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?"

Re:I want one!

[golfsportila]

I can't afford 300 either :( I wish I had a little over 600 and I'd buy an infocus x1 projector though. -http://www.freestufftimes.com/ [freestufftimes.com]

Bulb Cost Still an Issue

[DumbRedGuy]

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?

Re:maybe yours does

[gstoddart]

most of our living rooms look like electronic junkyards anyway, don't they?

Umm, no.

I've gotta gree with you there. My AV components don't look like they've been cobbled together out of scrap pieces.

More on-topic, can anyone chime in on the group of multi-media projectors and how they compare to 'real' projection TVs? I've noticed they've slipped to below $2K CDN and falling, which is less than a rear projection screen.

Are the refresh rates and image quality of a DLP mult-media projector up to the task of DVD quality FMV display? Or is it more suitable for power-point presentations?

I don't see HD being anything I need soon, since all of the programming I watch isn't available there yet anyway. However, a front projector that can do good video quality might be a good bridging technology.

Re:Not quite the same...

[mOoZik]

White LEDs with high lumens ratings are pretty expensive. But why not use 10 or so 100 Watt incadescent bulbs with or without a diffuser? An extra fan or two should take care of the heat - if that - and replacement cost is next to nil.

I love this stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

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 [particlefield.com]

The whole thing set me back $500 but I'll bet that's mainly due to higher prices back then.

Did This Too - 2 Years Ago

[Anonymous Coward]

This was the rage a couple of years ago when 1000 lumen projectors were $2500. So I bought a flat screen monitor on sale at Best Buy, ripped it apart, got an overhead projector, set it all up and projected it on the whiteboard in my classroom. It works...but. Like previous posts, it's dark due to the LCD screens. I believe he has a 3500 lumen projector but the problem is you need that kind of brightness just to push through the LCD screen.

I went so far as to purchase a metal-halide light with a 250w bulb (actually a parking lot security light!) to drive it, because I really wanted it to work. It worked too...but. The heat.

Also not addressed in the article is the issue of the screen. You can't just use any ol' wall or whiteboard due to hot spots. So now you're out looking for a used Da-Lite screen or wallboard suitable for mounting.

These projects have been out on ebay for a while and the net has a bunch of info on how to do it. The original DIY Forum for this makes for a pretty good geek fix.

My students thought it was cool tho'. Right now, I use a 2000 lumen HP we got through a grant and project onto an 8' Da-Lite screen. Sweet. The wide-screen version of Blade Runner looks and sounds awesome especially with the Bose 151 outdoor speakers on either side of the screen.

Re:I love this stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never used an actual screen, but now days I just use a painted white wall and it's great. The bed sheet was a really bad idea, and if you looked behind it there was actually enough light passing through to put an image on the wall behind it. On my living room wall the picture does look much crisper.

As for code editing, it's definitely a lot of fun but you MUST have a desk to set your keyboard and mouse on. Using the armrest on the couch as a mousepad and having the keyboard on your lap just doesn't cut it.

BTW, for everyone wondering about bulb price and heat issues: bulbs are ~$12 each (@ 100hr life) and with the two PC fans blowing across the top there are no heat problems whatsoever.

Re:1750 lumens

[Anonymous Coward]

Also the liquid crystals only rotate the polarization of a small fraction of the light so it can get through the second polarizer. All told, about 5% of the incident light gets through. Also, laptops seem quite happy to use flourescent lights that are much more efficient. That would help with both the power consumption and cooling [and fan noise].

Randy F.
[e-mail]

Or get an old Thinkpad...

[stungod]

I used to have an IBM 755CD laptop (P75, baby!) that had a removable back on the LCD screen. It was made so you could set the laptop on an overhead projector and use it for presentations. It was a nice concept, but a practical nightmare. The image was dark, it was hard to focus, and the screen was only 640X480. The biggest problem was that if you wanted to center the screen on the projector the body of the laptop hung over the edge and would fall off unless you supported it with something.

As for the state of my living room, I've found that having a wife or GF kind of precludes the mess. I can have all the technology I want in the living room, but it's either hidden in a cupboard or made otherwise stealthy. It works for all concerned that way.

3500 overhead lumens != 3500 DIY lcd lumens

[cpoch]

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.

Not the Same?

[suwain_2]

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 [tomshardware.com] 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.

Just get a real DLP projector from Ebay...

[neurocutie]

Given that real, good LCD/DLP projectors are available on ebay for similar or slightly higher $$$, e.g.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cate gory=41842&item=5133694753&rd=1 [ebay.com]

(an Infocus LP330/335 for $450), I don't see the point of this project.

For example the LP335 is a decent, 2000 real output lumen (not maybe 3500 lumen going into an LCD panel, who knows what comes out), with XGA resolution, fancy video processing that can accept NTCS, S-Video, DVI, VGA), with a built-in line doubler, ZOOM lens, HDTV compatibility, in a nice 6lb package. The DLP will have fairly decent contrast.

The overhead+LCD will have numerous problems, like 1) huge light leakage, which will cut viewing contrast tremendously, 2) cannot be driven by NTCS/S-video without extra stuff and no linedoubler, 3) noisy fan on the overhead, 4) no zoom lens to match screen size/distance, 5) fragile "construction" in an unwieldy "package".

I built my own projector

[strider3700]

Wish I had seen this earlier. Anyways I've built my own projector out of a benq 567s V2 a 400W Bulb A big fan for cooling, some tempered glass and all the lenses as required.

Over all the quality is great for something I build at home. I've not been able to get the alignment of everything perfect though, and this has resulted in a dark picture. Now it's easily watchable, and I've got lots of hours on mine but it doesn't compare to a good $1500 XGA projector. The good news is others have built the same thing using the same parts and easily beat the XGA projectors in quality, they have just spent more time on theirs. I also built a screen but thats pretty easy to get right once you know what to build it with.

Now my complaints
Mine wasn't $300 it was closer to $750 cdn.

It's frigging huge, my measurements are something like 30"x 14" x 12"

I added keystone correction and that works great but it doesn't have any form of zoom other then moving it closer or further back. You end up designing the room around the projector.

The site I got the plans and info off of was excellect and the forums make paying for access completely worthwhile. www.lumenlab.com They also have pictures to show some peoples results. They have overcome the zoom and darkness issues with newer designs then I used. Price is still high but their top of the line is a fraction of what a professional projector would cost and they are comparable in quality.

Re:TCO

[Bill Privatus]

I did this a few years ago, for a 40th anniversary for my in-laws. It was great to see a man in his 60s get all choked up from seeing the photos of their youth. This from a generation that believes "men don't cry" :-)

My approach was thus: I created a presentation, using slides of about 80 photos, on a windoze computer with Lotus Freelance (better than Powerpoint, if you ask me, but either will work). The screen transitions were random, but I made sure they were fast. The photos were the show, not the transitions!

I put this presentation on a box that had a TV-out card (ASUS TNT v3400), and ran that into a VCR, which recorded a 40-minute show.

End result was a VHS tape that we could copy for relatives.

I put the presentation, with the digital pix, on a CD-ROM. I could reproduce it, even today.

Of course, if I were doing it today, it would be a DVD, not a tape. Perhaps that would get around the requirement that I set the screen resolution to something nasty like 800x480 (I don't remember the actual resolution) for the TV-out to work.

Just another point of view...

Re:maybe yours does

[miltimj]

Absolutely... for $1000, I have an SVGA front projector (Infocus X1) hanging from my ceiling (between open living room and dining room), projecting on a blank, beige wall. We currently have HD programming through Comcast, and it's unbelievable.

If you can get whatever room you're using to be very dark, it's definitely the route to go. My coworker has a $2000 34" HDTV, and my "screen" is 110" (about 10 times bigger) for half the cost.

DVDs look great.. once you hit VGA (and using a progressive DVD player), you can't get much better -- the limiting factor in quality is the DVD itself.

Bottom line -- if you can get your room dark, definitely worth getting a front projector. Another advantage is a projector on the ceiling takes up essentially no space, as a big TV would.

Re:TCO

[zakezuke]

My approach was thus: I created a presentation, using slides of about 80 photos, on a windoze computer with Lotus Freelance (better than Powerpoint, if you ask me, but either will work). The screen transitions were random, but I made sure they were fast. The photos were the show, not the transitions!

I've done similar things using a camcorder + magnifying lens with ring light and tripod. I couldn't do any transitions that way, and as I didn't own an edit deck I had to time things by hand. Toss on some music, I believe Kingston Trio's Seasons in the Sun, and poof VHS slideshow. I also used this technique to copy photographs to negatives.