Pssst. Yeah, you. Wanna learn how to build your own digital projector?
Last time we started building our own DIY HD projector. Today we're voiding the warranty and stripping down our 19-inch Samsung display. Next time we'll start preparing the LCD's new living quarters -- that is if we don't end up with a $340 door stop after today.
Tearing down the LCD is one of the most essential parts of building the projector. Mess this up and there's no way you're going to resurrect it. This is where we meet the greatest risk and find out if the display will actually work for our application. One of the caveats here is that some LCDs have cables that end up in the way, making them incompatible. This guide should serve generally, since we don't necessarily expect you to have the exact Samsung LCD that we're using. Your mileage may vary, but hopefully this will be useful in instructing you how to get at the sweet, sweet panel within.
Before getting started with our LCD debauchery, it's a good idea to take some measurements of the actual visible area of the LCD screen. These numbers will be handy later on when we're mounting the display inside our projector. The visible area on our Samsung 940MW-SV 19-incher is 16 x 10-inches.
Before gutting the display, set up a nice clean workspace. We reused some of the packing material - it's a nice soft foam sleeve. It's critical to protect the actual display as much as possible. Grab a small bowl or something similar to put all the screws in as you remove them.
The base is easy to remove, we installed it when we set it up for testing. Loosen the winged screw and it pops off.
The bracket that the base was attached to is held on by these four screws. While we were at it, we removed two screws along the bottom edge of the display. Six screws? Our original Game Boy had more than that!
Once they're out, the bracket slides easily out of the display.
Now that all six screws are out, we need to separate the display housing. Traditionally, we'd damage the edge of the case and pry it apart with a regular screw drive. That gaping hole that we just opened up looks handy. Slide your Phillips head screw driver into the slot and
gently pry the casing upward. Ours came apart with no damage to the outer casing.
Once the cover pops up, it lifts up and away from the heavily shielded
battle station... uh, display.
On the left side, we find the IR receiver board. Just above it we find the control buttons and one of the speakers. We want to re-use the IR receiver in the projector, but we're leaving the speakers out of the equation.
On the right side we find the connector for the controls and the opposite speaker. That long wire on the controls looks handy for the conversion.
Each of these unplugs pretty easily, just use gentle force and they come right out -- once the tiny locking tab is depressed. Press the tab and work them loose.
Remove the single screw holding the IR board in place and pull out the controls. We'll need these later.
Now that everything is clear, we get to start in on the fun stuff. First we need to pull the outer layer of shielding to expose the control board and power supply. We start by removing all the screws around the edges of the shielding.
The side RCA cover slides right off once the two screws anchoring it are removed.
With all the screws out, the shield lifts off to expose the power supply on the left and the controller board on the right. Now's a good time to point out that
charged capacitors are dangerous, so know what you're doing!
The power supply ribbon disconnects easily, these connectors for the cold cathode lamps are a real pain to remove. We had to unscrew the board from the mount before we could get at them.
Once the power supply is out, place it on some of that convenient anti-static packing. Watch those capacitors, man!
Now that everything is disconnected from the controller but the actual LCD, we can remove it and get to work on that final connection.
This connector is another painful part. The ferrite core is attached to the shield with some double sided sticky tape. We partially disconnected the cable, then pried loose the core, then finished the job. Once again, it's critical that these components aren't damaged. Once it's out, remove the controller board to a nice safe place -- a good place might be next to its old pal the power supply.
With all of the external electronics out of the way (we don't need no stinking speakers) we remove the last of the shielding. Inside we find our precious, the 19-inch display.
The display lifts out of casing easily, once it's out, chuck the case and get the display to your nice soft work area. The display is a bit of a high tech onion. We'll have to peel off the layers to get the display free of it's usual garb.
Whip out your tiny screw driver and remove the three small Phillips screws holding the top of the case together. If you don't have the right driver, we've found that the small nail file blade of a Swiss army knife works in a pinch.
With the screws out, the cover flips off to reveal a bit of PC board and the 'flat flexible cable' (aka FFC) ribbon that connects to the actual LCD display. Be very careful here, this is the most vulnerable part of the display. If these are damaged the whole thing could be ruined. (Remember that voided warranty.)
Now's the time to deal with those pesky cold cathode lamp cables. We removed the white cable guides, but we really didn't need to. They're stuck down with more double sided tape. Removing the upper one did help us figure out the casing a bit easier.
Work your way around the edge of the casing and pop each of the lock tabs apart. It requires gentle force and the use of a small flat screwdriver.
Once you're popped all the tabs, the front frame should pop loose. Once it's off you're free to remove the LCD. (We didn't realize it and kept going... but that's all you need to do in this case.)
Remove the frame and lay the display face down. Lay out the FFC cable on your work space. Now the backing should lift away from the display.
There it is. This panel is the key to everything. On the right we can see some FFCs that connect the edge of the display together. We'll have to watch out for these when we frame the panel into our enclosure.
Phew! That was a harrowing experience. We forgot to mention one extra cost. The massage therapy session you'll need after spending an hour knowing that a mistake could cost you a $340 LCD panel. It was really pretty easy to disassemble, but don't try it if you're having an off day. Next time we'll frame up the panel and get started on the projector housing. Watch out!
posted Oct 30th 2006 6:30PM
i have a Kodak dig camera and have taken the screen out but have no idea how make the video play on it now please help.
Macfeargus@yahoo.com
i am researching on how to make an electromechanical door lock. please help me with ideas on the mechanism
Looks cool, I hope you r protecting those $340 of hardware from some static electricity your mancoat can produce ;)
Wow! Must be a Monday thing. I've been waiting all week to see the next installment. Can't wait for "part 3"!
oh I almost forgot... FIRST POST, WOOT!
The next installment should be up tomorrow, in its normal slot!
This is the dumbest projector evah!
I'm sorry, let me get this straight. You are going to spend dozens of hours, pretty much the same amount of money when you are done, and then get an ugly, huge and vastly inferior result than the real thing?
Excuse me.. but.... wah?
An Optoma HD70 is less than $1000. Probably about the same that you are going to spend on this monstrocity. And I guarantee you it will absolutely blow away your results.. not even close.
Not to mention it will come in a nice self contained case and you can sell it a year from now and get some of your costs back when you upgrade to 1080p.
Just insane. Lamp cost is real, but give me a break, if you really watch that much TV you can afford a few hundred every couple years.
Just asinine.
Let me guess, you probably own an Apple computer as well. Let someone else simply everything for you so that all you have to do is push the power button, never mind the challenge of doing it yourself or understanding the intricacies of how an item works. Go back to your iLife, and leave the rest of us alone.
I have a 17" LCD with a dying backlight...I might just do this.
Nic Pottier, you just proved asinine posting advertising works!
Nic Potter,
Have you ever seen a DIY projector yourself? When done correctly the results can be quite spectacular. And also, results aren't the only reward of DIY, building the damn thing yourself is half the fun!
Honestly, you can get a great picture by buying an HD70, but the most excitement you'll get from buying one is driving down to the store and picking one up.
Where is the first post if I may ask.
thanks for the info
personally I think I would be more proud of a product that I bought and build myself.
Q: Where is the first par? changed the url but that didnt work.
Emanuel
i tried searching for part 1 of this how to. turns out the search on engadget leaves much to be desired. searching for the exact title of a post doesn't return it, and searching anything else returns too many incorrect results. i resorted to google (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=inurl%3Awww.engadget.com+how+to+projector&meta=):
http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/17/how-to-build-your-own-hd-projector-part-1/
Emanuel
Go to the yahoo search engine and search "LCD HD Projectors."
This post should come up near or on #12 and the firat article should be about # 18 on the yahoo list.
look for "engadget.com" in green letters at bottom of post.
S. Corbin
i took apart a laptop recently and the screen cracked inside, releasing the magic smoke...
"This is the dumbest projector evah!
...
Excuse me.. but.... wah?
...
Just asinine."
This folks, is a textbook case of a complete lack of sense of adventure and fun.
"I pity da fool."
@Emanuel
http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/17/how-to-build-your-own-hd-projector-part-1/
Changing url didn't work because this article is dated much earlier. ;)
Searching helps. :p
"Let someone else simply everything for you"
Did that PC come with a grammar check?
Great post Bobbie, Ignorant and ridiculous, just what I always expect from 15 year olds!
Bobbie, Bobbie, Bobbie, why all the hate?
These days, with globalisation and everything, we have to respect each others' religion. Whether you believe in one Steve or mulitple Linux gods, whether you are a Windowsian or a BSDist, you must understand that other people think differently, and everyone can live together if we want to. It's not because someone has other beliefs that they are stupid or have no brain.
Because in the end, we all worship the same God, we just have different OS ways of doing it. Furthermore, the Apple Church is now allowing Windowsians to practice their cult on its hardware. Is that not a great example of tolerance? Let us learn from it and remember: "Thou shalt respect thy peers on the network" Ethernet 3:14
"Love thy peers as thou shalt love thyself" Dala Java
Bobbie,
I've always built every windows/lunix rig I've owned, and yet I still use my iBook these days for most things. Just because someone uses an Apple machine doesn't mean they aren't handy with a soldering iron.
Find me a browser that does :P
hey! I'm a mac user and I totally appreciate the adventure that is associated with DIY projects. In fact, I'm going to major in engineering.
Not all Mac users are lazy, and not all PC users are do-it-yourselfers either.
Grade school version 1.0
Actually, Firefox 2 does it
I believe you need a dictionary. Have a careful browse around for the word 'browser', then you might want want to re-read the question and reassess your wonderfully crafted reply :)
I read the comments hoping someone had done this or started to, but instead I found a few idiots. I own a MacBook and I have built my own webserver and I am in the process of building my own media server and building a firewall out of an old linux box. DIYers have my utmost respect since they always seem to be the people in search of knowledge and experience. In my own experiences, I have had my ISP reset my modem because I messed it up in my incessant tinkerings ON AN APPLE COMPUTER!!! I use a Mac simply because Linux is a tool for me and Windows/Microsoft has made a mortal enemy of me.
Not bad for a 15 year old...:-p
Nic Pottier. you are a freakin idiot. Its enjoyment out of making your very own projector. I have a 17" lcd that has a broken LED. I actually was planning on making a projector a while back.
Hey Will, are you going to try to do the anti-glare removal? And are you going to go with a straight shot or a folded design? I'm waiting to see what you do with your design, I think I may end up copying it almost exactly.
This looks awesome, I already considered building a projector but now with Hd it'd be a nice accessory for when I can save enough pennies for a Xbox 360. Can't wait for part 3. Great job guys
Look, building stuff is fun but this is one of those projects that you can only justify if you can come across all the parts for less that $200. The thing is going to be gigantic and most homemade enclosures made by 99% of tinkerers may get the job done but look like crap doing it. For the ultra talented 1% or the people with enough bank to have a projector room it might look decent but for the rest of us it's gonna be an unsightly box sitting in a living room.
Tinkering is best when you're solving novel problems not reinventing already heavily engineered products. Just my opinion of course.
Since when does everything have to be justifiable financially? Why does this have to be money saving, or look better than one you would buy at the store? I like to draw, but it would be cheaper and more accurate to take a picture. But I like to draw, so I am going to. It's hard. It's rewarding. And I like doing it at least as much as I like the results.
Working on electronics is fun. Building things is fun. Having them do something is really fun. Why does this have to be about what's cheaper, apple vs MS, or what's been done or is novel. This is cool. The only reason to talk sh!t about this is because you're too uncreative to see the fun in it, or you're too much of a status-crazed brand whore to take pride in doing something yourself.
Well I just did this at work, cost me 150 cdn.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lorne.hammond/projectorcreation/
Lorne.
What are you using for a light source in FrankenJector? Looks like a
Scanner...
Great Project guys. Keep up the good wrok.
Bugger. My spellcheck is broken again...
We used a 3m 9700 overhead projector, got it on ebay for 47 dollars. The monitor is a Gateway 1500FPD 15" lcd that we were able to strip in about a 1/2 hour.
The overhead has a triplet lens, 4300 lumens and the bulb is only 14 dollars at staples :O)
I built myself a homebrew projector, and its still hanging from my ceiling. It isn't quite as bright as many high end commercial PJs (although with the addition of a reflector, which is coming quite soon, it'll be more of a force to be reckoned with) and although it really is a LOT of work its definately worth it.
I built mine for around $550 and I get image quality that beats projectors costing four times as much. True, I put in a lot of time and effort on the thing (about two and a half months of weekends) but in the end its mine.
Its not something that someone else designed and put together, it is from its light box to its optics to its ceiling mount entirely mine and I know every little thing about it. I learned a lot putting it together and had a lot of fun at it, too. If you've got the time and the desire I'd definately reccomend going the DIY route, it makes for quite a conversation piece too, my case is a modified tool cabinet and everyone always asks why I have a metal filing cabinet hanging from my ceiling.
I love it.
I think you'll find a spell checker included with Firefox 2, not grammar.
This is an awesome project. Hardware hacking rocks, especially when you get results.
(For some folks it's as much for the journey as it is for the destination. Remember that.)
And yes, I'm also running Firefox 2 and it's made an incredible improvement in my spelling.
Firefox 2 is a web browser with built-in spell check. Check it out when you can, it's really cool.
Quoting Deluxe:
"Find me a browser that does :P"
...actually, the new firefox 2.o has built in spell check for forms. It's really sweet.
this project is kind of like watching a train wreak... you know the end result is gonna be bad, but you keep watching it hoping for the best. i started doing some heavy research since the first installment of this article.
while i have to agree with a few posters that have made comments earlier(PJ and nic pottier) that a home built projector will not look as elegant as a commercially manufactured unit, i don't believe that's the point of the lumenlabs based projectors, from what i've been researching.
aside from the pride of building and using your own creation, and the knowledge gained from this type of DIY project, there are two big economic reasons to go this route:
1) total cost of ownership(TCO) will be much lower. commercial projector bulbs have a REAL short life, some ranging from 50 to a few hundred(~300-3000) hours of ESTIMATED life which . using the type of bulbs recommended in the lumemlabs project will cost ~$50 each, and have an estimated life of several thousands of hours(i saw an estimate of 15k hours!). if a bulb last 15000 hours, that's almost 2 years of life at ~$50, or $25/year. the manufactured projector(using nic pottier's example, the Optoma HD70) would use a bulb that costs ~$300, and lasts 2000-3000 hours, or 2-4 bulbs a year or ~$600-1200/year!
2) to get your foot in the door for a xga(or greater resoution) quality projector that has decent contrast and brightness, your talking several thousands of dollars. the lumenlabs DIY units allows you to get there for a fraction of the price.
what are the trade offs? size of the unit and the exterior aesthetics of the unit. and your time to build the projector. and if you're not exceptionally handy, then you might have a dumpy looking projector.
like i said before, it's kinda like watching a train wreak, you know the results won't be good, but you hope for the best. i expect the functionality of the project will be fine, it's the treatment of the housing that i'm interested in. i hope the engadget PJ is more than just a plywood box painted black inside...
Don't wait for the next article, it has already been done before (2 years ago).
http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/11/13/supersize_your_tv_for_/
The toms hardware article is a good read, but based on using an overhead projector.
What a good idea! I wouldn't recommend it if you don't have an old LCD monitor hanging around maybe with a broken backlight or inverter but I wouldn't be daft and use a perfectly functioning expensive display for fear of pouring money down the drain if things go wrong! I think I'll get me a projector :-)
Onetrack, that was a good idea, it reminds me of the little addon you could get for the TI-83 calculators, it was a little screen that sat on the old projectors back in the day when schools didn't have projectors hooked up to computers or for that matter computers in class rooms where computer classes where not taught.
i've done this build, with a dvd player built right into the unit. it is a pain, especially if your kitchen table is your workspace and you have 2 little ones. but the build is a great feeling and if you do your research, you can get really good results for about half the cost of what you pay at circuit city and when it comes time to replace the bulb, it's $20 instead of $200 and your bulb lasts 10x as long. one thing, though. it's alot easier to strip a projector panel for your lcd. a projector panel is made for the application anyway. you just lay it ontop of an overhead projector and you're watching theater style movies for about $150. in this scenario, the whole reason of taking it out of it's ugly plastic casing is to hide it in a nice quaker style cabinet because your den looks like a gentleman's quarters from the 1890's and you don't want to f- up your theme. there are many reasons that this project is not dumb. i could talk about christopher columbus or Nicolaus Copernicus and the naysayers that couldn't keep their pieholes clamped then, but, you get the idea... everyone's a critic. my tv is 101" and i can lift it by myself. i feel sorry for these 56" guys that need 3 guys whenever they want to move so for those complainers that think a 14"x 14"x14" box is too cumbersome and that this project is dumb, take aout a tape measure and measure your pathetic 32" that weighs a hundred pounds and then think about it.
I havnt read all the coments so if this is a repost, sorry.
Lowes sells a $20-25 mercury vapor security lamp. Which includes the ignition system, mogul base, light sensor (for another project?), and a 4000k 175w bulb. the bulb may not be wanted but the rest seems like its worth the price comared to $100+ ignition system.
I really appreciate these articles this is a fantastic feature piece.
I am a person that likes to do all sorts of creative projects.
So I want to thank you for your trouble, time and effort.
I am going to be asking a lot of dumb questions. What I am trying to do right now is light up a model of a steel mill blast furnace cast house floor. with lights, sounds and then a quasi holographic display all syncronized with the sound.
As for the individual that had the rotten comments earlier. There are so many insignificant people on the face of this earth. I live in Texas and we are trying to get a law past to allow for justifiable homicide. Then we are going to thin out the heard.
Thank you
S. Corbin