home made tv projector

anyone ever tried to make a projector with a fresnel lense? i came accross this site

http://www.diytvprojection.co.uk/

access to the 'paid part' where the plans are for download (usualy a £1, $2 access fee)

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cach...iytvprojection.co.uk&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=uk

That is pretty interesting - I would love to see examples of what it looks like !

http://www.diytvprojection.co.uk/plans/LaserX_Projection_TV.doc seem like the best plans, has the most info and even tells you to make a screen from silver spraypaint and wood/cardboard for 6x more brightness than a regular white screen

i'm thinking about using an old lcd monitor with video input to make one with.

The picture isn't as good with those, plus its slightly dimmer, that is more easily affected by an open window for example.

I don't suggest doing it... its basically like standing closer to your TV. We skipped christmas for a year and got a nice theater system... Its well worth it, trust me. Not that there is anything on TV anymore, just a few select movies.

i don't mind loosing a bit of quality if it means having a 6ft or so tv, and i've read that the picture wont be as strong as it would be with a normal porjector, but they're pretty cheap now and can be found on ebay for sometimes buttons. for the cost of amagnifying glass and a cardboard box it's worth giving it a go. it's not like it'll be my main tv, just something to play games on or something.

What you really want is an old overhead projector and an LCD screen as its higher res, those fresnel lenses from what I hear arnt very good but I aint seen one in person...

A guide for it can be found on Tomshardware:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/11/13/supersize_your_tv_for_/

and a sequal for that is

http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/12/01/build_your_own_xga_projector_ii/

I've made one.

A better forum is lumenlab. I'm not allowed to post links, but a google should suffice all those curious enough to pursue the topic.

Its awesome. I'll have to post some pics of it soon!

pics would be good. i may just buy one off ebay though.

I've got one as an unfinished project

never did plunk down on the light source+ballast for it (Metal Halide), but I have a 15" lcd and all the necessary optics and case assembled...

One of these days....

seems like it would put off terrible resolution and would have to stand 25 feet back to see the picture

You can get a cheepo projector for Coax and RCA (IIRC) for ~$200 off ebay, it's made for gaming consoles, IIRC and is put out by a toy company (I think Tiger electronics) but dont expect a super-large picture or high-res, the writeups have been less than brillian, but for around 6', I think, it works fine

Well, as the link from a DIY-projector forum led me here (it is in german, but pictures are multilingual see www.diy-community.de, or alternatively lumenlab.com, the ultimate resource for that ), I do know a bit about them.
It's basically like an OHP, but just with a "moving slide". Resolution of the projection is the resolution of the LCD used, nad some have built FullHD (1080p) projectors there, nice quality, for ~1k.

But, yeah, basically brightness, resolution and quality is your choice.
Although, while it is a fun project to build one, there are cheaper ways to get hi-quality pics on your wall.

About the lens-in-front-of-your-TV - don't do that. it's barely worth the money. You would have to change the internal settings of your vacuum tube to get a slightly brighter and clearer image, but it is not really satisfying. OK, that depends on what your expectations are and what you have seen before, but think of it like 5mW red and 50mW green

The ebay projectors for that price are mostly 320*240 resolution - QVGA, even less that NTSC resolution. There, it is far better to get a "real" projector with, e.g. 800*600, with a broken lamp and put a new lamp into it, that might total in ~250$, but with a much better resolution.

But the results are really cool!