History of The Homemade Projector
I'd always wanted a projector. I'm a huge movie nut. Obviously. That's why I'm an RTF major. But I didn't really have the money to buy a brand new projector (although they're pretty cheap these days). So I'm browsing the internet and I discovered that people actually make their own projectors. This is an amazing idea. My friend Jonah had already built his own homemade DVR using a standard pc computer, Linux, and software from MythTV.org so I figured why not build your own projector.
I ended up doing a ton of research. Here are some of the original cost breakdowns:
$190 - LiquidVideo 15" LCD Monitor
$14 - Reflective Bowl
$137 - Fresnels
$67 - Electric Ballast
$20 - Computer Fan
$17.10 - 2 other fans
$20 - LumenLab Guide
$2.92 - Screws
$19.01 - Wood
$25.21 - Home Depot
$56.76 - Home Depot
$8.39 - Home Depot
= ~~$577
So for $500 I was going to have a 1024x768 projector. My friend Terry and I were going to split the cost (cause who the hell knows if something you find on the internet is actually going to work) and work on the projector together. Which we did. Until we broke one of the cables on the monitor. $190 down the drain. At that point, we were both sick of the project and decided to finish out school. My friend Jonah decided to buy our wrecked projector. We had bought all the parts and even finished building the housing, but at that point we were sick of it. Jonah scored a sweet deal though as we gave him a pretty nice discount.
Weird Science to the rescue!
Months went by. The unfinished projector just sat there doing nothing. Jonah just never quite got around to finishing it, and frankly, who could blame him considering how much trouble the damn thing was. Well, along came Weird Science and so I thought to myself, "Wow, this project's pretty crazy." Plus, it gave Jonah the added motivation of a deadline. So Jonah bought a 15.4" wide screen, 1280x800 monitor off of ebay for $120. This was an awesome upgrade because it meant that if the projector worked, we would actually have a projector capable of displaying full, uncompressed 720P HDTV.
We still needed to do the wiring (no small task since we knew nothing about wiring), figure out a way to secure the fresnels, handle any temperature issues that might arise, secure the ballast, and lot of other things. Here are some pics of our handiwork:
Notice the two blue fans in the back. They're adjustable so that if the temperature gets too hot, you can crank them (useful for Texas summers), but if the temperature is fine, you can turn them way down and cut down on the noise.
In this picture you can see the light bulb on the left side (it's huge.) It's being cupped by a reflector bowl that's actually a norpro mixing bowl that I think you can buy anywhere where they selling cooking supplies. That mess of wires is obviously all the wiring. In the middle you have
A fresnel to focus the light straight ahead ---> a stripped LCD monitor ----> another fresnel to focus the light so that it hit the throw lens at the other end of the box.
Notice the green circuit board and black power brick on the projector floor. Those are the circuits and power source for the LCD.
Lastly, you can see the throw lens at the end of the box, which will display the image of the LCD (which, BTW, is actually inserted upside down) onto our cinema quality, $5000 screen:
Okay, so it's a bed sheet. But it's all we had for our first test. But would it work? After spending over $700, would the projector actually light?
Amazingly, the whole thing came together. I couldn't believe it, but the projector actually came to life in front of our eyes. And then it asked if it had a soul. It was an awkward moment. But at least it was outputting an image.
Final Verdict
So, great success, right? Well, actually, not yet. It definitely works, but unfortunately the LCD that we bought is as black as night and therefore it makes the image quite dark. Everyone online says that their homemade projector's are awesome, so we think that there must be a solution. We're also open to the idea that anyone that spends $700 and days and days of his time is going to be deludely proud of their projector no matter what the final picture looks like.
Links
If you would like to try your own hand at building a homemade projector, check out DIYAudio.com and Lumenlab.com.
If you get one working, drop me an email at amit {at} amitpunjabi.com.