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My Homebrew LCD projector (MANY PICS)

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My older brother built one just like this a few months ago. At LAN parties we hook his comp up to the projector and have Wolfenstein Enemy Territory and Call of Duty all over his wall :). I'd love to do this myself, but I just can't afford the LCD. I spent all of this year so far for the system below.
 
I'm running at 1024x768, most 14"'s will do that, and some 12"'s will run that high too though they are more costly.
 
I was just thinking about those bulbs. Why the hell are they like 400W. Costly to run one of these things, along with 300W for a PVR computer, and another PSU or other source to run the fan.

I've looked into the lense of a running overhead, and they're not THAT bright. I have high-wattage halogen driving lights on my car that are at least as bright as an overhead and they are about 50w a piece. Where does the 400w come from? Maybe we wouldn't need fans on these things if they had better bulbs

edit: BTW, breadfan, I love your site! I was going to do something like that, but I don't have enough projects yet to make it worth while.
 
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I remember some 5-9" LCDs out there that had native RCA input for video. I think they might have been made for the sony PSOne. http://www.estarland.com/index.asp?action=redir&page=Playstation&category=Hardware&product=19152&q Anways those things sell for pretty cheap on ebay usually and it would let you use a projector with a smaller footprint. The picture may be smaller, but I don't need a 8 foot screen. :) Anyways if those LCDs still exist, I would think that would be a perfect setup for TV/console use. Not sure on their resolution though.
 
but with a little screen like that you are severely limiting the resolution of the image. And since you are enlarging the image by so much, any bit of resolution helps.
 
There was a company selling laptops in the 486 days that had a removable back on the screens on one model, so you could sit them on OHPs to project the image for presentations.

Resolution is gooooood, but, if you're mostly just gonna play DVDs on it, then you're limited to the native resolution of the format for detail, so you may as well save a buck and get a fast 800x600 screen if you can.

Older screens might do better warmer, there's probably a tradeoff point with active matrix screens. The actual Liquid Crystal switches quicker with higher temperatures, but the transistors in active matrix diplays don't of course like the heat. Probably somewhere around 80C is the optimum to get less motion blur on them.
 
What should I be looking for in an overhead projector? There's tons of 'em on ebay, just don't know what ones are worth using...

Also, what 12-15" LCD's don't produce motion blur (aka good for gaming)?
 
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I would look for something with either two bulbs or maybe 350-400w bulbs (or support for them)

Do a search for the 3M 9700 -- it's designed for LCD overhead panels and is a nice looking compact unit. Thats the one I have, and I recommend it, it folds up and can be put away.

There's others out there, mainly light output is the biggest thing, and being clean and in good shape. I'm not sure if projectors have different size stages, but if so, the bigger the better.
 
Hey Breadfan, have you come across this site yet:

LumenLab

I know you have to pay $20 to get access to the good stuff, but my god, it's the best $20 I've ever spent. The forums/community is euqally as awsome and supportive as this one here, and there are like 7 pages of PLOGs (Projector Logs) you can flip through, to get design ideas and see how people got past certain problems. And you can browse the PLOGs for free to see if you want to buy the guide.

Man, you've had me thinking about this 24/7 since you posted. I'm so glad I found LumenLab, because the one thing that bothered me about the overhead design is that some moron could put down a can of coke on the exposed LCD pannel, or something like that :(
 
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