A Practical Guide to DIY LCD Projectors 217
Compu486 writes "Inventgeek.com has a new article entitled
"A
practical guide to DIY Home Projection". The guide covers the basic theory
behind projection and provides a step by step guide for a "Practical"
DIY LCD Projector. Although this topic has been covered before, the perspective
they offer is refreshing."
Nice, but... (Score:1, Interesting)
Why? Does it give me a free beer with it?
Cursory overview leaves me unimpressed. It seems like a rehash of prior projects but using simpler and less expensive parts. Result: a projector that has less lifespan than a low-end projector for a bit more money and no warranty.
I'd rather wait a little while longer and wait till the technology matures a bit more. If I come into some money I can spend freely on a projector, I'll buy one that can do at least 1024x768 PC input and make sure to buy spare projector parts with it.
DIY day? (Score:3, Interesting)
Build a rack!
Build a shelf!
Build an LCD!
I admire the geek who homebrews hardware, but this is getting rediculous.
Paint your own screen (Score:5, Interesting)
As for the projector, I don't want to build this thing myself, I'm willing to spend the bucks. So I'll likely go for the Panasonic PT-AE700U, which I've seen reviewed here [projectorpeople.com].
So that leaves me wondering what sort of PC or hi-def receiver to buy to power this thing, so that I can use cable, satellite, game console, DVD, PVR and the PC.
Any advice would be most appreciated.
Re:DIY day? (Score:3, Interesting)
However I must admit that I'm more inclined to do this than the version where you tear the lcd apart. I talked to our hardware guy at work and asked him if he'd feel comfortable disassembling and lcd for a project like this. His response was something like, "as long as it wasn't mine."
DIY? Where? (Score:4, Interesting)
My department bought one of those transparent LCD screens in 1997, back when overhead projectors were still to be found in every lecture hall, laptops were $3000 and LCD projectors were $5000 and as big as a suitcase. The idea was to use this to go from the computer screen to the wall screen on the cheap. It was used every once in awhile, but if you weren't using a laptop, it was a pain to use, since you had to wheel in a cart with a desktop PC.
Once laptops got cheap enough so that they were commonplace, LCD projectors had gotten cheap enough that the department bought one and consigned the transparent LCD screen, with its terrible picture quality, to the back closet of the copier room. There, it collected dust, along with all of the other obsolete junk that no one wanted to use anymore, but had cost too much to just throw away.
The transparent LCD screen was an ugly kludge, a bridge technology to mate the old with the new. Let it die.
Re:Not a good field for DIY (Score:4, Interesting)
LaserPower (now defunct) used to make a laser projection display with microlasers. And there's a company that projects displays directly onto the retina (microvision) with microlaser and diode-laser sources. (i don't know that I'd want to point even a low power laser device INTO my eye...
and then there's the problem with the lack of persistence for viewing the images.
Re:Not a good field for DIY (Score:3, Interesting)
(I do holography)
Done that... (Score:4, Interesting)
Advantages:
*Cheap (I did it for $0.00)
*Easy
*Totally ghetto-fabulous.
Disadvantages:
*Really, really crappy quality (only really could be used for video, and only if you weren't picky about quality)
*Edges got cut off because the LCD was larger than the projector
*Pretty dim
*Noisy
*In my case, could only work with the laptop who's screen I tore apart
So in summary, if you have the parts laying around and have some time to kill - go for it. Otherwise don't even bother.