Originally posted by: spidey07
Originally posted by: Spudd
Originally posted by: no0b
How does the lumenlab guide work?
Is the guide specific to certain products (mainly the LCD)
I have a laptop and I wouldn't mind making it into a projector.
The guide is about to be updated to reflect what the community over there has come up with to improve on the basic design. The guide is very detailed, and is not geared towards a specific lcd. I'm looking at the guide right now, and it's 27 pages long. It's very well put together. I too was scared this was BS, but I'm thankful I was wrong. It's legit. And there are a ton of members too who are very helpful when you get stuck.
As a serious videophile I've looked into that approach.
There are many problems with it (as with any display), but IMHO if you want serious bang for the buck it is an awesome project and I highly recommend it. The only thing I see wrong is contrast and overall color saturation - things we spend big bucks for.
For under a grand? Most should be all over it if they have the room.
Yep. If you have the cash to spend on the real deal, then by all means buy that. But you simply can't match the bang for the buck factor with this basic design. And the screen's freaking huge!! lol The better your lcd monitor, lamp, and screen are, the better your color will be. The Ushio is supposed to be one of the best that they've found so far, with a CRI of 85+ and 33,000 lumens. I suppose you could use more than a 400 Watt bulb, but the heat would become a real problem I think.
As it is, with the slit top and 120mm fan in the back, my lcd is cool to the touch and the enclosure on the lamp side is only about 30 degrees above room temp. This was my first try. After you get it working, you can get really crazy and creative with the design. I'm just sticking with the big box design (about 28" long, 15" wide, and 15" tall) and covering it with black speaker carpet to match my black leather furniture. It all looks like it belongs there.
Oh, and to give people some help figuring out room sizes and stuff: I'm projecting from about 10 feet away. The closer you get to the wall, the brighter the image but you'll probably need a lot of room for the focusing box to move. Right now, my focusing box is just the box in a box design, with about 5 or 6 inches play in either directions. If I had access to some serious tools, there are some freaking awesome designs people have come up with for focusing.