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?"

3500 lumens?

[vijayiyer]

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?

It's been done

[myov]

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!)

Re:TCO

[mikael]

Back in the days when there wasn't any video recorders, TiVO, home PC's or even console systems, the only form of home made video entertainment for our family and our friends was the home projector. During a party, the lights would be dimmed and everyone's favourite photographs were converted into slides and displayed. Anything and everything, from hiking trips across the mountains, sunsets, trips to national parks, the nightlife of the metro, would be displayed as a 10 foot high image on the nearest white wall. Panoramic views across valleys were my favourite, as you could walk right up to the wall and see the smallest detail - smoke rising up from the chimney of a cottage, miles away.

It would be fun to do that with digital photographs or movies.

1750 lumens

[morcheeba]

It looks like the 3500 lumens is part of the projector spec [datenprojektoren.de] -- but they are still missing something major. LCDs use polarized light [howstuffworks.com], 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. [tigerdirect.com]

this thing is about as rough as it gets

[chadamir]

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.

Do It Themselves

[Doc Ruby]

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?