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DIY High-Quality XGA Projector for ~$300
ranrub writes "Tom's Hardware Guide posted a guide to building your own XGA LCD projector from parts costing under $300. Major components are an overhead projector and a used 15" LCD screen. They even have a movie of the whole project on site! It's quite bigger and noisier than a standard projector, but most of our living rooms look like electronic junkyards anyway, don't they?"
I think I'll spend the 300 hundreds and mod my PC case to dispense ice cold Bawls.
Sure, its only $300 but let's look at the total cost of ownership here.
Parts & Labor : $300
Never getting laid again : Priceless
I think I'll stick with something that doesnt alienate the dripping hot sluts always coming on to me here in my swinging bachelor pad.
The image is a bit blurry and usually darker than those expensive multimedia projectors. But the bulbs are cheaper to replace, and it's suitable for watching movies with your friends on walls and such. I'd recommend forgoing the overhead lamp and getting yourself a much more high powered light source, and a top quality fresnel lense, it will still probably be cheaper than the overhead projector, and having a brighter light source means a bigger or brighter picture. Couple one of these with a low powered am/fm transmitter and you're ready to host a Guerilla Drive in
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
I did this years ago, and kept running into problems with cooling. Even with a fan in there the screen became washed out after a few hours of use.
Part of this might have been due to the fact that I was using a DSTN screen.
http://www.xpurple.com
Now where'd I put that 486 laptop with the broken screen and half working keyboard
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
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They claim 3500 lumens, but later in the article, they mention that's the lamp spec. Looking at the picture, how much of that is actually projected onto the wall and how much is diffused away right at the projector?
(Watching Empire Strikes Back)
"Luke, I am-" *pop* Oops! Bulb went out!
Hope you can afford $600 plus $300 plus $300 plus $300 plus $300...
Before LCD projectors came out, a few companies made LCD panels designed to be placed on an overhead projector. You were stuck at 640, and the image quality was poor and dark.
There's a reason why projector lamps are expensive (and bright!)
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
Indeed, I have one lying around somewhere. It was a 640x480 LCD mounted in a metal casing about the size of an A4 sheet of paper, and around 3 inches thick. It would sit on top of the projector, but had a tendancy to overheat (the OHP light heating up everything inside the casing as well...).
I think these things are really cool, but what still stops me is the bulb cost.
They say the bulbs cost $20-$30 and I can afford that, but how long do the bulbs last? When I searched for Overhead Projector replacement bulbs, I got figures from 30-75 hours. Best case, that's ($20/75hours)= $.26 per hour.
The bulbs for the X1 projector are $299 and last for up to 4000 hours (http://members.shaw.ca/technut/x1faq/#8.2). That is like $.07 per hour.
To me, this really doesn't seem any better off in the long run. Am I missing something?
most of our living rooms look like electronic junkyards anyway, don't they?
No, our girlfriends keep that from hap--
Oh wait...
I've gotta gree with you there. My AV components don't look like they've been cobbled together out of scrap pieces.
More on-topic, can anyone chime in on the group of multi-media projectors and how they compare to 'real' projection TVs? I've noticed they've slipped to below $2K CDN and falling, which is less than a rear projection screen.
Are the refresh rates and image quality of a DLP mult-media projector up to the task of DVD quality FMV display? Or is it more suitable for power-point presentations?
I don't see HD being anything I need soon, since all of the programming I watch isn't available there yet anyway. However, a front projector that can do good video quality might be a good bridging technology.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I built one of these myself a few years ago an it's been running great ever since. I went for a bit sturdier construction so the thing would be portable and I've never had a single problem with it.
more pictures
The whole thing set me back $500 but I'll bet that's mainly due to higher prices back then.
I help my school show movies to the general public so I can authoritatively say No. Our school pays between $250 for well-out-of-box-office movies upwards to $800 for popular just-out-of-box-office movies. You pay for not only the right to show the movies publicly but also for to right to show the movie before it comes out on home video. For instance, our school is going to show Ray about a month before it comes out on video next semester and it'll cost us $800 but we don't charge at the door (money comes from students anyway but through the budget from tuition).
There's actually a release timeline for movies and movie availability for us falls right after availability for airlines. We also only get movies in VHS format because we can't handle the 16mm or 35mm films, and they won't send us DVD's because of piracy. yeah, I know you can record off of VHS but it's cumbersome, plus the distributor inserts their tag in the movie.
As for the MPAA, I figure it just hasn't become a "phenomena" yet. Also, when say a movie is shown like Team America: World Police that is out of theaters but not on video, people might see it for free but they don't get to walk away with a copy just by seeing it. However, seeing movies for free over the internet, the people do get to keep a copy because that's the method of distribution, making another copy, so they do perceive that as a loss of a sale. I guess they will get off their laurels when they claim they are losing billions to the guerilla drive-in's.
"but most of our living rooms look like electronic junkyards anyway, don't they?"
We have been over this sooo many times. It's not "junk", it's my work, my life. How do you think we can afford the 75 pairs of shoes you have in the closet? What about the 17 gallons of makeup in the bathroom? I mean come-on, bathrooms are for manly noises and piles of out-dated Maxim-PC and Computer-Shopper. And I mean the real, phone book size Computer Shopper of yesteryear, not that wimpy little thing they print now. What's with that 1/2 film of hairspray all over the counter?
Please, let me have my slashdot. You son't see me posting on your US Weekly forum do you?
Repant. Thy end is sheer.
It looks like the 3500 lumens is part of the projector spec -- but they are still missing something major. LCDs use polarized light, so, at most, they'll transmit half of incoming (unpolarized) light. I'd rate this projector at 1750 lumens, max. That number puts it in the company of a lot of other projectors.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
I suggest if anyone here is serious they check out www.lumenlab.com . Yeah the plans are a bit more than free on tomshardware, but really strapping an lcd panel to an ohp is not really brain surgery. If you want a better projector which includes plans for a 17 inch lcd for higher resolution and a 7" lcd for portability then check that site out. The irc and message board support are infinitely valuable as well.
NJ Local Music Scene
I used to have an IBM 755CD laptop (P75, baby!) that had a removable back on the LCD screen. It was made so you could set the laptop on an overhead projector and use it for presentations. It was a nice concept, but a practical nightmare. The image was dark, it was hard to focus, and the screen was only 640X480. The biggest problem was that if you wanted to center the screen on the projector the body of the laptop hung over the edge and would fall off unless you supported it with something.
As for the state of my living room, I've found that having a wife or GF kind of precludes the mess. I can have all the technology I want in the living room, but it's either hidden in a cupboard or made otherwise stealthy. It works for all concerned that way.
The overhead projector they used in the article is 3500 lumens, but I can speak from their experience that their output isn't that high. LCD panels take a lot of light pushed through them to project a bright image, because the panel is relatively opaque. Overhead projectors are almost completely transparent, so take very little light to produce a bright image. I have a 1991 Proxima Ovation A822C 640x480 data + video LCD overhead projector panel and a 3500 lumen 3M 9200 overhead projector. Showing transparencies, the projector produces a nice bright white color, which looks about the same as a 3500 lumen LCD projector. Throw my LCD panel on it, and the light output drops to under half of the 650 lumen LCD projector that I frequently borrow. I'd guess that the OHP + LCD panel is about equivalent to a 250 lumen LCD projector.
The projector they built looks a lot brighter than mine, probably due to a newer LCD, and not having two layers of protective glass over it, like my LCD panel. However, to make their panel look bright, they tweaked the driver settings. That just changes the color gradients, and doesn't actually make the projector brighter. Even with their tweaks, I doubt that their output breaks 1000 lumens. It would be interesting to get it measured and see what it actually produces. Maybe someone with a lumen meter can fill us all in.
THE OFFICIAL THREAD on Diy Projectors.
I still love mine.
This project really held my interest. Not only could I get a great image for less than 1/3 of the price of a 'real' projector. And I could have more control over it anyway!
It wasn't until the last picture on the last page that I started to lose interest. Notice how the center of the image is far brighter than the edges?
That's entirely expected, if you think about how the overhead projector works. By comparison, I've never seen this on a 'real' projector. Still a nifty idea, but I think I'll splurge on a real one.
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suwain_2
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cate gory=41842&item=5133694753&rd=1
(an Infocus LP330/335 for $450), I don't see the point of this project.
For example the LP335 is a decent, 2000 real output lumen (not maybe 3500 lumen going into an LCD panel, who knows what comes out), with XGA resolution, fancy video processing that can accept NTCS, S-Video, DVI, VGA), with a built-in line doubler, ZOOM lens, HDTV compatibility, in a nice 6lb package. The DLP will have fairly decent contrast.
The overhead+LCD will have numerous problems, like 1) huge light leakage, which will cut viewing contrast tremendously, 2) cannot be driven by NTCS/S-video without extra stuff and no linedoubler, 3) noisy fan on the overhead, 4) no zoom lens to match screen size/distance, 5) fragile "construction" in an unwieldy "package".
It's just not worth it. I got a used NEC projector off ebay for $550 (inc. shipping). If your setting up home theater, do you really want to have a huge, loud and hot mess sitting behind your viewers?
Pay a little more and get a nice ceiling mounted projector with all the inputs, remote control etc..
Also, brightness isn't everything. You need to be concerned about contrast. Anyone can jam a 3000lu bulb into a box. But if you want image quality, well you get what you pay for.
Wish I had seen this earlier. Anyways I've built my own projector out of a benq 567s V2 a 400W Bulb A big fan for cooling, some tempered glass and all the lenses as required.
Over all the quality is great for something I build at home. I've not been able to get the alignment of everything perfect though, and this has resulted in a dark picture. Now it's easily watchable, and I've got lots of hours on mine but it doesn't compare to a good $1500 XGA projector. The good news is others have built the same thing using the same parts and easily beat the XGA projectors in quality, they have just spent more time on theirs. I also built a screen but thats pretty easy to get right once you know what to build it with.
Now my complaints
Mine wasn't $300 it was closer to $750 cdn.
It's frigging huge, my measurements are something like 30"x 14" x 12"
I added keystone correction and that works great but it doesn't have any form of zoom other then moving it closer or further back. You end up designing the room around the projector.
The site I got the plans and info off of was excellect and the forums make paying for access completely worthwhile. www.lumenlab.com They also have pictures to show some peoples results. They have overcome the zoom and darkness issues with newer designs then I used. Price is still high but their top of the line is a fraction of what a professional projector would cost and they are comparable in quality.
If DIY without economies of scale (except saving about $150 on the LCD itself) can do this for $300, why can't I get a PII/500/XGA TV projector from a major vendor? Are they really siphoning off $1000:unit for past losses/investments and future R&D, in addition to $500 (25%) profit per unit?
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make install -not war
Luxeon Star/O produces 180 cd with color temperature 5500 K.
I don't know much about optics, but I found a formula: lumens = cd * 4pi.
So, 180 cd * 4pi ~= 2262 lumens.
So, with four of these would yield 9048 lumens where as a typical projector bulb would produce 10'000 lumens. I don't know if this is correct. Someone with more knowledge of optics should correct me!
The four LEDs would cost close to $100 + driver circuitry but they should last for at least five years.
A problem, as mentioned before is that common projectors are based on a single light source. We would need additional lenses or diffusers or we could get a splotchy picture.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Absolutely... for $1000, I have an SVGA front projector (Infocus X1) hanging from my ceiling (between open living room and dining room), projecting on a blank, beige wall. We currently have HD programming through Comcast, and it's unbelievable.
If you can get whatever room you're using to be very dark, it's definitely the route to go. My coworker has a $2000 34" HDTV, and my "screen" is 110" (about 10 times bigger) for half the cost.
DVDs look great.. once you hit VGA (and using a progressive DVD player), you can't get much better -- the limiting factor in quality is the DVD itself.
Bottom line -- if you can get your room dark, definitely worth getting a front projector. Another advantage is a projector on the ceiling takes up essentially no space, as a big TV would.
"Truth is not decided by majority vote" consensus gentium -- Norman Geisler