Wednesday, January 30, 2008

How To: Ultimate (almost) Free 200" TV


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This is the ultimate super hacked monitor, You have no idea how cool it is to have your very own personal cinema in the comfort of your own home and for a few bucks (trust me a 2nd hand school overhead projector isn't that expensive) you too can have a MASSIVE screen.

Now this project took me about four hours to set up properly (and hook up the LCD to the projector) and i have to admit i got the projection screen free but i have been able to project a 20 inch monitor screen up to 200 inches comfortably without too much fuzzing.

For a hell of a time combine this project with DVB-T player (for free Digital TV) , a decent sound system and get an old fish tank (properly cleaned) mix in with last weeks project and a few beers and get yourself a bucket of popcorn and you have a night in to remember. And don't forget this is a PC monitor so feel free to give it a shot with MMORPG's and enjoy gameplay on a whole new level.

NOTE:
#1.This project may be stupidly easy but don't forget to get yourself a dust cover for your LCD as dust can damage it.

#2.The projector glass will get exceptionally warm (especially in older projectors) to try to raise the LCD off the glass itself with a layer of reasonably thick clear plastic (about 1cm) or on a ventilated wooden or plastic frame with an access port for cooling or your LCD screen can and will melt Note in the film the metal interior of the monitor and a cooling fan (left on while the projector is active) were used to stop this happening.

#3.One more thing play all TV and DVD's in as high a definition as you can as the projection process does expand the pixel size and can blur some icons and images at low definition to almost unrecognisable degree.

TOTAL COST FOR BUILD: $53.50 (US) or £22.40 (UK)

Broken AS-IS 20" LCD HD monitor: $25 (including shipping from ebay)

Quill Type 7-20511 overhead Projector: $16 (including shipping from ebay)

1x cooling fan: $5 (new from PCworld)

1x Tin of Matt white paint for Projection wall: $6 (local DIY store)

1x paint brush: $1.50 (local DIY store)

Time and effort for a stupidly cheap 200" TV : Priceless (about 4 hours in the real world)


not too bad considering it costs $2500+ for a standard RGB projector of this size.

Additional:
With a little work and a little effort an XBOX 360 can be hooked up to this thing without too much loss of definition, and believe me there is NOTHING quite like playing Halo3 or CoD4 or even Assassins Creed on a screen this big but dont forget to hook it into a thumping sound system to get the full effect.

WARNING:
One last piece of advice the LCD must NOT touch the glass of the projector as it can and will melt leaving you with a useless pile of melted plastic and a useless project and yourself a little out of pocket.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

if this works with comps i'm clearin off a wall and playin super WoW :)

Aries said...

you do need a computer to use it, your basicly supersizing your pc screen.

your PC acts as (with a DVB-T USB or card) as your DVD player and HDTV but it functions primarily as a PC screen.

But as i said you will need a good sound system.

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