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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?
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!
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 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.
"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.
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
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.
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