So... I wanna make my own video projector

[palmertech]

So... can you point me in the direction of a better how-to? And I'd rather buy that HA "knock-off" than spend too much on something I'll more than likely screw up completely. And while the projector is crappy, is it a decent model for it's price? Or should I look elsewhere? Cuz ChinaVision has cheap yet decent ones for over twice as much.

That $99 projector you linked to was called "The Worst Projector Ever Made" by Gizmodo, and when woot.com had them a few months back for $69, even they, as they are selling it, had it listed as "World's Worst Projector". It is really, really bad.

The others are right, your best bet is to buy a cheap used projector. From what I can gather, the people who make projectors are a lot like us: They are using the route that is the most fun, not the most practical.

[Zero Cool]

Oh, yeah. I got the wrong URL. It's actually ChinaVasion, not ChinaVision.

http://www.chinavasion.com/ is the correct address.

And BTW, I don't make enough to splurge $200 on a projector, and that's why I wanna either make one that costs less than $100 or just buy the $99 one from HA. I mean, would it make a difference to anyone or just a die-hard videophile?

[snowpenguin]

YES ABSOLUTELY. I have a better one than that, but still cheapo, and I can't even read gigantic letters on it, it's so horrible. The pixels are so big you can actually distinguish the RedsGreensandBlues in each pixels.

[bicostp]

That $99 projector is absolute garbage. If you want to buy that, then you're better off burning your money (or giving it to me ).

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/buyer-beware ... 327587.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Their pics of the beast in action:


It looks even worse in the full-size 800x600 images in their gallery.

[superdeformed]

And BTW, I don't make enough to splurge $200 on a projector, and that's why I wanna either make one that costs less than $100 or just buy the $99 one from HA. I mean, would it make a difference to anyone or just a die-hard videophile?

I think it would absolutely make a difference to anyone. I tried to make my first projector as cheaply as possible and I probably spent about $100 to $150 on parts, including experimental parts that didn't get used. The screen resolution was terrible and it was barely bright enough to watch in a dark room. It lasted a couple of weeks before I decided to do better. The one I have now (in it's current state) has about $400-450 in parts including the stand that I built for it; a little less than half of that was for the LCD screen and another $100 was for the bulb and ballast. It evolved through several stages before getting to that point and while I could have done a much better job with the design (and spent a bit less money) if I had just done it correctly from the start, I've resolved to stop spending money on it since it works well enough.

If you're serious about building one yourself and want a truly usable projector when you're done, I suggest that you do your research, come up with a good design, and don't skimp on the parts or you're only going to find yourself sinking a lot more money into it than you intended. If you don't care about the size, you can probably find a cheap usable LCD on ebay and you may be able to get a good bulb set-up there as well. Also, if you scrounge around you can get really good lenses for cheap (keep an eye on places like Surplus Shed).

As a few others have already said though, if you're just looking for the cheapest route to having a big screen to watch movies and play games on rather than building one for the fun it, you're probably better off looking for a used commercial projector.

[Zero Cool]

That $99 projector is absolute garbage. If you want to buy that, then you're better off burning your money (or giving it to me ).

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/buyer-beware ... 327587.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Now, is there a way to make the picture quality look less noticeable? Or can I just mod this? How much lumens is this? What if I replace the LCD screen with something better? Can I do that? Can I lessen the suck at all?

[palmertech]

It uses a 3.5" panel, it should be pretty easy to swap with a DS Lite panel and make a DS projector.

But while you COULD buy a $60 or so better LCD, you could probably pick up a low end projector on ebay for about that much. To make it work, you would need to mod the light source and the LCD, and those are gonna be pretty expensive.

Have you tried looking on ebay? You can usually get a projector for under $200 if you watch closely.

[bicostp]

It's not worth the effort. The bulb is too dim, the LCD is garbage, and the optics are undoubtedly hopeless. That piece of junk will never fail to disappoint. By the time you get enough parts to make a satisfactory projector out of it, you'll have spent more than $200 and the only original part will be the plastic case.

Shop around for video projectors on eBay. You can probably find one of those gigantic old ones cheap, and they'll be a lot better than that. (We have a really old Sony projector that's about the size of a mid-tower PC case and it does video fine.)

[snowpenguin]

I had a 1024x768 vga/av projector from like 2000, it was like a foot and a half long, and I thought it was great. You can pick projectors like that up on eBay for cheap.

[Zero Cool]

What about this?

1. The size: 80x64x40mm.
2. Products Net Host: 100g.
3. high-brightness LED technology, long service life of 20,000 hours or more, environmental protection and energy saving, no radiation.
4. Built-in speaker.
5. So small, portable, can be realized in the bed to watch a movie for the ceiling, 50-inch big screen playing WII, PS, with player, camera and ipod.
6. Can be widely used in commercial display, product descriptions, digital entertainment, school, friends, family entertainment and so on.

The use of leading Lcos chip, LED as light source; provides VGA (640 × 480) resolution, brightness of 12 lumens, power is only 5W, with the AV port to facilitate connection DVD, TV box, learning machines, at night can put 40-inch above the screen; Of course, you can also matching manufacturers with multi-functional base, access to battery-powered, and then MP4, then Usb disk, and then watching television television set-top boxes, and then games, SD card inserted rich feature set-top boxes.


LCOS display technology
LED projection light source
200:1 contrast ratio Nominal
The standard display resolution VGA (640 * 480)
4:3 screen aspect ratio cases
Projection screen size of 10-80 inches (depending on environment)
12ANSI nominal lumens brightness
Brightness uniformity of the nominal value of 81%
Projection is the way to vote
Host size: 80 x 64 x40 mm
Base: 120 x 80 x35 mm (optional)
Weight (host \ base) 104g/147g
Composite video input interface (AV), to purchase additional base battery, VGA, USB, SD, DVB-T
Safety Certification FCC, CE, RoHS, 3C
1800 mAH Li-ion battery capacity
Optional color white, matte black, pearl white, light black, grass green, orange, red
Remarks
LED light source life> 20,000 hours
AV interface with the host only, you can access DVD / camera equipment and other AV output for use, of course, can also be matching
With the use of multi-base, multi-functional base, with USB interface, SD card interface, AV interfaces and so on, at the same time with batteries,
To facilitate comparison with the host mobile use. Battery power for about 40-60 minutes.

On eBay, there's one for about under $60 at the current price (it ends in two days).

[bicostp]

12 Lumens?! Hold a magnifying glass in front of a TV in a dark room and you'll get a brighter picture.* The really cheap junk projector was rated between 70 and 90 lumens, and you saw how bad that picture was.

$200 is really cheap for a real projector. If you're paying less than that for something brand new, prepare yourself for diappointment.

*I've done this and it works, but it's dim and the picture's backwards. The plastic lens from an old overhead projector works better than a magnifying glass.