Home-Made Projector?

Nonsense Man · Post by **Nonsense Man** » Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:54 am

Well I've been searching for a way to make a cheap home-made video projector but I can't really find any good guides. I would like to use it for games, dvd's , and maybe my computer. So could you guys help me?

-Nonsense

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Wed Aug 15, 2007 9:46 am

Lumenlab

Limewater · Post by **Limewater** » Wed Aug 15, 2007 12:57 pm

If I had the floorspace, I would have tried this out by now.

http://www.geardigest.com/2004/11/13/su ... our_tv_for_/

I still plan to try something like this in a few years when my wife and I have a house.

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 5:50 am

Ah yes... homemade projectors. I've done so much research on this... I really wanted to build one too a while ago. But lack of funds got in my way like always. Something like this is what I'd want to build if I had the cash.

PSOne screens are common in low-end DIY projectors... this should yield you good results.

lifeisbetterwithketchup · Thu Aug 16, 2007 2:02 pm

Electric Rain wrote:PSOne screens are common in low-end DIY projectors... this should yield you good results.

A friend of mine built a DIY PSOne projector. I'll see if I can dig up his thread at Lumenlab.

EDIT: Here it is. http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.ph ... opic=14663

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 2:43 pm

lifeisbetterwithketchup wrote:
Electric Rain wrote:PSOne screens are common in low-end DIY projectors... this should yield you good results.
A friend of mine built a DIY PSOne projector. I'll see if I can dig up his thread at Lumenlab.

EDIT: Here it is. http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.ph ... opic=14663

I think I remember that thread. How does it look in person, anyway?

lifeisbetterwithketchup · Thu Aug 16, 2007 3:01 pm

It looked pretty good all things considered. It was made for under $100 with a resolution of 320x240, so it obviously wasn't mind-boggling or anything. The main issue was the low resolution and the lousy "screen" he used (posterboard).

It's motivated him to make another, better, projector sometime in the future (possibly an HD one). He just bought a new 24" iMac though, so I'm sure he doesn't have the cash to make one now.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 3:04 pm

lifeisbetterwithketchup wrote:It's motivated him to make another, better, projector sometime in the future (possibly an HD one). He just bought a new 24" iMac though, so I'm sure he doesn't have the cash to make one now.

He already has a screen then, just tell him to use the iMac and make an iProjector with OS X on it.

NiN^_^NiN · Post by **NiN^_^NiN** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 9:13 pm

I built one ages ago all you need to do is have a Overhead Projector and a lcd screen sitting ontop

a 7" LCD screen is the lowest u would wanna go so a 7" portable dvd player that has av in can be used but only high quality sources look good on a lcd screen thats not connected to a pc

Game consoles and dvd players are pretty sharp but tv/cable will look blury

I have a 7.6" lcd screen on mine i recently got a 15" pc monitor from work for free that had a dead backlight but the unit died on me

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 3:56 am

lifeisbetterwithketchup wrote:It looked pretty good all things considered. It was made for under $100 with a resolution of 320x240, so it obviously wasn't mind-boggling or anything.

Woah woah woah... wait a sec... the PSOne screen has a resolution of 640x480. How is he only getting 320x240?

NiN^_^NiN wrote:I built one ages ago all you need to do is have a Overhead Projector and a lcd screen sitting ontop

Cop-out! I always hated it when people did that...

Post by **Triton** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 11:31 am

not homemade but the price was right! i got my projectors at the local colleges annual auction, for TWENTY DOLLARS. TWO sony VPH-1272Q CRT projectors, max res is 1600x1200! one has a bit of burn-in on the tubes but they both work great, keeping the burnt in one as a backup to the good one, only about 8 thousand hours on the tubes too! (their good for about 15000 if you take care of them, versus 2-5k for the lamps in LCD projectors

)

here is a pic of it running at normal 480i playing house from dvd player, i dont have any newer pics this is from when we first got them

i currently have it set up at 800x600 and the screen is 8-9 foot wide and about 6 or 7 foot tall, something like 145" diagonal approximatly, mebe bigger or smaller lol

superdeformed · Post by **superdeformed** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 11:50 am

Electric Rain wrote: Woah woah woah... wait a sec... the PSOne screen has a resolution of 640x480. How is he only getting 320x240?

The PSone screen supports 640x480, but the actual resolution is only 320x240.

My current projector (I've gone through three revisions starting with a PSone screen) has an 8.4" 800x600 screen in it and a 250W metal halide bulb, so I get a good quality picture but it's not bright enough to watch with any significant amount of light in the room. Aside from the brightness the other major drawbacks of making your own is that it will likely be huge (mine is 11x13x25"), and heavy. They're also relatively expensive if you get into higher resolution LCD panels considering the dropping price of commercial projectors, but of course, if you're on this forum and looking into DIY you probably don't care about that

.

nightwheel · Post by **nightwheel** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 12:05 pm

Triton wrote:not homemade but the price was right! i got my projectors at the local colleges annual auction, for TWENTY DOLLARS. TWO sony VPH-1272Q CRT projectors, max res is 1600x1200! one has a bit of burn-in on the tubes but they both work great, keeping the burnt in one as a backup to the good one, only about 8 thousand hours on the tubes too! (their good for about 15000 if you take care of them, versus 2-5k for the lamps in LCD projectors )

here is a pic of it running at normal 480i playing house from dvd player, i dont have any newer pics this is from when we first got them

i currently have it set up at 800x600 and the screen is 8-9 foot wide and about 6 or 7 foot tall, something like 145" diagonal approximatly, mebe bigger or smaller lol

Playing video games on that thing must rock

Post by **bicostp** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 1:29 pm

The company one of my relatives works for threw out an <a href="http://www.projectorcentral.com/InFocus ... m">InFocus LP330</a> because it was missing the remote control and a cosmetic plate on the front.

400:1 contrast
650 lumen output
1024x768 DLP
VGA, S-Video, Composite, Mouse input (?) and sound input jacks
About 90 hours on the bulb

If you want one there's a few on eBay for under $100.

It's a lot nicer than our old one (also a throwaway), an old Sony beast from 1993 that only supports 640x480 and is the size of a large suitcase. You'd have to be desperate to want one of these.

ganonbanned · Post by **ganonbanned** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 5:33 pm

They were selling ones that play VHS's at my school rummage sale for $0.50 about a month ago, I was going to get one but I had gotten 6 macs and a few PC's and didnt have the room

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