6 replies to this topic

[andrew01]

I remember someone posting a topic on here before asking about DIY projectors. At that time I had done a lot of researching before and was thinking about starting my projector. Well I finally started, and now I am finished. This project took me a couple months to finish, but I think it turned out OK. I am only missing one piece, the LCD. I ordered the correct LCD from Hong Kong and everything arrived here fine, but when I went to strip the LCD for use in my projector a small ribbon cable broke and now I am waiting for a new LCD to arrive. Right now I can project just a white square, but you can get a sense of how big the image is going to be. All of the pictures dont do justice to what it looks like in real life. I am not a very good photographer. Here are some picture of the final product:

FRONT:


BACK:
Has VGA input for xbox, dvd etc. Can also hook up to computer.


Projected Image:
I have no idea why this came out green, but in real life the image is really bright and perfectly white. Even when the room is not pitch black you get a very nice result. It is about 6 feet tall and 4-5feet wide (approx)_


If you guys want to see the inside just ask, and I will take the top off. Please post comments too.

[NerfLad78]

Cool.

[ET87]

Thats cool, I had no idea you could make your own projector. Post some more pics when you get it fully working.

[i h8 hippies]

Nice work. Start your own company.

[boltsniper]

Where did you get the LCD? How big is it? Resolution? I`ve been thinking about making one of these for a while now.

[andrew01]

Where did you get the LCD?  How big is it?  Resolution?  I`ve been thinking about making one of these for a while now.

The LCD I used was the Lilliput 7" TFT XGA Monitor 619GL-70NP. This is the LCD that mostly everyone uses when making smaller projectors. There is also a similar LCD made by Innovatek, that is almost identical and a little bit cheaper too. I tried to buy this LCD from www.carmp3players.com (or something like that) but I waited 3 weeks and they finally told me they didnt have it in stock and refunded my money. Next I found the Lilliput here: http://www.ex-audio....&products_id=52
and had an amazing experience with this company. I ordered the LCD on the 24th with Paypal and it came to my house on the 25th.

This Lilliput is the highest small resolution LCD right now, and many people in the DIY community have used it so it is easy to ask quesitions. The resolution is 800x 480 which isnt great but the quality of some of the projectors I have seen using this is amazing. You can also go the 15" Projector route but the size of the overall projector will be huge. The quality will be better, but a lot of the are almost 3 feet long. I went for size over quality with this projector mostly because of the space I have. I am moving to a new house soon though and might make a 15" projector this summer.

A few great websites that I would reccomnend going to, if you already have not are?:

www.diyaudio.com just follow the links to projectos

www.lumenlab.com You have to pay $20 to get full access to the forums but the amount of information and help there is uncomparable.

www.exclusiv-online.com for parts

www.izzotek.com for parts

There are also some other German and French websites, but they do not have english translation.

I dont know if you just wanted to know the size of the LCD but here is a picture of the projector next to a xbox game fo a size comparison.

[AirApache]

I think it would be sweet if one of you mounted an LCD screen onto a game console and have it like internally connected or something, so you could just play without a TV. Just a power source.