches. I have a nifty little converter I found on the net, one that converts mm to inches, and one that converts inches to mm. This helped but it still left me with having to convert decimal inches to fractional so I could actually use it on a tape measure. Huge pain in the ass! Somewhere in the sea of numbers I got my conversion wrong and ended up staring at my back panel for a good long while trying to figure out why it looked off and what I did wrong.


Well, here's part of the issue. That should read 402mm, its currently at 424mm. Yes, after I did all the crazy mm to decimal inch to fractional inch conversion my roommate lets me borrow his longer bubble level with metric. ...Sigh...


Oh well, live and learn. No worries though, a little re measuring and then re-re measuring to make sure this time I was able to simply remove the excess.


After that it was simply re drilling my pilot hole and cutting the third fan blow hole. Hooray for more sawdust!


So, here's what the end product looks like. I know, I know the holes are a bit off. It'll still work but it kinda bothers me. Only time will tell if it eats away at me enough to redo the whole piece.


Finally here it is with the fans set on it. I still need to drill the mounting holes for the fans but this gives you a good idea of how it will look.
* Too many pics * (Forums said, "Not in my house, beeotch!".)

All right that is it for another hard days work in The New Hoobie Workshop. More to come very soon as I still have more done than I have time to worklog.

www.Hoobie7.com

DIY Projector Build

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-12 August 2008-

Hey! A new update, it's crazy, I know! Ok, so it's been a few days, but in the grand scheme of things a few days isn't really that bad is it? I've been a bit lazy this week, work has been tiring me and the man keeps trying to keep me down! Or maybe I'm just lazy. Enough crying, on with the progress.

First up, cutting out the center hole in the triplet sled. The problem here was that I didn't have a hole saw that was the right size for this hole. I decided to try another tool I have, my Dremel with a special hole cutting adapter. Unfortunately this adapter was meant to do plunge cuts through drywall and things of that nature. The special rotary cutting bit has a spiral that pushes the sawdust downward, out the other side of the cut. The problem here was I was cutting 3/4" MDF the plunge cutter doesn't go that deep. So, I had to end up doing the cut in several sections and depths.



As I said before the rotary cutting bit spirals downward to push outthe sawdust away from the Dremel. Since I wasn't going all the way through the bit just ended up shoving all the sawdust down into the groove. I ended up having to use a jig saw blade I found laying around to dig the sawdust out of the groove, otherwise the groove would get packed full and the bit would start to heat up and actually burn the wood!



After much painstaking labor and intense rotary cutting action I finally made it all the way through. Oh, and I did have to turn the piece over and go to town on it from behind to be able to make it all the way through. All and all, though, it made a pretty good cut with just a little uneveness that I cleaned up with the drum sander on the drill press.



Next up was the front face piece. This one was getting a slightly different cut to it but same procedure. Drill a center point pilot hole then fire up the Dremel and follow the same procedure as before.



The difference here is that there was two, offset pilot holes that basically gave me two half circles that looked remarkably like this.



With those two cuts made I simply had to jigsaw the last little bits out. Again, some serious sanding was needed to even things out and get things looking pretty.



And here's a shot with the two pieces together to check for a good line up. Looks pretty good to me!



Finally, the three main fron pieces can be test fitted together for the first time. Note that the entire outside of the PVC piece has also been sanded. This was necessary, especially around the bottom of the piece, to get it to fit in the sled. I'm pretty sure I removed about a foot worth of thickness of the PVC pipe, which of course made a huge mess again. In the end it all woked out and everything fits together beautifully.



All together! Yeah!



Oh, and I also finished drilling the holes for the fan mounting bolts. Here's a shot of the fans all mounted and looking good.



And from the back.

Finally, here's a shot of my brand new router bits I got for my Dremel. These will get used soon. On a side note, I got these at Home Depot, on sale, the last set they had, after not finding them at Lowes or Menards. WOOT!

Ok, that's it for now, hopefully more to come soon. I am now caught up with the worklog so I'm gonna have to get back to work if I want to have anything to talk about. See ya!

Thanks
Hoobie7

Hi Hoobie,
This is a great project when done right. Your build is looking really good.
I've built a few DIY projectors using 1024 and 1280 res LCD panels from LCD monitors with awesome results.
There are some fantastic Metal Halide light systems that have very cheap long lasting bulbs.
If you have a dark room and a high gain screen you can get amazing results from even a single ended (easy to fit) 150W Ceramic bulb.

About Ceramic bulbs:
Modern ceramics produce a very flat light spectrum which is ideal and they are more efficient than most Metal Halide bulbs (more light, less heat)
The specifications for ceramics show a low maximum lumens, this is because the spectrum is so flat, there are no high peaks, the energy is spread out evenly throughout the spectrum, this is deceptive!
Another advantage of these Ceramic bulbs is they have a smaller bulb core than other Metal Halides.
This means you can get the rear reflector and condensor lense closer to the bulb which traps more light and the image is sharper (ie the smaller the light source the better).


You want a bulb specced as NDL (Near DayLight) or preferably DL (DayLight) to get the correct colour tint.
NDL is shifted more towards the red part of the spectrum so gives a warmer image, more akin to the afternoon/evening sun. DL is shifted more towards Blue and gives colours like a bright summers day.
I prefer DL but no matter which you use you will get used to it.

Its about a year since I last researched so there may now be 250W Ceramic bulbs with the right colour spectrum and a small bulb core.
If so, this is the holy grail and will be more suitable for your projector.
Should there not be anything suitable in Ceramics, you will want at minimum a small core 250W MH. Beware if going higher power as some of the bulb cores are very big and the image wont be as sharp.
With larger bulbs, more of the light is lost as well due to the condensor lense and rear reflector having to be further from the bulb so you dont get the full benefit of the extra light power.
ps you will need a different smaller rear reflector with a closer focal point for the small core ceramic bulbs to get the most from them.

I spent a lot of time researching for a 1080p projector and would have built one by now if it wasnt so difficult to get a 1080p LCD panel smaller than 20 inches that supports true 8 bit or higher colour.
All the laptop 1080p panels use 6 bit colour with dithering sadly, the same with smaller 1080p LCD monitors.
Laptop panels also require a controller configured to use the panel, these arent cheap but are not too much if you are serious.
Sadly to get HDCP support it is quite expensive and not all controllers have this option.

By far the simplest solution is to use the panel and electronics from an LCD monitor.
Choose one with HDCP if you wish to use it for Blu-Ray.


ps I seriously recommend making a system that allows the rear reflector, bulb and condensor lense to be moved/adjusted in relation to each other.
This will allow you to tune the projector to get the best spread of light across the screen (reduce dark corners) and maximise the light output. Small adjustments can make a huge difference.
pps a normal 250W MH bulb, if set up well, will give you a decent picture of around 120" in a darkened room.
Dark room walls make a big difference.

Excellent project, I hope it works well

Nenu-

Lots of good info thank you. The ceramic bulbs are new to me, I was planning on going with a metal halide bulb as I got a good deal on some of the parts already for it. It will put out 400W at 6500K color temp which should be exactly daylight color.

Lumenlab has a store with many of these parts.

Here is the bulb I will be going with.
It does have a fairly large arc, but hopefully that will not affect my image too much.

Here's the ballast.
It's an eballast with some nice micro processor controlled safety features.

For the LCD I went with a panel from a Dell laptop off ebay. (Haven't tested it yet hopefully it works!) 15.4" panel that does 1920x1200 Sweet!

Manhattanlcd.com is a good source for controllers.
I'll try and find a shot of the one I have soon.

Thanks
Hoobie