Projector DIY Anyone? (Audio?)

[HaGGardSmurf]

JW if anyone has done a Projector DIY?

I was thinking of buying a projector, but it appears the prices are still huge, and not worth it for me. If I had some awesome theater, then sure I would go out and buy a High Quality projector. So I started looking into DIY projectors, I picked up an overhead projector from a local school for 20 bucks, so I guess time to figure out a way to hook everything to an LCD.

I found another portable dvd player, with USB, AV in and out, so I think I will use this, but I will probably need to find a 'hub' to hook everything to, then run the video out to the AV in, and have the sound go to some speakers... Im kind of stumped on this one... (I dont know if I can just run video to the dvd player or audio aswell, if so I would need to remove the speakers from the player, and somehow have my 'hub' feeding audio to the player, aswell as some other speakers...)

I ripped apart an old portable dvd player I had, layed it on the projector, taped off the light leaks, and watched sponge bob square pants movie (Thats what was in the player ) I know now that I will need a couple PC fans to blow cool air over the LCD screen, after about 20 min's the screen was quite hot.

I will more than likely end up building a box around it and putting some felt on the box, so it looks decent, bulky, but decent....

So JW has anyone done anything like this?

[technoe]

The thing about this is if you want the final product to be high quality/high definition then everything from the beginning to the end must be at that standard or else the quality will bottle neck on the lowest quality part. And your output will be equal to the lowest quality part. So you've got a great start and there are usb to rca adapters out there. And if you can find the pinout of the portable dvd player's screen then it wouldn't be very hard to make your own adapter to push video to the that screen via hdmi, s-video, or even VGA if you wanted to. If you find the pinout and are still confused post up a picture of the pinout and I'll put up a small tutorial on making the adapter.

[HaGGardSmurf]

Quality isnt a big deal to me, in this particular case. The basement is pretty much only used by me for working out, and playing xbox. I dont play on a large tv, nor is it even HD, I have the basment divided into 3 parts, and where I play xbox I have 2 large walls, so I figured why not buy a projector, which lead me to doing a DIY.

Basically all I will be doing with the projector is hooking up my xbox, and my cable. This is what the back of my cable box looks like:

http://broadband.motorola.com/consumers ... 0_back.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
(I found the image on google, its quite large, so I didnt use img tags.)

So any ideas on how to go about hooking both up?
(it doesnt matter to me if I need to swap plugs, to change from tv to xbox...)

[technoe]

You could always use an A/V switch a double a/v switch sells four about 17 bucks at RadioShack. No doubt this will be a little tricky. Even trickier for me as I'm not standing right there looking at the thing. Are you trying to project on to a wall or a screen? Do you want to use the portable dvd player as a standalone player or do you want to integrate it with the DIY system? If you integrate do you want it to produce video and audio or receive?

[HaGGardSmurf]

I'll make a video and post it up

Edit: its uploading, so ill post it in like 5 mins when its finished.

[HaGGardSmurf]

Heres the video. Sorry for quality, taken with my cell phone. It sucks in low light conditions...

Edit: I just found some old ass speakers, and took the pos and neg and stuck them in where the speaker was connected to, and it worked like a charm. So hopefully my other stereo has the plastic connector, if not ill need to solder the speakers I have to the wire the connects the crappy speakers that came in the dvd player.

So looks like it will work like a charm as long as the AV in is the cable I thought it was (shown in video)

[CoFree]

looks like a cool project

[HaGGardSmurf]

Yea, I now need 2 new bulbs. it has 2 bulb slots, 1 was burnt out, the other was working fine until I nearly dropped my lcd screen and slammed my hand against the projector to catch the dvd player part. The light went out, and the filament of the bulb is now broken off...

Sadly, I was in the midst of finishing it up redoing all the tape, repositioning the monitor etc

[technoe]

Good job man, I can't wait to see the finished product in a better video. Way to go.

[HaGGardSmurf]

UGH, I dont know where to buy bulbs... I was planning on moving furniture and finishing it completely tom, but I guess thats on hold now...

[technoe]

http://www.frys.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[HaGGardSmurf]

I cant find any bulbs on that website :O

The bulbs in the projector were "Osram EYB-5" 360 W 85.5 V apperently they are also called "T3.5" I found a few places that sell that exact bulb for like 5 dollars. The problem is the 98 dollar shipping...

[iamwatt]

damnnnnnn! $98 shipping! you can by a projector for $98. . . lol! jk

[HaGGardSmurf]

So far the entire project has cost me 20 dollars and 58 cents. 20 for projector 58 cents for electical tape. The first player I tried was an old shitty one that my brother bought, and the one I am using now is one I think my grandparents bought for me a while ago...

So there is no way I would spend 98 dollars on shipping for a project that has only cost ME 58 cents (my mom paid for the projector since I wasnt there when she bought it )

[technoe]

Yeah to hell with that. I'll keep a look out for those bulbs.